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MALIQJ962.

..JOV .2 195^

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R.'" J.'.' "V"

MAR 5 1977

SEP' 2V

DUt

THE CHOICE
IS ALWAYS OURS

An Anthology on the Religious Way

CHOSEN FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL, RELIGIOUS,
PHILOSOPHICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Edited by

DOROTHY BERKLEY PHILLIPS

Co-editors

ELIZABETH BOYDEN HOWES
LUCILLE M. NIXON

RICHARD R. SMITH

Rindge New Hampshire

1954

PUBLISHED BY RICHARD R. SMITH
Topside., West Rindge New Hampshire

First Printing 1948

Second Printing 1948

Third Printing 1951

Fourth Printing 1954

No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form wirhout permission of the publisher.

TYPOGRAPHY BY BROWN BROTHERS LINOTYPERS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA

BY THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY

OUR DEAR FRIEND AND COOPERATOR

HELEN PRICE

(1892-1943)

The choice is always ours. Then, let me choose

The longest art, die hard Promethean way

Cherishingly to tend and feed and fan

That inward fire, whose small precarious flame,

Kindled or quenched, creates

The noble or the ignoble men we are,

The worlds we live in and the very fates,

Our bright or muddy star.

ALDOUS HUXLEY

Acknowledgments

This anthology has been a cooperative venture in the broadest sense. Its
origin, plan of research, process of editing, and organization of material
have been the joint responsibility of a small group, three of whom worked
closely together through portions of the past ten years. These three were
assisted in recent years on special editing problems by Sheila Moon. The
editors are very appreciative of her valuable help. Because of the force of
circumstances the final work on the book, the revision and the binding
together of the whole, had to be left to the chairman. A major share of
responsibility for the compilation in its present form, therefore, rests with
her.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to a long-term coopera-
tive effort, but in this case, though the emphases throughout the book do
not necessarily represent the most mature viewpoint of each editor, the
composite whole is so much the richer for the years of steady pooling of
insight.*

The editors wish to express their gratitude to each of the many persons
who helped with the research in varying degrees, especially during the
first years of our work. The enthusiasm and practical help which they
lent to the undertaking were very heartening. Among those contributing
most substantially were Ruth Raymond, Beatrice Shipley, Marshall Rhew,
Mary Joyce McGoodwin, Helen Salisbury, Ruth Patterson Wolfe, Julia
Phillips Ruopp, Alvin Scaff, Barbara Delkin, and Sophia Buckingham. In
addition, we wish to thank the several individuals who graciously
responded to our request for original statements, as included herein.

We are also indebted to a number of persons who read the manuscript
at its various stages, in whole or in part, and gave valuable suggestions.
Among these were Eugene Exman, Gerald Heard, Allan and Elizabeth
Hunter, Denver Lindley, Bernard E. Meland, Dora Willson and Clarence
R Yarrow.

Then there are those friends who encouraged us with financial aid

*The use of a single asterisk (*) at the close of a selection indicates an abridgment of
material The use of two asterisks {**) indicates that^the material U slightly rearranged.
Special care has been taken to avoid distortion of meaning.

viii Acknowledgments

from time to time, and many others who through the years assisted with
the enormous amount of mechanical detail. Among this latter group are
several whose devoted effort over the past year was largely responsible for
getting the book into publication. Our very special thanks therefore go to
Beatrice Shipley, Luella Sibbald, Julia Ruopp, Ruth Warnick, Georgianna
Overbaugh and Gladys Bardey. Also the chairman wishes to express her
loving gratitude to a sister, Ruth M. Phillips, for her constant interest and
support throughout the preparation of the book.

Finally, there is a group of individuals who through the years have in
their own writings and in personal contacts richly and profoundly influ-
enced the thinking and living of the editors. They have, in a very real
sense, proved determining factors in whatever insight is to be found in
the selection of material for these pages. One among this group is Henry
Burton Sharman, whose seminars yielded intellectual and religious in-
sights that definitely contributed to the form and structure of the book.
To him, as to the others, we tender our deep gratitude.

The editors and their co-workers are appreciative of the considerate co-
operation accorded them by the publishers and authors in granting requests
for reprint privileges on copyrighted material, some of which represented
longer selections than are usually released for reprint. The names of these
authors and publishers and the titles of the books follow,

Lucille M. Nixon
Elizabeth Boyden Howes
Dorothy Berkley Phillips, Chairman
Monrovia, California
February, 1948

Abingdon-Cokesbury Press; Ways of Praying by Muriel Lester, 1932; The
Springs of Creative Living by Rollo May, copyright 1940 by Whitmore
and Stone; used by permission of the publisher, Abingdon-Cokesbury
Press. Abingdon-Cokesbury Press and E. Stanley Jones for a selection from
Victorious Living by E. Stanley Jones, copyright 1936 by the author.

George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.; Inner Light, First Series by Helen Wodehousc.

D. Appleton-Century & Co. and Frances G. Wickes; The Inner World of
Childhood by Frances G. Wickes; The Life and Letters of Thomas
Huxley by Leonard Huxley, 1901.

D. Appleton-Century Co. and John MacMurray; Reason and Emotion by John
MacMurray, copyright 1936 by the author.

Association Press: Three Trumpets Sound by Allan Hunter; Prayer and

Acknowledgments ix

Worship by Douglas Steere; Christian Faith and Democracy by Gregory

Vlastos.
Baillere, Tindall and Cox (London); Mythology of the Soul by H. G. Baynes;

Two Essays on Analytical Psychology by Carl G. Jung, trans, by H. G.

and C. F. Baynes.
Behrman House, Inc.; The Jewish Anthology by Edmond Fleg, trans, by

Maurice Samuel.
A. C, Black & Co., Ltd. (London); On the Edge of the Primeval Forest by

Albert Schweitzer, trans, by C. T. Campion.
John Elof Boodin; Cosmic Evolution by John Elof Boodin.
Burns, Gates and Washburne, Ltd.; Holy Wisdom by Fr. F. Augustine Baker;

An Introduction to the Devout Life by Saint Francis de Sales, trans, by

Allan Ross; The Cloud of Unknowing, edited by Dom Justin McCann,
Jonathan Cape, Ltd. (London) and John Middleton Hurry; To the Unknown

God by John Middleton Murry; and The Necessity of Communism by

John Middleton Murry.
Clarendon Press, Oxford; The Dhammapada, in Sacred BooJ(s of the East,

trans, by F. Max Miiller; and The Discourses and Manna1 of Epictetus,

trans, by P. E. Matheson.
William Cleveland, Jr., Editor of Inward Light, for selections by Richard

Gregg, William Penn, Gerald Heard, Elise Morgan and Rufus Jones.
Stanwood Cobb for poem in Patterns of Jade by Wu Ming Fu, published by

Avalon Press, 1935.
Howard F. Collier and The Guild of Pastoral Psychology; for selections from

a lecture, Place of Worship in Modern Medicine by Howard F. Collier,

M.D., 1944.
Columbia University Press; for two poems from Rainer Maria Ril\e Poems t

trans, by Jessie Lemon t, 1943.
Thomas Y. Crowell Company; selections from Tolstoy's Complete Worfys,

trans, by Aline Delano, reprinted by permission of the publisher Thomas

Y. Crowell Co.
John Day Company, Inc.; Special permission to reprint from The Discovery

of India by Jawaharlal Nehru, copyright 1946 by John Day Company, Inc.
John Day Company, Inc., and to Witter Bynner; for two sayings: "Men of

Stamina" and "A Sound Man's Heart" from Laotztt's Way of Life, trans.

by Witter Bynner.
Doubleday and Co., Inc.; a quotation from Personal History by Vincent

Sheean, copyright 1934, 1935, 1936 by Vincent Sheean.
E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc.; The Little Flowers of St. Francis, trans, by T.

Okey; The Mirror of Perfection, trans, by Robert Steele; The Republic of

Plato, trans, by A. D. Lindsay; The Life of Prayer by Freiderich Von

Hugel

x Acknowledgments

E. P. Dutton & Co. (New York) and J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, (London); for
the selection from The Book of Saint Bernard, On the Love of Godt trans,
by Edmund G. Gardner; and also to The Beacon Press for the arrange-
ment as included in Great Companions edited by Robert Leavens.

Fellowship Publications; With the Master by Philippe Vernier, trans, by Edith
Lovejoy Pierce, 1943.

Dwlght Goddard Estate; Laotzu's Tao and Wu-tveit trans, by Bhikshu Wai-
dao and Dwight Goddard.

Harcourt, Brace and Co., Inc.; Proving of Psyche by Hugh FAnson Fausset;
The Social Substance of Religion by Gerald Heard; Modern Man in Search
of a Soul by C. G. Jung; Contributions to Analytical Psychology by C. G,
Jung.

Harper and Brothers (New York); Touch of God and Other Devotional
Classics by Emily Herman; Purity of Heart by Soren Kierkegaard, trans,
by Douglas Steere, copyright 1938 by Harper Brothers; An Interpretation
of Christian Ethics by Reinhold Neibuhr, copyright 1935 by Harper
Brothers; The Spiritual Life by Evelyn Underbill; A Testament of Demo-
tion by Thomas R. Kelly, copyright 1941 by Harper Brothers; Psychology
and the Promethean Will by William H. Sheldon, copyright 1936 by
Harper Brothers; Modern Mans Worship by Bernard E. Meland, copy-
right 1934 by Harper Brothers; Man the Unknown by Alexis Carrell,
copyright 1935 by Harper Brothers; Out of Darkness by John Haynes
Holmes, copyright 1942 by Harper Brothers; Meister Ec\hart, trans, by
Raymond B. Blakney, copyright 1941 by Harper Brothers; Kagawa by
William Axling, copyright 1932, 1946 by Harper Brothers; The Predica-
ment of Modern Man by D. Elton Trueblood, copyright 1944 by Harper
Brothers; Christian Perfection by Franfois F6ielon edited by C. F. Whis-
ton, trans, by Mildred W, Stillman, copyright 1947 by Harper Brothers,

Aldous Huxley; for the lines from poem "Orion" published by Chatto and
Windus in the volume Cicadas by Aldous Huxley; and for Meditations
on Holiness, Grace and Beauty by Aldous Huxley.

Henry Holt and Co., Inc. and George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.; The Rational
Good by L. T. Hobhouse, 1929; and to Henry Holt and Co,, Inc.; for The
Religious Situation by Paul Tillich, trans, by H. Richard Niebuhr, copy-
right 1932 by Henry Holt and Co., Inc.

Acknowledgments xi

International Council of Religious Education; Revised Standard Version of the
New Testament, copyright 1946.

Mary Hoxie Jones; Swords into Plowshares by Mary Hoxie Jones.

Carl G. Jung and Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; Psychology and
Alchemy, the selection trans, by Barbara Hannah.

Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; The Graces of Interior Prayer by
A. S. J. Poulain; The Secret of the Golden Flower, Commentary by Carl
G. Jung, trans, by C. F. Baynes, 1942.

Mitchell Kennedy; Towards Democracy by Edward Carpenter, 1922.

A. Knopf, Inc. and Charles Morgan; The Fountain by Charles Morgan; A.
Knopf, Inc. and John Middleton Murry; The Journal of Kathryn Mans-
field; A. Knopf, Inc.; Buddhist Meditations by Grace Constant Louns-
bery, copyright 1935 by the publisher; and also for a saying from Abba
Dorotheus, reprinted from Tertium Organum by P. D. Ouspensky,
copyright 1922 by Claud Bragdon.

J. B. Lippincott Co., from Man of Molo\al by Ann Roos, copyright 1943 by
Ann Roos.

Little Brown & Co. and Atlantic Monthly Press; John Woolman; American
Quaker by Janet Payne Whitney, copyright 1942 by Janet Payne Whitney.

Little Brown and Co.; for poem, "A death blow is a life blow to some" from
The Poems of Emily Dic\insont edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi and
Alfred Leete Hampon, copyright 1891 by Roberts Brothers.

Longmans, Green and Co., Inc.; The Inward Vision by R. H. J. Steuart;
Varieties of Religious Experience by William James; The Hidden Life by
Pere Grou, edited by William Hutchings; The Spiritual Letters of Arch-
bishop Fenelonf trans, by H. L. Sidney Lear; Longmans, Green & Co.,
Inc. and the Representatives of the Estate of Robert Bridges; for a selec-
tion from Benedict Spinoza, arranged by Robert Bridges for The Spirit of
Man; Longmans, Green and Co. and Lecomte du Noiiy; Human Destiny
by Lecomte du Noiiy, copyright 1947 by the author.

The Macmillan Company, New York; Spiritual Reformers of the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries by Rufus Jones; Religion in the Making by
Alfred North Whitehead; New Pathways in Science and The Nature of
the Physical World by Sir Arthur Eddington; Pathways to the Reality of
God by Rufus Jones; Songs from Prison, trans, by M. K. Gandhi and
trans, into English by J. S. Hoyland; Methods of Private Religious Lit/ing
by H. N- Wieman; Spiritual Exercises and Their Results by Alfreda
Catherine Tillyard; Beyond Personality by C. S, Lewis; Readings in St.
John's Gospel by William Temple; Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
by John Donne (Sparrow, cd.) (and to Cambridge University Press for
the same material); Personality by Rabindranath Tagore; Theologica

xii Acknowledgments

Gerrnanica, trans, by Susanna Winkworth; The Avatars by George E.
Russell.

Methuen and Co., Ltd. and Executrix of Evelyn Underbill's Estate; Mysticism
by Evelyn Underbill, copyright 1911.

Morehouse-Gorham Co.; The Art of Mental Prayer by Rev. Bede Frost, copy-
right 1932.

William Morrow & Co., Inc. and Gerald Heard; The Third Morality by
Gerald Heard, copyright 1937 by Gerald Heard.

John Middleton Murry; God by J. Middleton Murry, published by Harper &
Brothers, 1929; and for the poem From the Wilderness by William Soutar,
printed in The Adelphl.

W. W, Norton and Co., Inc.; Mysticism and Logic by Bertrand Russell, copy-
right 1929 by the publisher; The Neurotic Personality of Our Time by
Karen Horney, copyright 1937 by the publisher; and Where Is Science
Going? by Max Planck, copyright 1932 by the publisher.

Harriet Nugent; the poem Creative Patience.

Oxford University Press, New York; Christian Discourses by Soren Kierke-
gaard, copyright 1939; Studies In Keats by J. Middleton Murry, copyright
1930; These Hurrying Years by Gerald Heard, copyright 1934; and A
Study of History by Arnold J. Toynbee, abridgment by D. C. Somervell,
copyright 1946. (Work published by Oxford University Press on behalf
of Royal Institute of International Affairs.)

Pantheon Books Inc.; Charles Peguy Vol. i, trans, by Ann and Julian Green.
Copyright 1943 by the publisher.

H. S. L. Polak, Executor of the Estate of C. F. Andrews, and the Macmillan
Company; Mahatma Gandhi's Ideas, by C. F. Andrews.

Swami Prabhavananda; for quotations from Vedic Philosophy and Religion,
published by President Sri Ramakrishna Math.

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center; Raja-Yoga by Swami Vivekananda, copy-
right 1933.

Random House, Inc.; The Golden Mean of Tsesze and The Boo^ of Tao, as
quoted in Wisdom of China and India, edited by Lin Yutang.

Random House, Inc. and W. H. Auden for permission to quote from the
poem For the Time Being by W. H. Auden, copyright by W. H. Auden.

Rinehart and Co., Inc.; The Integration of Personality by C. G. Jung, copy-
right 1939; Rinehart and Co., Inc. and Frances G, Wickes; The Inner
World of Man by Frances G. Wickes, copyright 1938 by the author.

Round Table Press; Come Holy Spirit by Karl Barth and E. Thurneysen,
copyright 1934.

Acknowledgments xiii

Dane Rudhyar; for the poem "I Charge You" from White Thunder by Dane
Rudhyar, copyright 1938.

Charles Scribner's and Sons; Discerning the Signs of the Times by Reinhold
Neibuhr; God and the Common Life by Robert Calhoun, copyright 1935;
The Christian Fact and Modern Doubt by George Buttrick, copyright
1934; Motives of Men by George A. Coe, copyright 1928; In Search of
Maturity by Fritz Kunkel, copyright 1943; How Character Develops by
Fritz Kunkel and Roy E. Dickerson, copyright 1940.

Sheed and Ward, Inc.; The Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman by Dom
Roger Huddleston, copyright 1944; Progress Through Mental Prayer by
Edward Leen, copyright 1938.

Simon and Schuster, Inc. and Joshua Loth Liebman; Peace of Mind by Joshua
Loth Liebman, copyright 1946 by Joshua Loth Liebman.

Simon and Schuster, Inc. and Josephine Johnson; for the poem from Year's
End, copyright 1937 by Josephine Johnson; and a portion of the poem
"September" from Winter Orchard, copyright 1935 ky Josephine Johnson.

Student Christian Movement Press (London) and John MacMurray; Creative
Society by John MacMurray, copyright 1938 by the author.

Mrs. Frances Temple; for the quotation from The Hope of a New World by
William Temple.

Rose Terlin; Prayer and Christian Living by Rose Terlin.

University of Chicago Press; Bhagavad-Gita, trans, by A. Ryder, copyright
1929; The Bible — An American Translation, by J. M. Powis Smith and
Edgar J. Goodspeed, copyright 1935 by the University of Chicago; The
Source of Human Good by Henry Nelson Wieman, copyright 1946 by
University of Chicago.

The Vedanta Centre; Bhagavad-Gita, trans, by Swami Paramananda.

Viking Press; The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, edited by Aldous Huxley, copy-
right 1932 by Estate of D. H. Lawrence, by permission of Viking Press,
Inc. New York.

John M. Watkins; The Cloud of Unknowing, edited by Evelyn Underbill,
copyright 1934,

Henry Nelson Wieman; The Issues of Life, by H. N. Wieman.

Willctt, Clark and Co.; Oberlin, A Protestant Saint by Marshall Dawson;
The Growth of Religion by H. N. Wieman and Walter M. Horton, copy-
right 1938; The Exploration of the Inner World by Anton T. Boisen,
copyright 1936.

Miss Toni Wolff and The Guild of Pastoral Psychology (London); for selec-
tions from a lecture, "Christianity Within" by Toni Wolff.

The Woman's Press; The Religious Way and The Religious Person in the

xiv Acknowledgments

World Today by Gregory Vlastos; and Christian Faith and Social Action
by Rose Terlin.

Yale University Press; A Common Faith by John Dewey, copyright 1934; The
Meaning of God in Human Experience by W. E. Hocking, copyright
1912; The Psychology of Jung by Jolan Jacobi, trans, by K. W. Bash,
1943; A Philosophical Study of Mysticism by Charles A. Bennett, copy-
right 1923.

Except for a few brief instances, and where otherwise indicated, the
Bible quotations used herein were taken from the English Revised Version,
Oxford University Press, 1881.

NOTE: Special effort was made to trace the author and copyright ownership
of, and to secure reprint permission for, each selection. If any selection has
inadvertently been used without the necessary permission, the editors wish to
express their regret for the oversight and their desire, on receiving notification,
to make acknowledgments in future editions.

Contents

PAGF

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

GENERAL INTRODUCTION xix
PART ONE

THE WAY

H AFTER

I. THE SEARCH AND THE FINDING 3

The Search for the Way 4

The Finding of the Way 10

Paradoxical Statements of the Way 12

General Statements of the Way 18

II. THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE WAY 39

The Way Implies Choice 40

The Way Implies an Inner Purgation 46
The Way Implies Self-knowledge and Self-acceptance 69

The Way Implies Devotion to the Good 88

The Way Implies a Rebirth 103

III. PROGRESSION ON THE WAY 109

Rate and Stages of Progression 112

Obstacles to Progression 128

Role of Suffering and Crisis 145

Meeting of Temptation and Failure 158

xvi Contents

PART TWO

THE TECHNIQUES

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 167

CHAPTER

IV. PRAYER AND MEDITATION 175

Definition 176

Value and Function 183

Kinds and Degrees 195

Role of the Spiritual Director 210

Important Aids to Meditation 218

V. PRAYER AND MEDITATION (Continued) 231

Procedures and Patterns 232

Instruction on Discursive Meditation 235

Suggested Patterns for Meditation 247

Brief Instruction for Affective Prayer 277

Difficulties of the Beginner 282

VI. PSYCHOTHERAPY 299

Relation of Psychotherapy and Religion 300

Role of Dream Analysis 309

Some Self-education Procedures 322

VIL FELLOWSHIP 335

VIII. ACTION 349

Contents xvii

PART THREE

THE OUTCOMES

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 371

CHAPTER

IX. INWARD RENEWAL 373

X. OUTWARD CREATIVITY 397

Between Individuals 398

In Friendship 399

In Marriage 402

XL OUTWARD CREATIVITY (Continued) 407
Between Individuals and Society
In Attitude

In Influence and Action 428

Within the Beloved Community 449

APPENDIX: The Object of Devotion 465

Some Modern Ideas of God 469
Some Classic Mystic Ideas of God

SUGGESTED READING 497

INDEX OF AUTHORS 501

INDEX OF SUBJECT MATTER 503

General Introduction

This compilation presents a mosaic of human insight. It has as its
central theme a "Way" which all men seek, few find, few enter, and still
fewer progressively follow, though it proffers the means by which man's
most fundamental longing can be realized.

Deep in the psychic structure of every individual there is an urge for
the kind of fulfillment which will yield joy, serenity, wisdom, creativity,
and power. Man, consciously or unconsciously, desires to obtain the insight
whereby he can resolve his own personal turbulences, achieve an organic
inter-dependence with his fellow man, and gain a sense of the end for
which he was created. Through the ages of man's history there have been
some individuals in whom this longing became so heightened that they
penetrated to a perception of the way to its achievement. From some
of these men have come recorded sayings. Around the teaching of the
most proficient of them there have been organized the world's great
religions. Unfortunately, in almost every case, accumulations of rigid
dogma, superstition and belief have served to conceal the major outlines
of the path which they sought to reveal. It is with the original insights and
convictions of these individuals and with those who follow them in point
of time that we are herein concerned. It is around their writings that the
research for this book was begun.

Because there was interest in discovering the furtherest reaches in the
universality of the Way, and in presenting it stripped of non-essentials, and
couched in terms intelligible to those for whom religious terminology
forms impenetrable barriers, the research was not limited to religious
literature, but was extended to several other fields wherein the same process
was discoverable.

In spite of wide variance in emphasis and diversity in expression,
significant agreements were discovered in the writing and recorded say-
ings from men of all ages and all religions.

First, there was found unanimity concerning the nature of man's
basic desire. Selections presenting this central motivating factor form the
initial aspect of Part One, entitled "The Search for the Way."

A second area o£ agreement concerned itself with the answer to the

xix

xx The Choice Is Always Ours

questions: "How can man actualize this basic desire?", "What conditions
are required for its fulfillment?'*. Material formulating these conditions
and their implications composes the major portion of Part One, entitled
"The Way."

There was concurrence also in the idea that this Way was one of
progression, "not a state, but a walk," leading through several stages.
These stages or degrees of progression were found to be described with
marked similarity by devotees of all religions. In order to overcome
obstacles and to accelerate the rate of progress, special training was often in-
dicated— a training which reached beyond the conscious self to the un-
conscious where are rooted the habit patterns needing transformation,
The principal methods which were found to be effective in assisting this
reconditioning process are described in Part Two, "The Techniques."

A fourth agreement had to do with outcomes resulting in the lives of
those who progressively follow the Way. It was found that no particular
"set" of outcomes could be expected to occur uniformly in all persons,
but rather that they could be foreseen to vary in degree and kind accord-
ing to individual temperament, background, and stage of clarification.
There was essential and convincing agreement that all results at every
stage of the Way were releasing of the real and expanding self, as opposed
to the false and constricting self. They were Life-giving. It was impressive
to note that the outcomes experienced by those far advanced on the Way
were similar in quality. They are described variously as ''union with God,"
"enlightenment," "fulfillment," or "realization," and were considered by
some as an extension of consciousness, a phenomenon interpreted by
several modern writers as representing a next step in man's evolutionary
progress.

In summary then, distinctions are made in the three parts between
that which motivates man to seek fullness of life; that which leads him
to the true goal; the methods by which he progressively achieves fulfill-
ment, and the outcomes of his search.

These significant agreements forming the main structure of the book
were found to rest on a minimal philosophic premise, z>., that there exists
an ultimate Reality that is by nature both transcendent and immanent.
The immanent aspect, "this something of God in man," traces its ancestry
to early Hindu * sources, thence to the Socratic movement in philosophy,

1 "God, the maker of all things, the great Self always dwelling in the heart of man,
as perceived by the heart, the soul, the mind." Svctasvatara Upanisbad,

General Introduction xxi

and on to the teaching of Jesus.2 Since then it has been variously ex-
pressed as: "the spark within," "the ground of the soul," "the inward
Voice," "the inner Light," "the core," "the central autonomous self," "the
intuitive faculty," "the Real Self," "the inner Vocation," "that something
which binds us to the deeper processes of consciousness," "that potentiality
of an extension of consciousness," et cetera. The fourteenth century
Theologica Germanica sums it up thus, "Goodness needeth not to enter
into the soul, for it is there already, only it is unperceived."

The approaches by which man becomes convinced of the existence of
this "unperceived goodness" of God, within and without, are many and
diverse. For the majority of mankind it seems to have become most real
when seen historically manifest through a Jesus, a Socrates, a St. Francis,
a Buddha; for others the only convincing approach has been through the
postulates of reason, and very recently through the frontier findings of
science which point irrefutably to "a ground and explanation of frag-
mentary data." Some seekers experience flashes of vision through nature
and art which convince them of an Infinite Life. Still others are able to
proceed on the hypothesis of the Real Self (as opposed to the Seeming-
Self) such as is basic to several contemporary systems of psychotherapy;
and others discern in the processes of history that which reveals purposive
direction and meaning.

This leads to a striking observation: whatever the approach, and how-
ever complicated the philosophical or theological super-structure erected
upon it, the essentials of the Way whereby Reality becomes transformingly
effective in the individual life were found to be identical and universal.

Although this compilation of material on the Way was not designed
to follow any particular tradition, it would, if placed in an historic frame-
work, probably fit best into the Quaker tradition, for its sole concern is
how man comes to apprehend and respond to that Inward Light whereby
life becomes increasingly illumined,

The arrangement in each section grew out o£ the material which had
been assembled. In no case were selections forced into a pre-arranged
outline. As much care was taken at this point as was taken in earlier
stages of our work, when readers were cautioned to use care in selecting
material that it not be wrested from its natural context, and thus do
violence to the author's meaning.

a "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is
within you." Luke 17:21.

xxii The Choice Is Always Ours

Because the arrangement in Parts One and Two is a sequential one the
reader will find it to his advantage to proceed through these sections in
their present order, choosing those selections in each aspect, as he goe*>
along, which are most meaningful to him. Since variety of approach was
one of the goals of the research it is not expected that all selections will
have a like appeal for all readers. It is hoped, however, that each re-reading
will uncover new favorites as behind the sometimes difficult phraseology
the reality is found.

The compilation was made with three groups of readers in mind:
t&ose persons, even of skeptical mind, who are consciously seeking the
Way; 3 those who have entered upon it but who seek further clarification;
and those more advanced on the Way who may find it useful in their
direction of others. The compilation should qualify as a source book for
instruction and inspiration for both individuals and groups.

It is with increasing humility that the editors have pursued their
work. As beginners on the Way they realize the presumptuous nature of
their attempt. It is with reluctance that they release their task, since further
research and the hope of greater insight continue to beckon* However,
it is believed that a compilation of this kind may be welcome now, when
man's inner conflict, as tragic evidence of his unfulfilled nature, has
perpetrated on the world another devastating crisis, leaving it prostrate
with need. Again man has been given irrefutable evidence of his failure
to achieve a sound basis for interdependence with his fellow-men, an
interdependence that cannot rise from political or economic adjustments —
for it is grounded not in outer circumstance4 but in the inner life of
man. It is to those who seek the cultivation of this inner life that the
authors herein speak. It is to them that this book is dedicated.

3 The completely uninitiated will probably profit most by using this collection in con-
junction with a more simple treatment of the religious Way by a single author. The very
richness and variety of an anthology if used alone might be confusing to some, (See
Suggested Reading.)

4 "Society is a 'field of action' but the source of all action is in the individuals com-
posing it." A Study of History by A. J. Toynbee, p. 211.

PART ONE

The Way

I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,

It will lead you in at Heaven's gate-
Built in Jerusalem's wall.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Let not the authority of the writer offend
thee whether he be of great or small learn-
ing; but let the love of pure truth draw thee
to read,

THOMAS 3 KEMPIS

CHAPTER ONE

The Search and the Finding

Do you not seek a light, ye -who are surrounded by darkness?

THE E>HAM:M:APADA

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall
lose his life shall preserve it.

JESUS OF NAZARETH

Never to have seen the truth is better than to have seen it and not
to have acted upon it.

ANONYJMOUS

CHAPTER ONE

The Search and the Finding

THE SEARCH FOR THE WAY

"There is one great and universal wish of mankind expressed in all
religions, in all art and philosophy, and in all human life; the wish to
pass beyond himself as he now is" x

In this statement we find one expression on the part of man of a per-
sistent desire continuing throughout the centuries for a fulfillment which
brings to actuality the capacities and capabilities that are truly his own
nature but which lie dormant. This search has been conceived of and
expressed in an infinite number of ways within the fields of religion,
philosophy, psychology, art, literature, and those other fields which con-
cern themselves with dynamic life processes. At its core has been the
consciousness that man could and wanted to live with an orientation
towards all happenings and events which gave to his life a sense of mean-
ing, of purpose, of reality and of eternity*

This desire is the underlying motive for the search, the finding, and
the actuation of the religious way of life as defined in this book. Behind
the diverse expressions of it which follow there is a basic unity — a com-
mon denominator, the "wish of man to pass beyond himself as he now is,"

As a Desire for Orientation

Psychologists well know that the deepest clement of human
happiness is embodied in the idea of movement toward something;
movement in the "right" direction; and all of the devices of thera-
peutic psychiatry are really only shoves and pushes and suggestions
intended to help a mind find its particular right direction of move-
ment. Continued observations of this basic dynamic nature of

1 Beatrice Hinkle, The Re-creating of the Individual*

The Search and the Finding 5

happiness, especially in clinical psychological practice, leads almost
inevitably to the conclusion that deeper and more fundamental than
sexuality, deeper than the craving for social power, deeper even than
the desire for possessions, there is a still more generalized and more
universal craving in the human make-up. It is the craving for
fyiotvledge of the right direction — for orientation.

This craving is not quite so obvious as the other patterns of
human desire, because it is more general, deeper, and the positive
and negative feeling-tones it engenders are not locally felt, hence
come less often to a specific attention focus. Yet every system of
philosophy, whether called religious or not, is at bottom a human
attempt to satisfy the craving to be pointed in the right direction.

William H. Sheldon, M.D., 1899-. American psychologist.
Psychology and the Promethean Will.

As the Intent of Nature

Know that, by nature, every creature seeks to become like God.
Nature's intent is neither food nor drink nor clothing, nor comfort,
nor anything else in which God is left out. Whether you like it or
not, whether you know it or not, secretly nature seeks, hunts,
tries to ferret out the track on which God may be found.*

Meistcr Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.
Mcistcr Eckhart, Trans. R. Blakney.

As the Quest of Consciousness

No one is born a new being. He bears in his psyche the imprint
of past generations. He is a combination of ancestral units from
which a new being must be fused, yet he also bears within him an
essential germ, a potential of a unique individual value. The discovery
of this unique essence and its development is the quest of conscious-
ness.

Frances G. Wickes, 1882-. American psychotherapist.
The Inner World of Man.

As a Surging Purpose

We all know that there are regions of the human spirit untram-
meled by the world of physics. In the mystic sense of the creation
around us, in the expression of art, in a yearning towards God, the

* The use of a single asterisk indicates an abridgment of material.

6 The Way

soul grows upward and finds fulfilment of something implanted
in its nature. The sanction for this development is within us, a striv-
ing born of our consciousness or an inner light proceeding from a
greater power than ours. Science can scarcely question this sanction,
for die pursuit of science springs from a striving which the mind
is impelled to follow, a questioning that will not be suppressed.
Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical
pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead and the purpose surg-
ing in our natures responds. •

Sir Arthur Edclington, 1882—1944, English physicist, astronomer.
The Nature of the Physical World.

As the hart panteth after the water brooks,

So panteth my soul after thee, O God.

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.

Hebrew, perhaps second century B.C.
forty-second Psalm.

As a Mystical Aspiration

The religious spirit is in us. It preceded the religions, and their
task as well as that of the prophets, of the initiated, consists in releas-
ing, directing, and developing it. This mystical aspiration is an
essentially human trait It slumbers at the bottom of our souls await-
ing the event, or the man capable, in the manner of an enzyme, of
transforming it into true mysticism, into faith.

Lecomte du Nouy, 1883-1947. French bio-physicist.

Human Destiny.

As an Intrinsic Longing for Unity

We do not understand, but somehow we are part of a creative
destiny, reaching backward and forward to infinity—a destiny that
reveals itself, though dimly, in our striving, in our love, our thought,
our appreciation. We are the fruition of a process that stretches back
to star-dust. We are material in the hands of the Genius of the uni-
verse for a still larger destiny that we cannot see in the everlasting
rhythm of worlds. Nothing happens but what somehow counts in
the creative architecture of things. We fail and fall by the way, yet
redeeming grace fashions us anew and eliminates our failures in die

The Search and the Finding 7

larger pattern. The pangs of pain, of failure, in this mortal lot, are
the birth-throes of transition to better things. We are separated for
a time by the indifference of space and by our blindness which
particularizes and isolates us. But in us is the longing for unity. We
are impelled by a hidden instinct to reunion with the parts of the
larger heart of the universe.

John Elof Booclin, 1869-. American philosopher.
Cosmic Evolution.

All creatures seek after unity; all multiplicity struggles toward
it— the universal aim of all life is always this unity. All that flows
outward is to flow backward into its source — God.

Johann Tauler, 1290-1361. German Friar-Preacher.

As the End of Creation

When I shall once attain to be united unto thee in every part of
me, then shall I no more feel either sorrow or labour; yea, then
shall my life truly be alive, every way full of thee.

For thou hast created us for thyself, and our heart cannot be
quieted till it may find repose in thee.

Saint Augustine, 354-430. Latin church Father.
Confessions, Trans. W. Watts,

As the Desire for Intentional Living

Life does not need comfort, when it can be offered meaning, nor
pleasure, when it can be shown purpose. Reveal what is the purpose
of existence and how he may attain it— the steps he must take— and
man will go forward again hardily, happily, knowing that he has
found what he must have — intentional living — and knowing that an
effort, which takes all his energy because it is worth his full and
constant concentration, is the only life deserving the devotion, satisfy-
ing the nature and developing the potentialities of a self-conscious
being.

Anonymous.

As the Desire for Oneness with the Universe

Ask yourself what you would wish, if God would grant you the
fulfillment of your one deepest request. And what do you think

8 The Way

other people would wish for? Very soon you would discover that
there are layers of desire and the deeper desire often contradicts
the more superficial one. We need a careful explanation and defini-
tion of the more general wishes to be happy or good or a child of
God. Moreover, there are unconscious goals which control our
behaviour in contradiction to our conscious evaluation. One may
wish to be humble, in order to be acknowledged by the Lord as the
most humble and best of all his servants. — If we could be perfectly
honest and transparent, what would we find to be the deepest and
most central need of the human being?

The first answer would be: it is the desire to exist. But then our
ideas, and our emotions, too, split into two opposite directions.
On one hand, existence means to be, as we are, to persist; and the
deepest desire becomes self-preservation. Then the greatest danger
is change, commitment, giving up oneself. On the other hand we
discover— or at least we could discover, if we were able to see reality
as it is — that persistence without change is death, is nothing, is just
what we are afraid of. But the second desire, the deeper one, tells
us that we should renounce our self-preservation, we should not
try to be like Olympic gods, above time but in time, above change
in everlasting youth, and emptiness* This deep desire tells us to
face reality, to be as human as possible, and that means going
through time, through change, through death, keeping nothing, not
even our life, giving everything, even our own will, being poor in
spirit, being one with the universe, with our darkest enemy and
with God. That is what we wish for most whether we know it or not.

Fritz Kunkcl, 1889-. German psychotherapist.
Written for this collection.

As the Sense of Being Sought by " Another"

One is not likely to describe easily or reliably the underlying
motivations that have led him to the religious life. It is too easy to
read back into past situations and experiences what one sees very
clearly at the present time. Somehow it seems that there never was a
time when I was not religious, though there certainly have been
times when I have felt strong revulsions against certain forms of
religious behaviour and practice. One thing that has frequently

The Search and the Finding 9

been present is the desire to see and know myself as I really am.
Another has been the longing to achieve serenity and inner integrity
where there was much that was chaotic and broken. More important
has been the urgency of a moral imperative which through the years
has come insistently and persistently to place life under radical
tensions.

But in looking over my past experience, I cannot resist the con-
viction that it has not been primarily my seeking and searching that
has been important, but rather the awareness of being sought and
found by Another. It is possible that I am reading certain present
attitudes into my past; somehow or other the thought that a pur-
posive, personal, active Reality has gone forth to meet me tends to
dominate my thought more and more. In my best moments it is most
natural to think of a Living God who has 'invaded' the chaos and
confusion of life to give it strength and vitality and hope. It is He
who 'fashions' and 'creates' and 'finds/ and thus gives existence. It
is He who 'speaks' and reveals His will, and sets life before its
imperative. The sense of moral obligation is His commanding, and
my response is the will to obey or disobey. It is He who judges sin,
and sends me back to Him in contrition and repentance. It is He
who forgives and heals and wins life to its possibilities.

The language of the Bible seems to express my own experience
best of all. Moses' characteristic responses to the divine impulsions,
Elijah's forlornness before the mountain cave, Amos' encounter with
Amaziah the priest, Isaiah's dilemma in a national crisis, Jeremiah
in the presence of the collapse of his world, Second Isaiah's sense of
mission, Jesus' vision as He comes out of the baptismal waters—
these situations have an authenticity about them which seems not
merely personally convincing but almost universally recognizable.
And I suppose that the influence of the Bible as a Scripture wrought
from the heart of the world's life has accounted largely for many
of my attitudes and the forms in which experience has been clothed.
But paralleled with the appreciation of the Bible has come some
understanding and appreciation of history, first of all the history
of the Semitic East, but also the history of our own modern times.

But whatever the underlying psychological forces that have been

io The Way

at play, for me religion has simply been a necessity. Indeed, it has
been the only real possibility. Other ways seem to have led to dead-
ends. In the only kind of world I have ever known, and in the kind
of world that historical records reveal to me, relative loyalties are
not enough. Hebrew Christian faith places life in a context of dy-
namic meaning and cosmic support; it kindles living by placing it
under absolute commands which are adequately expressed in the
Old and New Testaments; it provides a goal in the fullness and
richness of its conception of the Sovereign Rule of God.

James Muilenberg, 1896-. American theologian,
Written for this collection,

As the Fountain of Spirit

As rivers have their source in some far off fountain, so the human
spirit has its source. To find his fountain of spirit is to learn the
secret of heaven and earth.

Laotzu, sixth century B.C. Chinese philosopher,
Tao-Teh-King, Chapter 6. Trans. Wai-tao and D. Goddard.

THE FINDING OF THE WAY

The reader may well ask, "Why, if all men seek the way to fulfillment,
do so few find it?" There are many possible speculations upon this
question,2 but one very real and practical answer8 can be found in the
widespread misconceptions of the Way itself.

One group of misconceptions arises from mistaking the outcomes of
the Way for the Way. The half-truths that result often tragically mislead
the seeker. Briefly some of these half-truths are: that the Way is "living
for others"; that it is following the Golden Rule; that it is living accord-
ing to a set of high principles or ideals; that it is imitating the virtues
of the saints (instead of seeking to discover the source of their life quality) ;
that it is giving oneself to a philanthropic cause. These in a sense are what
the Way is not. They are "outer" and imitative instead of "inner" and

2 The question points to philosophic speculations into the nature of man and of the
universe and may be unanswerable in its profoundest sense.

3 Also see Chapter Three on Obstacles to Progression.

The Search and the Finding n

creative. The importance of discrimination at this point of outcomes can-
not be overemphasized.

Another widespread misconception comes from identifying the Way
with specific sets of cosmological ideas and beliefs. The Way is un-
deniably the Religious Way as opposed to the way of specific religions.
Failure to make this distinction results in confusion and blocks aware-
ness for many.

In this compilation an attempt is made to present material which cuts
through the accumulation of dogmas and creeds in order to reveal the
Way in high relief — to set it forth so that it will be seen as an inexorable
law involving all of life. In doing this there has been no intention of riding
roughly over the significant variations which characterize specific religious
faiths. It would have been valuable to examine the divergences in tradition,
but limitations of time and" space precluded such a wide range of
endeavor. Those variations which were indigenous to the period wherein
they had their inception, and those few among the many which have
been retained that are appropriate to modern culture, undoubtedly had
and have high value as aids to spiritual progress. The difficulty arises when,
instead of being relegated to a minor position, they assume first place.
Then they definitely obscure the Way and frequently prevent needed
enlargements of cosmology.

Probably the most insidious of all misconceptions is that which holds
to the idea that the Way to fullness of life is easy. Were this true, the
majority of mankind might long ago have entered upon it since the need
is so pressing and universal. The process of clarification is neither easy
nor, except in rare instances, is it attained quickly. A reconditioning of
both the conscious and unconscious elements of the personality is involved,
and for most people this is a long and slow process calling for perseverance
and for the development of special skills.

The research for this book led first to the earliest known accounts of
those in whom there was unmistakable evidence of truly enlightened
living. The impact of these lives on their contemporaries and the
authoritative nature of their teaching have caused their words and the
reports of their lives to be designated as Sacred Literature. In these
accounts were discovered clues to the way by which each had become
free in spirit. Two major conditions were outlined representing the
negative and positive aspects of this single process. The negative emphasis
was found reiterated over and over throughout all the accounts as a

12 The Way

paradoxical law. Positively emphasized, it appeared over and over as a
commandment. In the teaching of Jesus both aspects received what we
consider their most lucid description. Jesus' expression of the paradox
appears in Luke 17:33 — "Whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it,"
and the commandment in Luke 10:27, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind."

The major portion of Part One is made up of a pattern of statements
presenting this Way and its far-reaching implications in both their
negative and positive aspects.

The search was not limited to the earliest accounts but was extended
to include the writings of other "authentics" who followed in point of
time, and whose writings further illumined the conditions of the Way.
Selections from recent and contemporary sources were also sought. We
believe they serve the special function of bringing the precious insights
closer to our understanding through their modern terminology, while
at the same time adding to those insights through the means of newly
available psychological knowledge into the nature of human conduct-
knowledge such as is represented by the several psychological systems,

In describing the Way it seemed best to start with the negative
emphasis thus presenting some of the most succinct and ultimate of all
expressions — those in paradoxical form. In them it is seen as an inexorable
law, the fulfillment of which determines the difference between life and
death in every area of life. Though some expressions of the paradox have
become dulled by familiarity, its truth is inescapable, and its relevancy
in a world faced by atomic power becomes ever more desperately urgent.

The great paradox is "the golden string" which threads its way
through this entire compilation — forming the underlying theme.

THE WAY AS A PARADOX

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever
shall lose his life shall preserve it.

Jesus of Nazareth,
New Testament (Luke 17:33).

The Search and the Finding 13

Diminish and continue to diminish until you arrive at the state
of non-striving.

All things come from being, and being comes from non-being.

Laotzu, sixth century B.C., Chinese, founder of Taoism.
Tao-Tch-King. Trans. Hu Shih.

Oh, let the self exalt itself,
Not sink itself below:
Self 4 is the only friend of self,
And self Self's only foe.

For self, when it subdues itself,
Befriends itself. And so
When it eludes self-conquest, is
Its own and only foe.

So calm, so self-subdued, the Self

Has an unshaken base

Through pain and pleasure, cold and heat,

Through honor and disgrace.

The New Testament of Hindu Scriptures, present form, first century B.C.

Bhagavad-Gita, Trans. A. W. Ryder.

In Nature

And the more he (the individual) studies Nature, the more he
will discover that death is not opposed to life, or decay to growth, but
that they are mutually dependent; that just as the seed will only
grow if the outer mass of it decays and thus generates the germ of
life in its midst, so the individual can only complete his being
through absorbing the creative energy released by the continuous
death of his private self and its exclusive appetites.

The intimate dependence of growth on decomposition in the

4 The Way rests on the basic assumption of a "false" and a "true" element within the
structure of the personality. This distinction is expressed variously by different authors, i.e.
"the self" and "the Self" as above; "The Seeming-Self" and the "Real-Self; "The Con-
ventional Self" and the "Self of an Individual Vocation"; the "old" man and the "new"
man; the "outer" self and the "inner" self, et cetera. Sec Chapter Two under Self-
knowledge. (Editors.)

14 The Way

physical world may seem at first to bear but remotely upon the
processes of the spiritual world. But the more we study die chemistry
of the body, the more kindred it appears to the chemistry of the soul
That we must give, for example, if we are to receive, is not a rule,
as is so often supposed, in defiance of Nature. Rather all the processes
of Nature reflect its unconscious action. Life could sustain its being
in no other way. And the same is true of the law, that in dying we
live and in living, die.

Those, therefore, who no longer feel instinctively the subtle ties
which knit together the diverse forces of Nature's energy and no
longer obey instinctively her laws can only cease to be alien to the
earth on which they dwell and at cross-purposes with life even in
their yearning for some heavenly home, by rediscovering these ties
rationally as a prelude to re-experiencing them imaginatively.

Hugh TAnson Faussct, 1895-. English critic, poet.
Proving of Psyche.

The seed that is to grow

must lose itself as seed;
And they that creep

may graduate through
chrysalis to wings.

Wilt thou then, O mortal,
cling to husks which
falsely seem to you
the self?

Wu Ming Fu, Chinese poet, philosopher.
Patterns in Jadf,

***

In Art

It is because the artist loses himself in the reality of that which he
describes or depicts or reveals, because of his individual self-efface-
ment, that his work is a spontaneous expression of himself. That is
one meaning of the penetrating saying of Jesus: "He that saveth his
life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life shall keep it unto life
eternal" Personal spontaneity is always objective, always in terms of

The Search and the Finding 15

the independent reality of an object which absorbs us. There is no
other self-expression possible. If we block the avenues of the outpour-
ing of self, if we withdraw from the reality of the world, if we allow
our actions to be subjectively determined by mere instincts and
habits, following our inclinations, we do not express ourselves, we
frustrate our own self-expression, surrender our freedom and suffo-
cate all creative spontaneity. The artist does not act by impulse, still
less by the compulsion of rules, but by the nature of the reality which
he apprehends. By doing this he becomes free and his action becomes
a self-expression. In no other way can self-expression be achieved.
In particular it cannot be achieved by will or purpose. The man of
iron will is always the man who cannot be spontaneous, who cannot
act in terms of reality, who cannot be free.

John MacMurray, 1891-. English professor of philosophy.

Reason and Emotion.

He who humbles himself shall be saved;
He who bends shall be made straight;
He who empties himself shall be filled.

Laotzu, sixth century B.C. Chinese philosopher.

Tao-T e!i-King.

In Science

(Indeed) it may be said that every individual science sets about
its task by the explicit renunciation of the egocentric and anthropo-
centric standpoint. In the earlier stages of human thought mankind
turned its attention exclusively to the impressions received through
the senses, and primitive man made himself and his own interests
the center of his system of reasoning. As long as he remained bound
within die limits of this method of treating his environment it was
impossible for him to make any approach toward real scientific
knowledge. His first advance in this knowledge was accomplished
only after he had taken leave of his own immediate interests. At a
later stage he succeeded in abandoning the idea that the planet
whereon he lives is the central point of the universe. Then he took
up the more modest position of keeping as far as possible in the
background, so as not to intrude his own idiosyncrasies and personal

1 6 The Way

ideas between himself and his observations of natural phenomena.
It was only at this stage that the outer world of nature began to
unveil its mystery to him, and at the same time to furnish him with
means which ... he could never have discovered if he had con-
tinued looking for them in the candlelight of his own egocentric
interests. The progress of science is an excellent illustration of the
truth of the paradox that man must lose his soul before he can
find it.*

Max Planck, 1858-. German mathematical physicist.
Where Is Science Going? Trans. J. Murphy.

A death blow is a life blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.

Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886. American poet.

In Man's Psychic Life

The problem of releasing our powers is the problem of both
mastering and submitting to the process of becoming a person. A
submission that is also a mastering! Here is the paradox of ration-
ality in a finite and growing being. A sort of dialectic is involved :
self-affirmation, followed by self-denial, and then realization that
this denial of self is in reality a higher and fuller affirmation of self-
hood.

George Albert Coc, 1862-. American educator, author.

Motives of Men.

It is not surprising that many men, who have adopted a certain
pose towards themselves, should feel the process of psychoanalysis as
torture. In accordance with the old mystical saying, "Give up what
thou hast, then shalt thou receive," they are called upon to abandon
their dearest illusions in order to let something deeper, fairer, and
more embracing grow up within them. For it is only through the
mystery of self-sacrifice that a man may find himself anew.

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychotherapist
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology \

The Search and the Finding ij

For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it

Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is
not a desert;

The miracle is the only thing that happens, but to you it will not be
apparent,

Until all events have been studied and nothing happens that you
cannot explain;

And life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have con-
sented to die.

Wystan H. Audcn, 1907-. English poet.
For the Time Being.

Die and Become.
Till thou hast learned this
Thou art but a dull guest
On this dark planet.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832. German philosopher, poet

From Seltge Schnsucht.

God Speaks:

It is innocence that is full and experience that is empty.
It is innocence that wins and experience that loses.

It is innocence that is young and experience that is old.
It is innocence that grows and experience that wanes.

It is innocence that is born and experience that dies.

It is innocence that knows and experience that does not know.

It is the child who is full and the man who is empty,
Empty as an empty gourd and as an empty barrel:

That is what I do with that experience of yours.

Now then, children, go to school.
And you men, go to the school of life.
Go and learn
How to unlearn,

Charles Pe*guy, 1873-1913, French writer.
From the poem Innocence and Experience*

1 8 The Way

In History

If history reveals anything it is that dissolution and growth have
been aspects of the same phenomenon. Growth has not occurred
anywhere without involving dissolution. Every major cultural
change throughout history has involved this two-fold process of
death and emergence.*

Bernard Eugene Meland, 1899-. American religious philosopher, professor.

From an article in The Personalist.

In the "World Body"

Neither in the world of nations, nor in the world of the nation,
will all individuals sacrifice their interests. They cannot do it. It is
impossible. They have not reached that stage of ethical development.
But there is a handful of individuals— hundreds, thousands, maybe
hundreds of thousands who have reached it. They have learned, or
begun to conjecture, that the moment is come when they must sacrifice
their all. At first slowly, then with slowly increasing speed, then in
the last hundred years with a truly sickening acceleration, first the
nation, then the world of nations has become one body. The vast
world is one Man. And that one Man is sick, as individual men,
time out of mind, have been sick; he is divided within him. There
is unconscious growth below; the mind above is fixed. The pangs
of rebirth are at hand. He dreams of better things, he desires better
things; but how to achieve them he does not know. The World
Man now longs, as the individual man has longed, time after time,
for newness of life. And the answer to the World Man is the same
answer that was given to the individual men two thousand years
ago: "He that loseth his life, the same shall save it."

John Middlcton Murry, 1889^. English author, critic.
The Necessity of Communism.

GENERAL STATEMENTS OF THE WAY

The paradoxical expressions of the Way stress the negative require-
ment for becoming free in spirit. They point to the necessary "losing of
life," "dying to self," "leave-taking of egocentric goals"— noughting of

The Search and the Finding 19

the "I" whereby Ultimate Reality— the "Ground of the Sou?'— the "not
I" — becomes transformingly effective in the individual life.

The selections which follow further amplify this negative aspect of the
Way. In addition they include the other half of the process— that positive
element of the transaction, wherein the will is transferred from the direc-
tion of the ego-driven limited self to the direction of the real, expanding
Self—the Eternal Good. This positive requirement is designated as "com-
mitment," as "fidelity," as "plastic responsiveness." It completes "the
emptying and the filling" conditions of the Life-giving process.

Because of the misconceptions concerning the Way nothing seemed
more difficult to find stated in lucid terms. Most general statements were
in the often narrow framework of institutionalized beliefs. Those finally
selected were chosen because of a singular freedom in this regard. Even so,
they will be seen to vary in philosophical bases and terminology. They
range from the minimal humanistic approach (Dewey) to the mystical
approach (Eckhart, Theologica Germanica), The reader who finds this
variety confusing or burdensome, rather than clarifying and convincing,
will do well on first reading to disregard all except the selections which are
meaningful to him. Other readers will, by holding their focus on the
centrality of the process, come to see behind the differences to that oneness
which infuses the whole with its spirit.

The Way as One in All Its Expressions

There is, as we all know, a rich variety of detail in the legal and
moral codes of various times and places, yet in fundamental principle
there is more agreement in the actual working codes of society than
we of the "higher" civilizations like to acknowledge. For the work-
ing code, we may say generally, is of the nature of a compromise
between self and society. It takes the ordinary man just as he is with
all his confused and often conflicting impulses, good and bad, social
and selfish, and it puts him under certain restraints. He must not
move his neighbour's landmark, but on the whole he may do what
he will within his own. Life is a kind of game, in which each is
expected to play for his own hand, only he must play according to
rule. But some few centuries before our era there emerged a very
different conception of life and duty. According to this conception
life is not a game to be played by man against man, or family against
family, or community against community. Life rests on a secret,

20 The Way

profound, yet exceedingly simple once revealed, which dissipates all
its difficulties, puts an end to strife and sorrow, shows us the way
of light, emancipation, and peace. The secret is to put off self-hood,
and merge ourselves in the life of others, of all living things, perhaps
of the universe, to ask for nothing, to be ready to give everything.
Such a man is in charity, not only with all mankind, but with all
created things.

"And he lets his mind pervade one-quarter of the world with
thoughts of love, and so the second, and so the third, and so the
fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around, and
everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of Love, far-
reaching, grown great, and beyond measure. Just, Vasettha, as a
mighty trumpeter makes himself heard— and that without difficulty
—in all the four directions, even so of all things that have shape and
life, there is not one that he passes by or leaves aside, but regards
them all with mind set free, and deep, full love." 5

How far this Buddhist conception is original and what elements
it may have derived from earlier Brahmanic teaching we need not
here enquire. We may remark only on the striking analogies in the
doctrine of Lao-Tse: "Whosoever humbleth himself shall be exalted,
and whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased." "I would return
good for good, I would also return good for evil. I would likewise
meet suspicion with confidence." 6 We may think also of the doctrine
of equal universal benevolence upheld by the philosopher Mill
against the protests of the classical moralists as evidence that wher-
ever or whenever these conceptions originated they took root in
China as well as in India. Spreading West they inspired various
ethical and religious disciplines, and received one of their noblest
expressions in the Christianity of the Gospels,

Vary as it may in details and in the cosmological ideas associated
with it, the doctrine of the selfless 7 life is one, and easily recognizable
in all its expressions. Its promulgation constitutes the one really great
epoch in moral evolution, and is comparable in its effect to the

5 Buddhist Suttas, Sacred Booty of the East, vol. xi, p. aor,

6 The Path of Virtue, Tr. by Old.

7 See Chapter II under Self-knowledge for discussion of the two kinds of self.

The Search and the Finding 21

Copernican revolution in astronomy and the remodelling of scientific
method achieved in the period from Galileo to Newton.*

L, T. Hobhouse, 1864-. English philosopher.
The Rational Good.

The Way as "Steps" to Real Simplicity

In the world when people call any one simple they generally mean
a foolish, ignorant, credulous person. But real simplicity, so far from
being foolish, is almost sublime. All good men like and admire it, are
conscious of sinning against it, observe it in others, and know what
it involves, and yet they could not precisely define it. I should say
that simplicity is an uprightness of soul which prevents self-con-
sciousness. It is not the same as sincerity, which is a much humbler
virtue. Many people are sincere who are not simple; they say nothing
but what they believe to be true, and do not aim at appearing any-
thing but what they are; but they are forever thinking about them-
selves, weighing their every word and thought, and dwelling upon
themselves, in apprehension of having done too much or too little.
These people are sincere, but they are not simple; they are not at
their ease with others, or others with them; there is nothing easy,
frank, unrestrained, or natural about them; one feels one would like
less admirable people better, who were not so stiff.

To be absorbed in the world around, and never turn a thought
within, as is the blind condition of some who are carried away by
what is present and tangible, is one extreme as opposed to simplicity.
And to be self-absorbed in everything, whether it be duty to God or
man, is the other extreme, which makes a person wise in his own
conceits — reserved, self-conscious, uneasy at the least thing which
disturbs his inward self-complacency. Such false wisdom, in spite of
its solemnity, is hardly less vain and foolish than the folly of those
who plunge headlong into worldly pleasure. The one is intoxicated
by his outer surroundings, the other by what he believes himself to
be doing inwardly; but both are in a state of intoxication, and the
last is a worse state than the first, because it seems to be wise, though
it is not really, and so people do not try to be cured. Real simplicity
lies in a juste milieu, equally free from thoughtlessness and affecta-
tion, in which the soul is not overwhelmed by externals so as to be

22 The Way

unable to reflect, nor yet given up to the endless refinements which
self-consciousness induces. That soul which looks where it is going,
without losing time arguing over every step, or looking back per-
petually, possesses true simplicity.

Verily such simplicity is a great treasure! How shall we attain to
it? I would give all I possess for it; it is the costly pearl of Holy
Scripture.

The first step is for the soul so to put away outward things and
look within as to know its own real interests; so far all is right and
natural; thus much is only a wise self-love which seeks to avoid the
intoxication of the world.

In the next step the soul must add the contemplation of God,
Whom it fears, to that of self. This is a faint approach to the real wis-
dom, but the soul is still greatly self-absorbed: it is not satisfied with
fearing GOD; it wants to be certain that it does fear Him, and fears
lest it fear Him not, going round in a perpetual circle of self-con-
sciousness. All this restless dwelling in self is very far from the peace
and freedom of real love; but that is yet in the distance — the soul
must needs go through a season of trial, and were it suddenly
plunged into a state of rest, it would not know how to use it.

The third step is that, ceasing from a restless self-contemplation,
the soul begins to dwell upon God instead, and by degrees forgets
itself in Him — it becomes full of Him and ceases to feed upon self.
Such a soul is not blinded to its own faults or indifferent to its
own errors; it is more conscious of them than ever, and increased
light shows them in plainer form, but this self-knowledge comes
from God, and therefore it is not restless or uneasy.

But, you will ask, how can I help being constantly self-engrossed
when a crowd of anxious thoughts disturb me and set me ill at ease ?
I only ask that which is in your own power. If you are stedfast in
resisting them whenever you become conscious of their existence,
by degrees you will get free, but do not hunt them out with the
notion of conquering them. A continual attempt to repress thoughts
of self and self-interest is practically continual self-consciousness,
which will only distract you from the duties incumbent on you and
deprive you of the sense of God's Presence.

The Search and the Finding 23

The great thing is to resign all your interests and pleasures and
comfort and fame to God. He who unreservedly accepts whatever
God may give him in this world— humiliation, trouble, and trial
from within or from without — has made a great step towards self-
victory; he will not dread praise or censure, he will not be sensitive;
or if he finds himself wincing, he will deal so cavalierly with his
sensitiveness that it will soon die away. Such full resignation and
unfeigned acquiescence is true liberty, and hence arises perfect sim-
plicity. Blessed indeed are they who are no longer their own, but
have given themselves wholly to God!*

Francois Fenelon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambray.
Letters to Women, Trans. H. L. Lear.

The Way as Voluntary Change of Will

What are the attitudes that lend deep and enduring support to
the processes of living? I have, for example, used the words "adjust-
ment" and "orientation." What do they signify?

While the words "accommodation," "adaptation," and "adjust-
ment" are frequently employed as synonyms, attitudes exist that are
so different that for the sake of clear thought they should be dis-
criminated. There are conditions we meet that cannot be changed. If
they are particular and limited, we modify our own particular atti-
tudes in accordance with them. Thus we accommodate ourselves to
changes in weather, alterations in income when we have no other
recourse. When the external conditions are lasting we become
inured, habituated, or as the process is now called, conditioned. The
two main traits of this attitude, which I should like to call accom-
modation, are that it affects particular modes of conduct, not the
entire self, and that the process is mainly passive. It may, however,
become general and then it becomes fatalistic resignation or submis-
sion. There are other attitudes toward the environment that are also
particular but that are more active. We re-act against conditions and
endeavor to change them to meet our wants and demands. Plays in
a foreign language are "adapted" to meet the demands of an Ameri-
can audience. A house is rebuilt to suit changed conditions of the
household; the telephone is invented to serve the demands for speedy
communication at a distance; dry soils are irrigated so that they may

24 The Way

bear abundant crops. Instead of accommodating ourselves to condi-
tions, we modify conditions so that they will be accommodated to
our wants and purposes. This process may be called adaptation.

Now both of these processes are often called by the more general
name of adjustment. But there are also changes in ourselves in rela-
tion to the world in which we live and are much more inclusive
and deep-seated. They relate not to this and that want in relation to
this and that condition of our surroundings, but pertain to our being
in its entirety. Because of their scope, this modification of ourselves
is enduring. It lasts through any amount of vicissitude of circum-
stances, internal and external. There is a composing and harmoniz-
ing of the various elements of our being such that, in spite of changes
in the special conditions that surround us, these conditions are also
arranged; settled, in relation to us. This attitude includes a note of
submission. But it is voluntary, not externally imposed; and as
voluntary it is something more than a mere Stoical resolution to
endure unperturbed throughout the bufferings of fortune. It is more
outgoing, more ready and glad, than the latter attitude, and it is
more active than the former. And in calling it voluntary, it is not
meant that it depends upon a particular resolve or volition. It is a
change of will conceived as the organic plenitude of our being, rather
than any special change in will,*

John Dewey, 1859-. American philosopher, educator.

A Common Faith,

The Way as Total Responsiveness to the Best in Each Situation

This religious way of living is different from every other found
among men. It differs from that of the moral idealist. The idealist
picks out of each situation whatever will promote his ideal. All the
rest he ignores or fights or tolerates. He is blind to all the abundance
that overflows or conflicts with his ideal. Over against the idealist
stands the man of uninhibited desire. His way of living differs from
that of the religious just as much as does that of the idealist, but at
the opposite extreme. He picks out of the riches of each situation
whatever will satisfy his specific desires, but all the rest flows over
him unappreciated and unapprehended. The religious man on the

The Search and the Finding 25

other hand, in contradistinction from both of these, explores sensi-
tively and reverently for the emerging new meanings in each situa-
tion, the while holding his desires and ideals in control as experi-
mental instruments to be used in guiding him into the situation where
they are bound to be transcended or submerged by the richness of
value which he cannot possibly apprehend before he experiences it
in the full concreteness of consummatory synthesis.

The steps by which one achieves this way of religious living8
cannot be taken once and for all. They constitute a practice that is
repeated again and again. This life is the faith that saves the world.
It serves both the needs of individual personality and of society in the
only ways which can enable this age to escape destruction.

This spontaneity of free and full and plastic responsiveness down
to the deepest level of the organization of the psycho-physical organ-
ism is the prime condition for all mental health. The psychological
desperation of our time is shown in all the multiple forms of mental
ill and derangement of personality which are increasing steadily and
amounting to madness in many cases. The religious way does surely
protect from these mental ills. A glance at some of the major sources
of the derangements of personality will make this plain. Men suffer
these psychic ills when they struggle to do what is impossible and
cannot resign themselves to the inevitable; when they strive to main-
tain a certain view of themselves in the face of incoming evidence to
the contrary; when they cannot relinquish some desire in the face
of a conscience or society that condemns. But all these disorganizing
conditions fade out and disappear when the total personality be-
comes plastic; when it becomes freely and fully responsive to the
best possible in each situation; when it finds in the full flood of
circumstance the riches of laughter, or tragedy, and of fulfillment,
but does not cling to the impossible and does not demand that any
fixed desire or fixed ideal be satisfied.*

Henry Nelson Wieman,0 1884-. American philosopher, theologian, educator,

8 These steps Dr. Wieman designates as propulsion, crisis, decision, release, specification
and fellowship. For a description of each step see pages 299-307 of The Growth of Religion.
It was impossible to abridge these pages sufficiently to include here.

tt The Growth of Religion— Part I by Walter M. Horton, Part II by Henry N. Wieman.

26 The Way

The Way as Commitment

Of the many half-truths floating about in sermons and articles
today I know few so misleading as this: "Religion is life," It is mis-
leading just because it is not obviously false. It contains important
truths. For one thing, it says this: Religion, wherever it exists, spreads
over the whole of life. One cannot take it up as one takes up golf-
by giving it a couple of afternoons a week. That kind of amateur
religion is not religion. Religion is either the whole of one's life, or
else it is not religion, no matter how much fuss is made over it. This
is true, and dangerously true. "Religion is life," so understood, cuts
with condemnation. To all those who want religion, but want it "in
its place," that is, apart from their business, their politics, their
luxuries or their conveniences, or anything else, this says, "My good
friend, what you call your 'religion* is something or other, but you
had better find its name and call it by its name; don't call it religion/'

Religion can never be lived except with one's whole life, and
what cannot be humanly lived is not religion or any concern of reli-
gion. So far "religion is life" makes sense. But how much farther ?
Does it hint at the all-important fact that religion is not any kind of
life, but a difficult and exacting way to which many are called but
few chosen? Does it suggest just what it is that marks off religion
from all the other kinds of lives that have been lived and can be lived
—the life of the dilettante or of the egotist or the cynic or the
romantic, or of the healthy cabbage? Jesus told Nicodemus, "You
must be born again." He told the rich young ruler, "Sell all you
have," and the disciples, "He who would save his life must lose it.11
Could you have guessed any of these things from "religion is life" ?
Where is the way of the cross, the demand for decision, the necessity
for absolute loyalty? Something slips between the fingers of this
plausible generality and this something is commitment.

Commitment is all-important in our understanding of religion
because it expresses clearly, as "life" does not, this fact: Religion is
a relationship. This may sound like a truism. Yet even a truism is
significant when it is denied. Every kind of subjectivism is such a
denial. Nothing is so attractive to the tired sophisticate as the call to
leave awhile the world that is too much with him and retreat to a

The Search and the Finding 27

place of stillness within his own soul. That there is such a place is an
exciting discovery, and so is the art of finding it, steering safely to it,
and avoiding the dangerous turmoils of the world of outer fact or
the world of the inner self, both full of confusion and strife. To
explore this middle ground of introspection and reverie, and flavor
its precarious peace, is an engrossing adventure, especially when it
is dignified with the name of religion.

To such religious romanticism the word "commitment" brings a
rude corrective. It reminds one inescapably of the essential thing in
religion— God. It is easy to forget God when one is most concerned
about one's inner experiences. It is not so easy to forget Him when
one is concerned about commitment. One can give oneself only to
something which is there, which can be observed, understood and
obeyed ; to something which makes demands and holds out promises
and obligations. It warns against subjectivity. One's own subjectivity
can hide God from one just as much as the pressure of work or the
hypocrisies of polite society.

If one is not clear about God, one will always tend to shy away
toward something more accessible, like one's own conscious states.
To talk about commitment brings one face to face with the question
of God, so that one cannot dodge it. ... God is that within and
beyond the universe which expresses the greatest good which now is
and ever can be: the direction of life against death, the direction of
unity against discord, the direction of creation and increasing growth
against destruction and decay. God is the power of good in all its
various forms: in the order and structure of inorganic matter, in the
process of growth and sensitivity in the realm of life, in the condi-
tions of intelligence, cooperation, appreciation and creative love on
the human level.

This cosmic reach in our description of God must not distract
our attention from the specific human focus within which our ex-
periences of the good are most intense and most decisive. It is here
most of all that we know God as a daily fact. We have tried the
ways of ambition, of self-aggrandizement, of aggressive opportun-
ism, and we have seen the kind of flimsy success to which they lead,
we have tasted the bitter poisons they generate, we have known the

28 The Way

conflict, the disgust, the inner division, the outer isolation that follow
in their wake. We have also tried in some small measure the other
way, and known that every man and woman must have love; that
there is no life or peace without love; only strife, waste, madness,
destruction, death. There is that in life which makes it necessary that
men should find the way of truth, of understanding, of justice, or
else destroy themselves and each other. You have not seen it ? You
cannot move a step but you stumble into it; it is in the structure of
your world; you cannot live a day or an hour without saying either
yes or no to it, without finding life through it or death without it.

Even a faint glimpse of this reality brings you back to yourself.
Whither do you move? With it or without it? The alternatives are
simple— terrifyingly simple and clear. To compromise in this matter
is to decide; to waver is to decide; to postpone and evade decision is
to decide; to hide the matter is to decide. There is no escape. You
must say yes, or no. There are a thousand ways of saying no; one
way of saying yes; and no way of saying anything else.*

Gregory Vlastos, 1909-. Canadian professor of philosophy.

The Religions Way,

The Way as Willing One Thing

Purity of heart is to will one thing, but to will one thing could
not mean to will the world's pleasure and what belongs to it, even if
a person only named one thing as his choice, since this one thing was
one only by a deception. Nor could willing one thing mean willing
it in the vain sense of mere bigness which only to a man in a state of
giddiness appears to be one. For in truth to will one thing a man
must will the good. On the other hand, as for each act of willing the
Good which does not will it in truth, it must be declared to be
double-mindedness. Then there is a type of double-mindedness that
in a more powerful and active sort of inner coherence seems to will
the Good, but deceptively wills something else. It wills the Good for
the sake of reward, out of fear of punishment, or as a form of self-
assertion. But there is another kind of double-mindedness that wills
the Good in a kind of sincerity, but only wills it 'to a certain degree/

The Search and the Finding 29

If, then, a man in truth wills the Good, then he must be willing to
do all jor it or he must be willing to suffer all for it.

Let us first consider: the willingness to do all for the Good. All
—yet will not this talk easily exceed all bounds, if all is named ? Will
it not become an impossibility to master all the differences included
under the term "all," and as a result will the talk not become vague,
since the Good can demand the most different things of different
people? It can sometimes demand that a man leave his esteemed
calling and put on lowliness, that he give away all his possessions to
the poor, that he shall not even dare to bury his father. Again it can
demand of others that they shall assume the power and the dignity
that are offered them, that they shall take over the working power
of wealth, that they shall bury the father, and that perhaps a large
part of their lives shall be consecrated to faithfulness which is to be
faithful over the little to this extent, that their own life has no claims
of its own, but rather is faithful to the memory of a departed one.
Now let us not multiply confusion and distraction in a host of indi-
vidual details. For these also remind us of the struggle of pettiness
for preference, where one person thinks that by doing one thing he
is doing more for the Good than another who does something else.
For if both in relation to the demand do all, then they do equally
much. And if neither of them does all, then they do equally little.
Instead of multiplying details, let us simplify this all into its essential
unity and likeness by saying that to will to do all is: in the commit-
ment to will to be and to remain loyal to the Good. Because the
commitment is just the committing of all, just as it is also that which
is essentially one thing. No one believes that this is a long-drawn-out
affair. On the contrary, from the standpoint of eternity, if I dare say
so, it is this abbreviating of all of life's fractions (for eternity's length
is the true abbreviation) that frees life of all its difficulties, and it is
through deciding to will to be and to remain loyal to the Good that
so much time is gained. For that which absorbs men's time when
they complain about the lack of time is irresoluteness, distraction,
half thoughts, half resolutions, indecisiveness, great moments-
great moments. It was because of these that we said: to be and to

30 The Way

remain loyal to, so that die commitment should not be confused with
the extravagance of an expansive moment. The person, who in
decisiveness wills to be and to remain loyal to die Good, can find
time for all possible diings. No, he cannot do that. But neither does
he need to do diat, for he wills only one thing, and just on that
account he will not have to do all possible diings, and so he finds
ample time for the Good.

So now let us talk of doing all, and speak of die men who, in this
or that way, are assigned to the external world as to a stage. It makes
no difference at all, God be praised, how great or how small the task
may be. All the ruinous quarreling and comparison which swells up
and injures, which sighs and envies, the Eternal does not recognize.
Its claim rests equally on each, the greatest who has ever lived, and
die most insignificant. Yes, the sun's rays do not shine widi more
equality on the peasant's hut and the ruler's palace, than the equality
with which the Eternal looks down upon the highest and the lowest.
The demand upon each is exactly the same: to be willing to do all.
If this be fulfilled then the Good bestows its blessing equally upon
each one who makes and remains loyal to his commitment.*-**

Soren Kierkegaard, 1813—1855. Danish philosopher.
Purity of Heart. Trans, Douglas Steerc,

The Way as Denying of Self-Will

People say: "Alas, sir, but I would prefer to stand well with
God, to have the devotion and divine cairn of some people." Or they
say: "It will never do if I cannot be here or there and do dius and so.
I must get away — or go into a cloister or a cell."

The truth is that you yourself are at fault in all this or no one else,
It is pure self-will Whether you realize it or not, diere can be no rest-
lessness unless it come from self-will, although not every person
understands this. This is what I mean: people fly from this to seek
that — these places, these people, these manners, those purposes, that
activity — but they should not blame ways or things for thwarting
them. When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of
order.

Begin, therefore, first with self and forget yourself! If you do not

** The use of two asterisks indicates material is slightly rearranged.

The Search and the Finding 31

first get away from self, then whatever else you get away from you
will still find obstacles and restlessness. People look in vain for peace,
who seek it in the world outside, in places, people, ways, activities,
or in world-flight, poverty and humiliation, whatever the avenue
or degree; for there is no peace this way. They are looking in the
wrong direction, and the longer they look the less they find what
they are looking for. They go along like someone who has missed
his road; the farther they go the more they are astray.

What, then, is to be done?

Let everyone begin by denying self and in so doing he will have
denied all else. Indeed, if a man gave up a kingdom, or even the
whole world and still was selfish, he would have given up nothing.
If, however, he denies himself, then whatever he keeps, be it wealth,
honor, or anything else, he is free from it all.

# * # # *

There is no way of making a person true unless he gives up his
own will. In fact, apart from complete surrender of the will, there
is no traffic with God. But if it did happen that we gave up com-
pletely and dared to put off everything, physical and spiritual, for
God's sake — then we should have done all and not before.

Such people are rare. Aware of it or not, people have wanted to
have the "great" experiences; they want it in this form, or they
want that good thing; and this is nothing but self-will. Yield com-
pletely to God and then be satisfied, whatever he does with his own,

* # # # *

We must learn always to find and procure the advantage of God.
For God does not give gifts, nor did he ever give one, so that man
might keep it and take satisfaction in it; but all were given— all he
ever gave on earth or in heaven— that he might give this one more:
himself. With all his giving, he is trying only to prepare us for the
gift that he himself is; and all his works— all that he ever did on
earth or in heaven— he did for the sake of this one more: to perfect
our happiness. Therefore I say that we must learn to look through
every gift and every event to God and never be content with the
thing itself. There is no stopping place in this life— no, nor was
there ever one for any man, no matter how far along his way he'd

32 The Way

gone. This above all, then, be ready at all times for the gifts of God
and always for new ones.*

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1527. German scholar, mystic,
Mcistcr Kr/</Wr. Trans. R. Blakncy

The Way as Conscious Fidelity to "Inner Vocation" 10

Personality is an act of greatest courage in the face of life, and
means unconditional affirmation of all that constitutes the individual,
the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of human
existence, with the greatest possible freedom of personal decision. It
is impossible to foresee what an infinite number of conditions must
be fulfilled to bring this about. A whole human life span in all its
biological, social, and spiritual aspects is needed. Personality is the
highest realization of the inborn distinctiveness of the particular
living being. To educate someone to this seems to me to be no small
matter. It is surely the heaviest task that the spiritual world of today
has set itself. And, indeed, it is a dangerous task — . . .

The development of personality means fidelity to the law of one's
being , . . Fidelity to the law of one's being is a trust in this law, a
loyal perseverance and trustful hope; in short, such an attitude as a
religious man should have to God. But personality can never develop
itself unless the individual chooses his own way consciously. Not
only the causal motive, the need, but a conscious, moral decision
must lend its strength to the process of the development of person-
ality. If the first, that is, need is lacking, then the so-called develop-
ment would be mere acrobatics of the will; if the latter is missing,
that is, the conscious decision, then the development will come to
rest in a stupefying, unconscious automatism. But a man can make
a moral choice of his own way only when he holds it to be the best.
If any other way were held to be better, then he would live and
develop that other personality in place of his own. The other ways
are the conventions of a moral, social, political, philosophic, or reli-
gious nature. The fact that the conventions always flourish in one

10 Sec pages 281—305 of Dr. Jung's text for the full discussion of this Way — -termed by
the author as "the process of individuation." This selection is of necessity an abridgment of
the author's original, profound and illuminating analysis, The Integration of Personality,
Farrar and Rmchart, Inc., 1939.

The Search and the Finding 33

form or another proves that the overwhelming majority of mankind
chooses not its own way, but the conventions, and so does not de-
velop itself, but a collectivity at the cost of its own fullness.11

To undertake to develop personality is an unpopular venture, an
uncongenial deviation from the highway. No wonder then, that
from the beginning only the few have hit upon this strange adven-
ture. They thrust themselves up like mountain peaks out of the mass
that clung to its collective fears, convictions, laws and methods, and
chose their own way. And to the ordinary human being it always
seemed wonderful that someone should prefer to the beaten track,
with its known destination, a small and steep path that leads into
the unknown. This is why it was always believed that such a man,
if not out of his mind, was yet inhabited by a demon or god.

What, in the last analysis, induces a man to choose his own way
and so to climb out of unconscious identity with the mass as out
of a fog bank? It cannot be necessity, for necessity comes to many
and they all save themselves in convention. It cannot be moral choice,
for as a rule a man decides for convention. What is it, then, that
inexorably tilts the beam in favour of the extraordinary?

It is what is called vocation: an irrational factor that fatefully
forces a man to emancipate himself from the herd and its trodden
paths. True personality always has vocation and believes in it, has
fidelity to it as to God, in spite of the fact that, as the ordinary man
would say, it is only a feeling of individual vocation. But this voca-
tion acts like a law of God from which there is no escape. That
many go to ruin upon their own ways means nothing to him who
has vocation . . . Who has vocation hears the voice of the inner
man; he is called. This inner voice is the voice of a wider, more com-
prehensive consciousness,

Now, vocation, or the feeling of vocation, is not perchance the
prerogative of great personalities, but also belongs to the small ones

11 Just as the psychic and social life of mankind at a primitive level is exclusively a
group life with a high degree of unconsciousness in the individual, so the later historical
process of development is also a collective matter and will, no doubt, remain so. This is why
I believe in convention as a collective necessity. It is a makeshift and not an ideal, whether
in respect to morals or religion, for subjection to it always means repudiation of wholeness
and a flight from the final consequences of one's own being, (Dr. Jung)

34 The Way

all the way down to the duodecimo format; only, with the decrease
of proportions, it becomes more veiled and unconscious till it finally
merges into one with society . . . into the collective necessities . ,
Likewise to become a personality is not the absolute prerogative of
the man of genius. He may even have genius without either having
personality or being a personality. In so far as every individual has
his own inborn law of life, it is theoretically possible for every man to
follow this law before all others and so to become a personality —
that is, to achieve completeness.

Only the man who is able consciously to affirm the power of the
vocation confronting him from within becomes a personality; he
who succumbs to it falls a prey to the blind flux of happening and is
destroyed. The greatness and the liberating effect of all genuine per-
sonality consists in this, that it subjects itself of free choice to its voca-
tion and consciously translates into its own individual reality what
would lead only to ruin if it were lived unconsciously by the
group.

One of the most shining examples of the life and meaning of
personality that history has preserved for us is the life of Christ, . , .
Following the inner voice, his vocation and his calling, Jesus freely
exposed himself to the attack of the imperialistic delusion that filled
everyone, conqueror and conquered alike. In this way he recog-
nized the nature of the objective-psychic, which had plunged the
whole world into a state of suffering and had produced a yearning
for salvation that found its expression even in the heathen poets.
He did not suppress this psychic onslaught, but consciously let it
act upon him; nor did he allow himself to be suppressed by it, but
assimilated it. While the Jewish people as a whole was expecting an
imperialistic and politically active hero, Jesus fulfilled the Messianic
vocation less for his nation than for the Roman world, and pointed
out to humanity the old truth that, where force rules, there is no
love, and where love rules, force does not count. The religion of love
was the exact psychological counterpart to the Roman bedevilmcnt
with power.

The example of Christianity perhaps best illustrates the abstract

The Search and the Finding 35

discussions I have presented above. This apparently unique life has
become a sacred symbol because it is the prototype of the only mean-
ingful realization of its own particular law, such realization being
absolute and unconditional

The deification of Jesus as well as of Buddha is not surprising,
but strikingly shows the enormous valuation that humanity puts
upon these heroes, and so upon the ideal of the development of
personality. . . . The ideal of personality is an indestructible need
of the human souL

Just as great personality acts upon society to alleviate, liberate,
transform, and heal, so the birth of personality has a restoring effect
upon the individual. It is as if a stream that was losing itself in
marshy tributaries suddenly discovered its proper bed, or as if a stone
that lay upon a germinating seed were lifted away so that the sprout
could begin its natural growth.*-**

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychologist,
The Integration of the Personality, Trans. S. Dell.

The Way as Forsaking of Self and Cleaving to the "Best as Dearest"

Alas! all men, nay the whole world lieth in disobedience! Now
were a man simply and wholly obedient as Christ was, all disobedi-
ence were to him a sharp and bitter pain. But though all men were
against him, they could neither shake nor trouble him.

Behold! albeit no man may be so single and perfect in this obedi-
ence as Christ was, yet it is possible to every man to approach so near
there unto as to be rightly called Godlike, and "a partaker of the
divine nature."

Now men say, "I am in no wise prepared for this work, and there-
fore it cannot be wrought in me," and truly there is no one to blame
for this but themselves. For if a man were striving after nothing but
to diligently give his whole mind to see how he might become pre-
pared; verily God would well prepare him, for God giveth as much
care and earnestness and love to the preparing of a man as to the
pouring in of his Spirit when the man is prepared.

Let him therefore who wisheth that God should help him to

36 The Way

what is best, and best for him, give diligent heed to God's counsels
and teachings. Now God teacheth and admonisheth man to forsake
himself and all things, and to follow Him only. "For he who lovcth
his soul/' that is himself, and will guard it and keep it, "he shall
lose it"; that is, he who seekcth himself and his own advantage in all
things, in so doing loseth his soul. He who forsaketh himself and
his own things, and giveth up his own will, and fulfilleth God's
will, his soul will be kept and preserved unto Life Eternal.

Furthermore, ye must mark, that to receive God's commands and
His counsel and all His teaching, is the privilege of the inward man,
after that he is united with God. And where there is such a union,
the outward man is surely taught and ordered by the inward man,
so that no outward commandment or teaching is needed. But the
commandments and laws of men belong to the outer man, and are
needful for those men who know nothing better, for else they would
not know what to do and what to refrain from, and would become
like unto the dogs or other beasts.

# * * # #

Furthermore, it is a good way and access unto this life, to feel
always that what is best is dearest, and always to prefer the best,
and cleave to it, and unite oneself to it. When therefore among the
creatures the man cleaveth to that which is the best that he can
perceive, and kcepeth steadfastly to that, in singleness of heart, he
cometh afterward to what is better and better, until, at last, he findeth
and tasteth that the Eternal Good is a Perfect Good, without measure
and number above all created good. Now if what is best is to be
dearest to us, and we are to follow after it, the One Eternal Good
must be loved above all and alone, and we must cleave to Him alone,
and unite ourselves with Him as closely as we may. And now if we
are to ascribe all goodness to the One Eternal Good, as of right and
truth we ought, so must we also of right and truth ascribe unto Him
the beginning, middle, and end of our course, so that nothing remain
to man or the creature. So it should be of a truth, let men say what
they will.*

Written anonymously by one of the "Friends of God" in fourteenth century,

fhcologica Gtrmanica*

The Search and the Finding 37

The Way and "The Voice of the Beloved"

I am weary, of ten, to read and hear many things—

in Thee is all that I desire and long for.
Let all teachers hold their peace; let all

creatures be silent in Thy sight; speak unto me
Thou alone.

The Voice of the Beloved:

I am He who in one instant do lift up the humble
mind to comprehend more reasonings of eternal

Truth, than if one had studied ten years in the schools . . ,

The more a man is at one within himself and becometh
single in heart, so much the more and higher things
doth he without labor understand; for that he receiveth
the light of the understanding from above . . .

If thou wilt have me come unto thee, and remain with
thee; purge out the old leaven, and make clean the
habitation of thy heart. I am the Lover of purity
and the Giver of all holiness. I seek a pure heart,
and there is the place of my rest . , .

If thou couldest but perfectly bring thyself to
nothing, and empty thyself of all created love, then
ought I with great grace to flow into thee . . .

Howsoever little any thing be, if it is inordinately
loved and regarded, it keepeth thee back from the

Highest, and corrupteth the soul . . .

My son forsake thyself and thou shalt find me.

0 Thou Beloved:

Love eternal, my whole Good, Happiness which hath
no bounds, I desire to appropriate Thee with the
most vehement desire, and the most worthy reverence.

1 desire to reserve nothing unto myself.

38 The Way

O everlasting Light,, surpassing all created

luminaries, flash forth Thy lightning from above,
piercing all the most inward parts of my heart.

Make clean, make glad, make bright and make alive
my spirit, with all the powers thereof, that I
may cleave unto Thee in ecstasies of joy.**

Thomas a Kempis, 1380—1471. German mystic; belonged to Aut;ustinian Older of Monks.

The Imitation of Christ.1*

12 Some authorities credit at least pait of this book to Gerard de Groote, Founder of
the "Brothers of the Common Life," fourteenth century.

CHAPTER TWO

The Implications of the Way

Which of you, desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and
count the cost whether he have wherewith to complete it?

JESUS OF NAZARETH

No one can be enlightened unless he be first cleansed or purified
and stripped.

THEOLOGICA GERIVTANTCA

CHAPTER TWO

The Implications of the Way

In Chapter One were assembled selections which presented the Way
in a general over-all manner. This chapter attempts to break down the
religious process into specific steps. While these steps possibly never occur
in the sequence described, nonetheless each is essential to the progressive
achievement o£ that "dying to self" whereby the divine Goodness isS
permitted to function within the life of man.

These steps are designated as Choice, Purgation, Self-knowledge and
Self-acceptance, Devotion to the Good, and Rebirth, They imply a
reconditioning o£ ihe whole personality structure, conscious and un-
conscious. They imply an integrity of attitude that assures a progressive
unlayering of the ego-centered self, and a commitment that engenders a
gradual destruction of ego-limiting goals. Finally they imply a process of
transformation so thorough-going that it resembles and has often been
described as a rebirth. The selections which follow give content to each
of these implications.

For those who have no conviction of an Ultimate Reality — to whom
an attitude of devotion is meaningless because they have no infinite
"object" to which to direct their devotion — the Appendix titled The
Object of Devotion should be helpful. Therein are assembled ideas of
God as expressed by contemporary philosophers as well as by ancient
mystical writers.

THE WAY IMPLIES CHOICE

The choice is always ours. Then let me choose
The longest art, the hard Promethean way
Cherishingly to tend and feed and fan
That inward fire, whose small precarious flame,

The Implications of the Way 41

Kindled or quenched creates
The noble or the ignoble men we are.
The worlds we live in and the very fates,
Our bright or muddy star.

Aldous Huxley, 1894-. English writer, literary critic.
From the poem Orion.

The creature has nothing else in its power but the free use of its
will, and its free will hath no other power but that of concurring
with, or resisting, the working of God in nature.

William Law, 1686-1761. English clergyman, mystic.
Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

Until man appeared, evolution strove only, from an observer's
point of view, to manufacture an organ, the brain, in a body capable
of assuring its protection. All the ancestors of man were but irre-
sponsible actors playing an imposed part in a play which they did
not understand, or try to understand. Man continues to play his part
but wants to comprehend the play. He becomes capable of perfecting
himself, and he is even the only one capable of doing this. But in
order to improve himself he must be free, since his contribution to
evolution will depend on the use he makes of his liberty.

This transformation of man into an active, responsible individual
is the new event which, more than any other, characterizes man. Of
course the ancient mechanism of evolution, natural selection, will
again enter into play. But, instead of depending as formerly on the
slow action of biological laws and of chance, natural selection now
depends on conscience, a manifestation of cerebral activity based on
freedom which becomes, in each of us, the means put at our disposal
to advance. According to the degree of evolution we have reached we
will choose to progress or regress. Our choice will indicate precisely
the state of perfection we have attained.

Lecomte du Noiiy, 1883-1947. French bio-physicist,

Human Destiny.

The distresses of choice arc our chance to be blessed.

W. H. Auden.
For the Time Being,

42 The Way

Wise Men

Not In but With our time Love's energy
Exhibits Love's immediate operation;
The choice to love is open till we die.

Shepherds

O Living Love, by your birth we are able
Not only, like the ox and ass of the stable,,

To love with our live wills, but love,

Know we love.

Turn

O Living Love replacing phantasy,
O Joy of life revealed in Love's creation;
Our mood of longing turns to indication:
Space is the Whom our loves are needed by.
Time is our choice of How to love and Why.

W. H. Auden, 1907-. English poet.
From For the Time Being, a Christmas oratorio,

All the length of our conscious life, God for Whom we were
made, in Whom alone we can find what we want and understand
what we mean, presents Himself to the apprehension of our soul,
tempts our desire, pursues our will To this pressure we must react,
either with it or against it

R. H. J. Stcuart, S.J., 1874-. English priest.
The Inward Vision.

For the most part, of course, the presence and action of the great
spiritual universe surrounding us is no more noticed by us than the
pressure of air on our bodies, or the action of light Our field of atten-
tion is not wide enough for that; our spiritual senses are not suffi-
ciently alert. Most people work so hard developing their correspond-
ence with the visible world, that their power of corresponding with
the invisible is left in a rudimentary state.

The Implications of the Way 43

The moment in which, in one way or another, we become aware
of this creative action of God and are therefore able to respond or
resist, is the moment in which our conscious spiritual life begins. In
all the talk of human progress, it is strange how very seldom we hear
anything about this, the most momentous step forward that a human
being can make: for it is the step that takes us beyond self-interest.

There are many different ways in which the step can be taken.
It may be, from the ordinary human point of view, almost imper-
ceptible: because, though it really involves the very essence of man's
being, his free and living will, it is not linked with a special or vivid
experience. Bit by bit the inexorable pressure is applied, and bit by
bit the soul responds; until a moment comes when it realizes that
the landscape has been transformed, and is seen in a new proportion
and lit by a new light. But sometimes the step is a distinct and vivid
experience. Then we get the strange facts of conversion: when
through some object or event— in the external world, another world
and its overwhelming attraction and demand is realised. An old
and limited state of consciousness is suddenly, even violently, broken
up and another takes its place. It was the voice of a child saying
"Take, read!" which at last made St. Augustine cross the frontier on
which he had been lingering, and turned a brilliant and selfish
young professor into one of the giants of the Christian Church; and
a voice which seemed to him to come from the Crucifix, which
literally made the young St. Francis, unsettled and unsatisfied, an-
other man than he was before. It was while St. Ignatius sat by a
stream and watched the running water, and while the strange old
cobbler Jacob Boehme was looking at a pewter dish, that there was
shown to each of them the mystery of the Nature of God. A spring is
touched, a Reality always there discloses itself in its awe-inspiring
majesty and intimate nearness, and becomes the ruling fact of exist-
ence; continually presenting its standards, and demanding a costly
response. And so we get such an astonishing scene, when we reflect
upon it, as that of the young Francis of Assisi, little more than a
boy, asking all night long the one question which so many ap-
parently mature persons have never asked at all: "My God and All,

44 The Way

what are Thou and what am I?" and we realise with amazement
what a human creature really is — a finite centre of consciousness,
which is able to apprehend, and long for, Infinity.*

Evelyn Underbill, 1875-1944. English writer, mystic.

The Spiritual Life,

We think we must climb to a certain height of goodness before
we can reach God- But He says not "At the end of the end of the
way you may find me"; He says "I am the Way; I am the road
under your feet, the road that begins just as low down as you happen
to be." If we are in a hole the Way begins in the hole. The moment
we set our face in die same direction as His, we are walking with
God.

Helen Wodehousc, 1880^. Educator.

God impels nobody, for he will have no one saved by compul-
sion . . . God has given free will to men that they may choose for
themselves, either the good or the bad. Christ said to his disciples,
"Will ye go away ?" as tho he would say, "You are under no compul-
sion," and, "God forces no one, for love cannot compel and God's
service is, therefore, a thing of complete freedom." *

Hans Denck, 1495-1527. German mystic, spiritual reformer.

On the Law oj God.

The world is tired of individualism (which economic-dominated
minds call by its economic symptom, capitalism). Many men are so
desperate that they will use violence to rid themselves of individual-
ism, though it itself is the product of violence, and grows with
violence. They are like men adrift and dying of thirst who in their
madness drink sea-water.

The compulsory economic communism is based on hate. The
psychological (communism) is based on love, on the steadily ex-
panding power which grows by giving. Because consciousness and
the psyche are more fundamental than the means of life, it will
always be the emotion and motive, and not the supposed aim, that
will govern and shape the actual achievement. If the psychology is
right, then the right economics, the only economics bearable to a

The Implications of the Way 45

happy, just, social and charitic nature, will follow. If a man realises
how he must and how he may lose his individuality, he will not
thereafter cling to greed which can prevent his deliverance and ruin
his happiness.

This, then, it would seem, is the future of religion, and one
neither otherworldly nor distant. Men may enter on their happi-
ness when they will, and they should not hesitate, for the old order
is over anyhow. Man may be far more happy than any but the saints
have so far been, or far more wretched than it is possible for a man
to be and not to become a beast. Which he will choose to be no one
can say. He may see the choice, make the effort and attain the new
life. Or he may drift, persuade himself that things are well enough,
and that they will last his time. But it is certain that here in our day
the middle path ends. Nationalism and individualism are outraged
by the integration of the world; they must cut these tendrils and
rootlets that are binding the world together, or they will be obliterated.
Physical science puts at their disposal forces that can really tear in
pieces these connections and rupture every artery of the world's
economic life. Everyone may destroy, and so none may escape.

Here therefore, and here alone, in the advance of religion there
seems to lie to our hand the solution of the aeonic conflict of the indi-
vidual, and with that solution, at the same stroke (for this is but its
other side), the salvation of civilization. Here lies the reconciliation
of the individual's intense passion to survive and the race's apparently
disregardful continuance. Here is the door passing through which
the individual returns to society, society becomes the race, the race
is reunited with life, and life is one with the universe.*

Gerald Heard, 1889-. English author, religious philosopher.
The Social Substance of Religion.

Every one who hears these words of mine and does them will be
like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain
fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that
house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them
will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand ; and

46 The Way

the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat
against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.

Jesus of Nazareth.
New Testament, (Matt, 7). Revised Standard Version,

THE WAY IMPLIES INNER PURGATION

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear
to man as it is, infinite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow
chinks of his cavern.

William Blake, 1757-1827. English poet, artist, mystic.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Except for those rare spirits that are born without sin, there is a
cavern of darkness to be traversed before that temple can be entered.
The gate of the cavern is despair, and its floor is paved with the
gravestones of abandoned hopes. There Self must die; there the eager-
ness, the greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can the
soul be freed from the empire of Fate. But out of the cavern the
Gate of Renunciation leads again to the daylight of wisdom, by
whose radiance a new insight, a new joy, a new tenderness, shine
forth to gladden the pilgrim's heart.

Bertram! Russell, 1872-, English mathematician, philosopher,

Mysticism and Logic.

Abandon Hope All Ye That Enter Here
To die — for this into the world you came.

Yes, to abandon more than you ever conceived as possible:

All ideals, plans— even the very best and most unselfish — all
hopes and desires,

All formulas of morality, all reputation for virtue or consistency
or good sense; all cherished theories, doctrines, systems of knowl-
edge.

Modes of life, habits, predilections, preferences, superiorities,
weaknesses, indulgences.

The Implications of the Way 47

Good health, wholeness of limb and brain, youth, manhood,
age — nay life itself — in one word: To die —
For this into the world you came.

All to be abandoned, and when they have been finally abandoned,
Then to return to be used — and then only to be rightly used, to
be free and open forever*

Edward Carpenter, 1844-1929. English author, poet.
Towards Democracy.

No man is free until he is free at the center. When he lets go there
he is free indeed. When the self is renounced, then one stands utterly
disillusioned, apart, asking for nothing. He anticipates the sorrows,
the bufferings, the slights, the separations, the disappointments of
life by their acceptance in one great renunciation. It is life's supreme
strategic retreat. You can then say to life, "What can you do to me ?
I want nothing!" You can say to death, "What can you do to me?
I have already died!" Then is a man truly free. In the bath of
renunciation he has washed his soul clean from a thousand clamor-
ing, conflicting desires. Asking for nothing, if anything comes to
him, it is all sheer gain. Then life becomes one constant surprise.

Everything belongs to the man who wants nothing. Having
nothing, he possesses all things in life, including life itself. Nothing
will be denied the man who denies himself. Having chosen to be
utterly solitary he now comes into possession of the most utterly
social fact in the universe, the kingdom of God. He wants nothing of
the world of man or of matter. He has God. That is enough. Now he
is ready to come back into the world. He is washed clean of desires,
now he can form new ones, from a new center and with a new
motive. This detachment is necessary to a new attachment. The full-
est and most complete life comes out of the most completely empty
life*

E. Stanley Jones, 1884-. American, Christian missionary to India, author,

The recognition and careful observation of non-personal psychical
factors entails and leads to a sacrifice of the ego— not in the form of
an abolition, but in the form of a renunciation of its supremacy. It

48 The Way

is no longer possible always to say: I want, I decide, I do, and so on,
because it is evident that things happen to me, which are decided for
me, and that factors other than the conscious "1" do or think in me.
The ego is the vehicle for these other factors and it is responsible for
them; but their roots are not in it but in the larger psyche. This is an
attitude comparable to that of St. Paul when lie says (Gal. ii 20) : "I
live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me"; and it is certainly an attitude
which can be called religious. It is, in a way, a kind of death of the
ego and is often represented in dreams. This entails a deliberate
renunciation of the hitherto dominating position of the ego, the con-
scious person as I know myself to be.*

Ton! WoliT, contemporary Swiss analytical psychologist.

C /iris titi nit v II r it Inn ,

We all have so much good about us, so many selfless motives, so
much loveliness, childlikeness, joyousness. But why do men gen-
erally feel so little of it? Why does it not penetrate through? Why
does it not radiate victoriously from us? Why is not "good" king
of the world ? For this reason — because it possesses only the forefield.
It does not possess the central, inner place. There, in the inner place,
something else, the defiant, crafty "I" of man reigns, which has not
yet fully surrendered itself, which still remains for itself, which still
wants to be something by itself, not fully good nor fully bad. As
long as this "I" sits in this fortress, all this busy chasing and running
after the good is futile. This fortress must be stormed, this human
place must finally surrender, must allow itself to be overcome. Be-
fore that happens, the good will never be king on earth.

Above all, He (Jesus) saw that this last inner stronghold is most
unbroken in the pious and believing people whose piety serves to
establish more firmly the defiant, crafty "I" of man.

Jesus made short shrift of all the ideals and religious and patriotic
endeavors of His time. He possessed the profound insight that man
must be overcome. A sacrifice must be made; no, not just a sacrifice,
but the sacrifice, the sacrifice of man. And He made it Himself,3*

Karl Barth, 1886-. German theologian, author.
Edward Thurncysen, contemporary Swiss minister.

Come Holy Spirit,

The Implications of the Way 49

Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy great inward
peace.

Lord, how often shall I resign myself? and wherein shall I for-
sake myself? Always and at every hour; as well in small things as
in great. I except nothing, but in all things I will thee to be found
naked. Otherwise, how canst thou be Mine, and I thine, unless thou
be stript of self-will both within and without ? The sooner thou doest
this, the better it will be with thee; and the more fully and sincerely
thou doest this, the greater shall be thy gain.

Give all for all; ask for nothing, require back nothing; abide
purely and unhesitatingly in Me, and thou shalt possess Me; thou
shalt be free in heart, and darkness shall not tread thee down.**

Thomas a Kempis, 1380-1471, German mystic; belonged to Augustinian Order of Monks.

The Imitation of Christ.

"It seems to me that to discover what to put before oneself in the
first place, is the whole problem of life," he said.

"It seems so to you now. So it did to me — for years. But it is not
a problem that any man is under compulsion to solve."

"An artist has his answer, I suppose," Lewis continued, "and a
saint. But most of us have none. We snatch at any answer that comes
—Freedom, Country, and now, in Russia, Class. Is there any answer
that endures except Art and God?"

"Death is the answer," Narwitz said. "No," he added swiftly,
"not in the sense in which men say stupidly that 'death is the answer
to all things/ meaning only that they are tired of thought. When we
are young children, we know nothing of death. Then we become
aware of it, recognize it, fear it or conquer our fear of it, seeing it
always objectively as something outside ourselves, a final pit perhaps,
or a pit we shall climb out of, as some believe, into another life. But
there is another stage in the knowledge of death. A man who ceases
to regard it as something outside himself and, so to speak, draws it
into his consciousness and assimilates the idea of it is completely
changed. He is in all truth born again. He sees himself now in a
second place absolutely— not relatively to something else in the first
place. What occupies the first place he may, or may not, karn some

50 The Way

day, but that is not of present importance. The arrogance, the de-
lusion that I have found it hardest to overcome," he said, leaning
towards Lewis as though this aided his confession, "the fatal delusion
is our belief that we are entitled to first place until we have discov-
ered in our own experience something that transcends us. So we set
up idols, our country, our creed, our art, our beloved one, what you
will, and pour all our spiritual possessions into the idol's lap. We
call that humility or love — Turgeniev would call it self-sacrifice.
Except to the gods we make out of our experience or dreams we
will not kneel down. But the true saint and philosopher," Narwitz
concluded in a tone not of assertion but of longing, "is he who can
kneel without an image because he sees himself in a second place abso-
lutely, and to kneel is an inward necessity to him. Fate cannot touch
such a man— or, rather, though it rend his mind and body, it cannot
affect him,"

Charles Morgan, 1894-. English novelist.
The Fountain.

"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty." The words to many are mean-
ingless. And it is certain that by no poring over the words themselves
can the vision which they express be attained. Nor, probably, if we
turn them about, like a jewel of many facets, will they reflect a gleam.

We may turn them in many ways. We may say that the Real is
Beautiful. The answer straightway is that the Real is full of ugliness
and pain. And this is true: who will deny it? But the Beauty of the
Real is a Beauty which resides as surely in pain and ugliness as in
beauty itself. There is the sorrow which makes

Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.

But that sorrow may still be called, by our human standards,
beautiful. The Beauty of the Real is beyond this. It lies in the perfec-
tion of uniqueness which belongs to every thing, or thought, simply
because it is.

But this is not Beauty. And indeed it is not what men commonly
call Beauty, any more than the Love with which all high religion
invests its Deity is what is commonly called Love among men, any

The Implications of the Way 51

more than the Perfection which, Spinoza said, belonged to every
existence is what men commonly call perfection. None the less, the
great sayings that "God is Love," and that "Omnis existentia est
perfectio" have their meaning for those who understand them.
Keats uttered another saying worthy to stand with these simple and
lucid finalities. "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty" belongs to the same
order as they; nor can any one truly understand any one of these
sayings without understanding the others.

For the only name for the faculty by which we can discern that
element of Beauty which is present in every Fact, which we must
discern in every Fact before it becomes Truth for us, is Love.
Whether it is Love which discovers the Beauty in Fact, whereby it
becomes Truth; or whether it is the Beauty of Fact which causes the
motion of Love to arise in our souls, and so to discern its Truth —
to such questions there is no answer, nor any need to answer them.
The relation between these things is simple and inextricable. When
we love a Fact, it becomes Truth; when we attain that detachment
from our passions whereby it becomes possible for us to love all
Facts, then we have reached our Peace, If a Truth cannot be loved,
it is not Truth, but only Fact. But the Fact does not change, in order
that it may become Truth; it is we who change. All Fact is beautiful;
it is we who have to regain our innocence to see its Beauty.

But this is inhuman, it may be said. And if it is indeed inhuman
to be detached for a moment from all human passion, to see for a
moment all things that happen as sheer happenings, to cease for a
moment to feel what men call love and hate in the peace of a Love
that is distinct from, and beyond them both, then it is inhuman.
But this ultimate disinterestedness begins at home. It is achieved
only by disinterestedness towards the pain and ugliness of one's
own experience; and it is achieved chiefly by those to whom the
pain of others has been as their own pain. This detachment is
reached not through insensibility, but through sensibility grown
intolerable.

None can usurp this height
But those to whom the miseries of the world
Arc misery, and will not let them rest.

52 The Way

Whether or not it is easily intelligible, there is a meaning in
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty" which satisfies the conditions
which we proposed as necessary. It is simple, but not easy; and it
involves a great renunciation. That the first condition is satisfied is
abundantly evident from our efforts to expound it. It is its utter
simplicity which makes it so impossible to explain.

And perhaps it is equally evident that it involves a great re-
nunciation. To attain the vision which Keats describes as the
knowledge that "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty" we are required
to put away all our human desires and beliefs and anxieties. We
have to forget all those cares, delightful or painful, which appertain
to our animal existence. Our joys and sorrows must become remote
as though they happened to others than ourselves, or to ourselves
in some other mode of existence from which we have awakened as
from a dream. All the infinite, the all but total activities of man,
conscious or unconscious, which are directed towards the mainte-
nance and assertion of the instinctive will to live, must be put away.
Cease they cannot, nor can we make them cease; but we must cease
to be identified with them. They are the substrate of our vision ; with-
out them we cannot see as we desire to see. But when we have
become an Eye, the Eye cannot belong to them, or they to it. It sees
them with the same utter detachment with which it sees all things
else. And this detachment is a real detaching.

Than this no greater renunciation is possible. All we are is
become object to the pure vision of this Eye. Our secretest desires,
our most precious aspirations, the finest point of our being— all is
"out there," naked to the contemplation of eternity, of which con-
templation we are the momentary instruments. A chasm divides the
being that we are from the seeing that is ourselves. The renunciation
is entire, the spirit is pure.*

John Middleton Murry, 1889-, English author, critic.

Studies in Keats.

PURGATION MORE SPECIFICALLY CLARIFIED

He that hath ears, let him hear.

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the

The Implications of the Way 53

field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and
selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a
merchant seeking goodly pearls: and having found one pearl of
great price., he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

Jesus o£ Nazareth,
From the Gospel According to Luke, New Testamem^

Therefore if a heart is to be ready for him, it must be emptied out
to nothingness, the condition of its maximum capacity. So, too, a
disinterested heart, reduced to nothingness, is the optimum, the
condition of maximum sensitivity.

Take an illustration from nature. If I wish to write on a white
tablet, then no matter how fine the matter already written on it, it
will confuse me and prevent me from writing down (my thoughts) ;
so that, if I still wish to use the tablet, I must first erase all that is
written on it, but it will never serve me as well for writing as when
it is clean. Similarly, if God is to write his message about the highest
matters on my heart, everything to be referred to as "this or that"
must first come out, and I must be disinterested. God is free to do
his will on his own level when my heart, being disinterested, is bent
on neither this nor that.

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.
Mfister Eckhart, Trans. R. Blakney.

Turning from the Unreal to the Real

By false desires and false thoughts man has built up for himself
a false universe: as a mollusc, by the deliberate and persistent absorp-
tion of lime and rejection of all else, can build up for itself a hard
shell which shuts it from the external world, and only represent
in a distorted and unrecognizable form the ocean from which it
was obtained. This hard and wholly unnutritious shell, this one-sided
secretion of the surface-consciousness, makes as it were a little cave
of illusion for each separate soul. A literal and deliberate getting out
of the cave must be for every mystic, as it was for Plato's prisoners,
the first step in the individual hunt for reality.

In the plain language of old-fashioned theology "man's sin is

54 The Way

stamped upon man's universe." We see a sham world because we
live a sham life. We do not know ourselves; hence do not know
the true character of our senses and instincts; hence attribute wrong
values to their suggestions and declarations concerning our relation
to the external world. That world, which we have distorted by
identifying it with our own self-regarding arrangements of its
elements, has got to reassume for us the character of Reality, of God.
In the purified sight of the great mystics it did reassume this
character; their shells were opened wide, they knew the tides of the
Eternal Sea. This lucid apprehension of the True is what we mean
when we speak of the Illumination which results from a faithful
acceptance of the trials of the Purgative Way. . . .

Whatever form, then, the mystical adventure may take, it must
begin with a change in the attitude of the subject; a change which
will introduce it into the order of Reality, and enable it to set up
permanent relations with an Object which is not normally part of
its universe. Therefore, though the end of mysticism is not adequately
defined as goodness, it entails the acquirement of goodness. . . .

Primarily, then, the self must be purged of all that stands
between it and goodness; putting on the character of reality instead
of the character of illusion or "sin.** It longs ardently to do this from
the first moment in which it sees itself in the all-revealing radiance
of the Uncreated light. "When love openeth the inner eyes of the
soul for to see this truth," says Hilton, "with other circumstances
that come withall, then beginneth the soul forsooth to be vastly
meek. For then by the sight of God it feeleth and seeth itself as
it is, and then doth the soul forsake the beholding and leaning to
itself." . . .

The first thing that the self observes, when it turns back upon
itself in that awful moment of lucidity — enters, as St. Catherine
says, into "the cell of self-knowledge," — is the horrible contrast
between its clouded contours and the pure sharp radiance of the
Real; between its muddled faulty life, its perverse self-centered
drifting, and the clear onward sweep of that Becoming in which it
is immersed. It is then that the outlook of rapture and awe receives
the countersign of repentance. The harbinger of that new self

The Implications of the Way 55

which must be born appears under the aspect of a desire: a passionate
longing to escape from the suddenly perceived hatefulness of self-
hood, and to conform to Reality, the Perfect which it has seen
under its aspect of Goodness, of Beauty, or of Love— to be worthy
of it, in fact to be real. . . .

To the true lover of the Absolute, Purgation no less than Illumina-
tion is a privilege, a dreadful joy. It is an earnest of increasing life.
"Let me suffer or die!" said St. Teresa: a strange alternative in the
ears of common sense, but a forced option in the spiritual sphere.
However harsh its form, however painful the activities to which it
spurs him, the mystic recognizes in this breakup of his old universe
an essential part of the Great Work; and the act in which he turns
to it is an act of loving desire, no less than an act of will. , . .

The purgation of the senses, and of the character which they
have helped to build is always placed first in order in the Mystic
Way; though sporadic flashes of illumination and ecstasy may, and
often do, precede and accompany it. Since spiritual no less than
physical existence, as we know it, is an endless Becoming, it too
has no end.

In this sense, then, purification is a perpetual process. That which
mystical writers mean, however, when they speak of the Way of
Purgation, is rather the slow and painful completion of Conversion.
It is the drastic turning of the self from the unreal to the real life: a
setting of her house in order, an orientation of the mind to Truth.
Its business is the getting rid, first of self-love; and secondly of all
those foolish interests in which the surface-consciousness is steeped.

Evelyn Underbill, 1875-1944, English writer, mystic.

Mysticism.

Compromise Untenable

After experience had taught me that the common occurrences
of ordinary life are vain and futile, and I saw that all the objects of
my deSire and fear were in themselves nothing good nor bad, save
in so far as the mind was affected by them; I at length determined to
search out whether there were not something truly good and com-
municable to man, by which his spirit might be affected to the ex-

56 The Way

elusion of all other things: yea, whether there were anything,
through the discovery and acquisition of which I might enjoy con-
tinuous and perfect gladness forever. I say that I at length de-
termined, because at first sight it seemed ill-advised to renounce
things, in the possession of which I was assured, for the sake of what
was yet uncertain. ... I therefore turned over in my mind whether
it might be possible to come at this new way, or at least to the
certitude of its existence, without changing my usual way of life,
(a compromise which I had often attempted before, but in vain).
For the things that commonly happen in life and are esteemed
among men as the highest good (as is witnessed by their works)
can be reduced to these three, Riches, Fame, and Lust; and by these
the mind is so distracted that it can scarcely think of any other good.
With regard to Lust, the mind is as much absorbed thereby as if it
had attained rest in some good: and this hinders it from thinking of
anything else. But after fruition a great sadness follows, which, if
it does not absorb the mind, will yet disturb and blunt it. ... But
love directed towards the eternal and infinite feeds the mind with
pure joy, and is free from all sadness. Wherefore it is greatly to be
desired, and to be sought after with our whole might . . . (and)
although I could perceive this quite clearly in my mind, I could
not at once lay aside all greed and lust and honour. . . . One thing
I could see, and that was that so long as the mind was turned upon
this new way, it was deflected, and seriously engaged therein; which
was a great comfort to me; for I saw that those evils were not such
as would not yield to remedies: and though at first these intervals
were rare and lasted but a short while, yet afterwards the true good
became more and more evident to me, and these intervals more
frequent and of longer duration.5*

Benedict Spinoza, 1632-1677. Dutch philosopher.

Renunciation of Immaturities

Every person must learn the art of renouncing many things in
order to possess other things more securely and fully. This is a most
important and difficult step. As children, we knew very little about

The Implications of the Way 57

the necessity of renunciation. The young mind simply has no ex-
perience in the postponement of satisfaction. Yet as we grow older
we learn that every stage of human development calls upon us to
weigh differing goods in the scales and to sacrifice some for the sake
of others. . . .

The man who wishes to achieve stature in the mature world will
have to renounce many careers in order to fulfill one. The same
truth exists in the realm of emotions. It is fitting and proper for
the adolescent to transfer his love interest from one object of affec-
tion to another, but it is tragic in our monogamous society when
the grown man still plays the role of the adolescent and sacrifices
himself and his family upon the altar of his unstable feelings and
daydreams.

Time is an irreversible arrow, and we can never return to the
self that we sloughed off in childhood or adolescence. The man try-
ing to wear youth's carefree clothing, the woman costuming her
emotions in doll's dresses — these are pathetic figures who want to
reverse time's arrow. They have not yet learned to renounce the
desires that once were appropriate for an earlier level of being but
are utterly out of place in succeeding chapters. Human existence
means the closing of doors, many doors, before one great door can
be opened — the door of mature love and of adult achievement.

No person can attain genuine self-respect until he achieves the
knowledge of the consistent and the inconsistent. As an adult he
must accept duties and responsibilities and cultivate his true fulfill-
ment in the acre he has chosen — the acre of love and marriage,
vocation, and avocation. He must be able not only to say, but to
realize deeply within himself, that he is no longer an uninvolved
free human atom. "Everything that I do," such a man must say,
"is like the pebble thrown into a pool, making larger and larger
ripples in the waters of other lives."

Renunciation is often painful, and we cling stubbornly to the
romantic cloak-and-dagger characters of our fantasy life. But danger-
ous and vain is the attempt to relive in actuality the fantasies of
childhood, or to attempt to breach those barriers between the possible
and the impossible which maturing years have erected. . . .

58 The Way

It should be noted that there is a difference between renunciation
and repression. A person who represses all his ambitions and wishes
and denies any reality to them is on the road to misery. The person,
on the other hand, who consciously renounces unrealizable and
unworthy desires has strengthened himself by daring to face his
life as it is and making clear to himself why he has chosen that course
of action. A man who can say to himself, "I know that there is still
something of the adolescent within me, and yet I know that I can
ruin my life and the lives of others if I should smash the mature
pattern which I now possess; therefore, for the sake of abiding and
permanent happiness, I willingly sacrifice the ephemeral tempta-
tion'*— such a man has achieved the wisdom of renunciation without
repression.

We shall become free of inner conflict and burden only when we
have looked renunciation directly in the face and persuaded our-
selves that it is essential for the fulfillment of our true and permanent
happiness. Persons who have made such renunciation have learned
to live not for the fleeting and perishable ecstasy of the moment, but
for the eternal and abiding values which alone are the sources of
self-respect and peace of mind.*

Joshua Loth Liebman, 1907-. Jewish Rabbi, educator.

Peace of Mind,

Renunciation of the Spirit of the World

Every person, when he first applies himself to the exercise of the
virtue of humility, must consider himself as a learner. He has not
only as much to do, as he that has some new art or science to learn,
but he has also a great deal to unlearn: He is to forget and lay aside
his own Spirit, which has been a long while fixing and forming it-
self; he must forget, and depart from abundance of passions and
opinions, which the fashion, and vogue, and spirit of the world
have made natural to him. Because the vogue and fashion of the
world, by which we have been carried away as in a torrent, before
we could pass right judgments of the value of things, is, in many
respects, contrary to humility.

To abound in wealth, to have fine houses and rich clothes, to

The Implications of the Way 59

be beautiful in our persons, to have titles of dignity, to be above our
fellow-creatures, to overcome our enemies with power, to subdue
all that oppose us, to set out ourselves in as much splendor as we can,
to live highly and magnificently, to eat, and drink, and delight
ourselves in the most costly manner, these are the great, the honour-
able, the desirable things, to which the spirit of the world turns the
eyes of all people. And many a man is afraid of standing still, and
not engaging in the pursuit of these things, lest the same world
should take him for a fool.

This is the mark of Christianity; you are to be dead, that is, dead
to the spirit and temper of the world, and live a new life in the
Spirit of Jesus Christ.

William Law, 1686-1761. English clergyman and mystic.
Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

Forms of Self-love to be Renounced

In broadest outline we see the universe evolving life, and life
evolving to continually extended awareness. We see our individuality
as a phase— perhaps a "hairpin bend" in the zig-zag spiral of ascent—
and we see that our task in co-operating with the purpose of life and
the universe is so to act and to think that we become increasingly
aware of our extra-individuality — that is, the common life which
unites us with our fellow creatures with all life and the universe. . . .

The first aim is to keep the individual from losing his flexibility,
sensitiveness, adaptability, power of growth. Against the constant
tendency to settle down, stiffen, "to be subdued by what it works in,"
to accept as absolute the current assumptions and partial prejudices,
the human spirit has to practise a compensatory expansion, a constant
keeping in training, an athleticism. . . . However, it is not denial,
but a wider acceptance that is aimed at, an expansion which casts off,
as atrophied, confining husks, its old practices and passions. ... So
a rationed life is pursued in order that the individual may attain the
maximum of growth with the minimum of effort— for few of us can
grow as we would unless we give ourselves every available help.
Reciprocally it also aims at innocency. The individual who concen-
trates on his extra-individual life encroaches less and less on the lives

60 ' The Way

of others. He is essentially innocent, harming none, exacting from
none, and able to give because he draws on an extra-individual gener-
osity.

The rationed life, then, aims at two things: efficiency and inno-
cency. How can the individual find his path to this double freedom ?
Nearly everyone finds himself involved in a threefold entanglement
of body, personality, and society. As an animal, as a propertied indi-
vidual, and as a social constituent, each one has a treble involvement
from which to extricate himself. The mortificator would cut the
knot. . . . The knot cannot be cut, but must be untied, because, as
individualism is a phase to be surmounted, there can, clearly, be no
private salvation. The individual cannot foresake society or call life
evil. He grows by developing each power until it transcends its limits
and what, contracted, would have been a private vice becomes, ex-
panded, a public virtue.

We must then examine in turn the three levels on which individ-
uality is present, threatens to make itself permanent, but must and
can be made transitional, leading to a larger, correlating conscious-
ness.

The Three Involvements to be Solved by Growth:

(a) Physical: Addiction — The first level is the physical. Appetite
may become an addiction, an end in itself. Then, as the original
creative energy, which informed it, volatilizes out of it, the pointless
repetition becomes a habit, no longer with any gusto or keen delight
in it, but a process dictated by what is becoming an autonomous
reflex. The pleasure grows less but the compulsion is irresistible, be-
cause the habit is so strongly confirmed by constant practice and the
energy, thus drawn away, is lacking to resist the reflex* The vice is no
longer interesting, but power of interest in any other compensatory
activity is gone and the individual becomes a slave to an ever-narrow-
ing function. This can be avoided if appetite is kept as a means and
so prevented from becoming a fixation. To do this successfully, three
things are necessary: mentally, a point of view; psych ©physically, a
breadth of alternatives; and, psychically, exercise in strengthening
the will.

The Implications of the Way 61

One of the chief troubles about physical appetite today is that it
is for all Mechanomorphists the ultimate reality and as such has
Freud recognized it. ... In the state of civilization where a larger
cosmology was recognized, where consciousness was assumed to be
more than the body, appetite could not be so dangerous. The nearer a
psychic activity is to the subconscious, the more it tends to be able to
look after itself, provided the individual will live just healthily and
follow on (or rather let himself be carried forward by) the natural
flow of interest. Appetite then is not a severe problem in simpler
communities. . . .

It is one of die unsuspected tragedies of a falsely intellectualized
society (such as the mechanomorphic) that lust becomes the only aim
and purpose in the whole universe. Its presence is the one sure guar-
antee of life— of death being still far away . . . The ecstasy of union
through psychological means, through the fact that in its higher
stages the individual consciousness blends with others, with all life,
this ecstasy can, in a mechanomorphic age, only be obtained at the
lower (at the pre-individual instead of at the post-individual)
end.

Appetite, especially sexual appetite, needs then, direction. The
hope that by leaving the reins on the horse's neck, by getting rid of
all tabus and yielding freely to impulse, impulse would become
eliminated is not true in a mechanomorphic society and may — as
man has no specific instincts — be untrue of any human society. . . .
The fact that our emotions are very flexible means that they easily
become suited to any habit or lack of habit. . . . We know that sex
begins by being diff used and reaches a focus, so in fully healthy living,
where the individual realizes his evolution and his present phasal
condition, sex will expand again, after having passed through its
specific focus. (Such seems to happen in successful parenthood where
general tenderness takes the place of intense passion and cherishing
is substituted for possessing.) . . .

The small insurance-cost which an ordered and rationed life entails
is, after all, a slight exaction beside the bankrupting charges made
by uncontrolled desire. Yet, again it must be repeated, this is not to
advocate the life of mortification or denial. The conventional ascetic

62 The Way

is a very dangerous person. Better an addict who hates his failure, as
nearly all do, than an arrogant who, as nearly all do, prides himself
on his achievement. The aim of ordering appetite is not for ordering's
sake — not for a sense of power or display — but as a means to a fuller
life.

(b) Social: Posscsswencss — Possessiveness, we have seen, already
appears in sexual relationships. It extends, however, much more
widely. Man has a necessary capacity for saving, but this passion,
if he conceives of himself as nothing but an individual, and happens
to be of a timid and cautious nature, will become morbid and
dominant. This state is, however, easily cured, once the individual
realizes the phasic nature of his individuality. Possessivencss itself is
the characteristic symptom of individualism, and so the passion for
security and over-saving have naturally marked the culmination and
crisis of the mechanomorphic age, in which individuality was taken
to be the final and absolute term.

There are, however, forms of possessiveness which are loftier and
therefore more subtle and dangerous. . . . The individual argued
out of his love of money-avarice, and forbidden it, may yet be un-
cured of the root passion. He will still suffer from a possessive wish
to influence those particularly loved. Because he cannot realize that
this individual experience is part of a vast development and that there
are ahead of him stages of power and influence far above any help he
can give today ... he acts precipitately, impatiently. He would
coerce those over whom his love gives him power. ... "I must use
authority to save them from my mistakes," It is the gentlest of
violences and yet may do the authentic damage violence must always
inflict. If, however, the individual realizes that he and his charge both
have a vast time of development before them, he will no longer be
tempted to take the short-cut. He will realize that everyone must
freely accept for himself, and not to please another, the way of
advance.

This, however, may seem an almost inhuman patience. But, . . .
he who lives for the larger individual life has already begun to tran-
scend his individuality. He thinks too often that he is making no
progress and that his superficial, still unresolved egotism spoils and

The Implications of the Way 63

betrays his every effort to serve and show forth the larger life. He
can comfort himself by realizing that the last thing which will be
melted will be that defensive crust of personality, for personality is
most intransigent and rigid on the surface. Underneath the deeper
levels are being made more fluid and, as it is in the deeper levels of
the mind (we see through telepathy) that individuals have their
profound and decisive contact, he who cares, if he cares only for the
other's growth and not for the expansion of his own power, is all the
while transmitting influence. ... To attempt to influence con-
sciously is either to arouse opposition — opposition all the more effica-
cious, the more it is unconscious — or to reduce the patient to a stage
of psychological parasitism. Until all individualism is transcended
and fused, unconscious influence alone is safe and pure. . . .

From military influence and coercion, which "makes a desolation
and calls it peace," to that possessive maternalism which will not let
its child be "weaned" ... it is clear that the better the end and
motive, the more the mistaken means does such damage as to prevent
the end being attained.

The man who is rationed has therefore few possessions, and these
he would at any moment hand to any other who might use them
better; they are simply the tools of his craft. Even in personal relation-
ships he would guard against all possessiveness. . . . This is, need it
be said, no scorn of life or coldness of heart, but the vivid and con-
tinual awareness that, until individuality is transcended, love and life
have not in reality begun. Until each can recognize in each their
common transcendent life, affection and sympathy are still no more
than rudiments.

(c) Psychical: Pretension — The third danger is great because it
inflames the judgment itself and has no natural limit or satiety. That
danger is Pretension: pride, the claim to be honoured, respected,
recognized, praised, deferred to, valued not for beauty or wealth but
for character. It is all the more dangerous because it comes last and
cannot indeed really envelop the man and net him in his individual-
ity unless first he has rid himself, or been rid, of the two lower
involvements— bodily addictions and ordinary possessiveness. He will
not be able to dominate unless he is strong, and the man who is liable

64 The Way

to be dominated by lust or love of goods is always liable to be beaten
by the man who is superior to these lures. Most dictators are abste-
mious. Ambition, like morphia, takes away the more innocently
animal lusts. The will for power is insatiable, for it can have no
limit. . . . Ambition, as the mythos says, is the individual deter-
mined to become god. Therefore it is deadly and all profound moral-
ity diagnoses it as the supreme sin. ... Great wealth can be like a
huge sledgehammer in one's hand — you try to touch gently with it,
you cannot, it smashes at every touch. Great charm can be like the
face of Moses — something which should be shrouded, for others will
yield to its splendour, dazzled, and he who wields will soon wrest.
It is true wisdom, confirmed by our present psychological knowledge,
when Patanjali rules as a preliminary step to advance: "You must
yield up power l over anyone."

The fundamental principle whereby the growing spirit knows all
those things which should be avoided is this: Whatsoever will keep
the individual arrested in his individuality and incapable of growing
into the enlarged life that lies ahead, that is deadly to life.*-**

Gerald Heard, contemporary English author and religious philosopher.

The Third Morality?

Possessiveness and Attachment

Almost every form of religion has insisted that many possessions
are a bar to spiritual progress, but while the Zen monk has certainly
the minimum of material possessions, Zen interprets poverty as an
attitude of mind rather than a physical condition. One of the most
common ways of trying to fix life into rigid definitions is to qualify
something, whether a person, a thing, or an idea, with the statement,
"This belongs to me." But because life is this elusive and perpetually
changing process, every time we think we have really taken
possession of something, the truth is that we have completely lost
it. All that we possess is our own idea about the thing desired, an
idea which tends to remain fixed, which does not grow as the thing

1 "Power always corrupts; absolute power absolutely corrupts. All great men arc bad."
— Lord Acton.

3 This abridged selection was chosen from pages 186-204 of the author's text. The
reader will profit by a full reading of these pages.

The Implications of the Way 65

grows. Thus one of the most noticeable facts about those obsessed
with greed for possessions, whether material goods or cherished
ideas, is their desire that things shall remain as they are — not only
that their possessions shall remain in their own hands, but also that
the possessions themselves shall not change. There are theologians
and philosophers who show the greatest concern if anyone questions
their ideas about the universe, for they imagine that within those
ideas they have at last enshrined ultimate truth, and that to lose
those ideas would be to lose the truth. But because truth is alive it
will not be bound by anything which shows no sign of life — namely
a conception whose validity is held to depend partly on the fact that
it is unchangeable. For once we imagine that we have grasped the
truth of life, the truth has vanished, for truth cannot become any-
one's property, the reason being that truth is life, and for one person
to think that he possesses all life is a manifest absurdity. The part
cannot possess the whole. Therefore Chuang-Tzu tells the following
story:

Shun asked Ch'eng, saying, "Can one get Tao so as to have it for
one's own ?"

"Your very body," replied Ch'eng, "is not your own, how should
Tao be?"

"If my body," said Shun, "is not my own, pray whose is it?"

"It is the delegated image of Tao," replied Ch'eng. "Your life
is not your own. It is the delegated harmony of Tao. . . . Your
individuality is not your own. It is the delegated adaptability of
Tao . . . you move, but know not how. You are at rest, but know
not why? These are the operations of the laws of Tao. How then
should you get Tao so as to have it for your own ?"

Just as no person can possess life, so no idea which a person can
possess can define it; the idea of possession is illusory, for apart from
the fact that all things must eventually pass away into some other
form, and can never remain in one place for eternity, at the root
of possession lies the desire that things shall not alter in any way,
and this is a complete impossibility. If, therefore, life can never be
grasped, how can it be understood ? How can truth be known if it
can never be defined? Zen would answer: by not trying to grasp or

66 The Way

define it, and this is the fundamental Buddhist ideal of non-attach-
ment, or the Taoist ideal of wu-tuei.

But Buddhism and Taoism go further than saying that nothing
can ever be possessed; they declare that those who try to possess are
in fact possessed, they are slaves to their own illusions about life.
Spiritual freedom is just that capacity to be as spontaneous and un-
fettered as life itself, to be "as the wind that bloweth where it listeth
and thou hearest the sound thereof but cannot tell whence it cometh
nor whither it goeth." "Even so," said Jesus, "is everyone that is born
of the Spirit." But non-attachment does not mean running away
from things to some peaceful hermitage, for we can never escape
from our own illusions about life; we carry them with us, and if we
are afraid of them and wish to escape it means that we are doubly
enslaved. For whether we are content with our illusions or frightened
of them, we are equally possessed by them, and hence the non-
attachment of Buddhism and Taoism means not running away from
life but running with it, for freedom comes through complete ac-
ceptance of reality. Those who wish to keep their illusions do not
move at all; those who fear them run backwards into greater
illusions, while those who conquer them "Walk on."

Thus the poverty of the Zen disciple is the negative aspect of his
spiritual freedom; he is poor in the sense that his mind is not en-
cumbered with material and intellectual impedimenta — the signifi-
cant Latin word for "baggage." This state of mind is the realization
of the Mahayana doctrine of sunyata, of the emptiness of transitory
things; nothing can be grasped for everything is emptiness; nor is
there anything which can grasp, for the self is emptiness. Therefore
the Yuen-Chich Sutra declares that all component things are "like
drifting clouds, like the waning moon, like ships that sail the ocean,
like shores that are washed away," and the Zen masters, realizing the
evanescence of the outer world, of their own ideas and of the ego
itself, cease to cling to these passing forms. In the words of the
Dhammapada they are "those who have no possessions . . , who have
realized the causeless and unconditioned freedom through under-
standing the emptiness of that which passes away — the path of
these men it is impossible to trace, just as the track of birds in the

The Implications of the Way 67

sky cannot be followed." For the Zen, life does not move in ruts;
it is the freedom of the Spirit, unfettered by external circumstances
and internal illusions. Its very nature is such that it cannot be
described in words, and the nearest we can get to it is by analogy.
It is like the wind moving across the face of the earth, never stopping
at any particular place, never attaching itself to any particular object,
always adapting itself to the rise and fall of the ground. If such
analogies give the impression of a dreamy laissez-faire, it must be
remembered that Zen is not always a gentle breeze, like decadent
Taoism; more than often it is a fierce gale which sweeps everything
ruthlessly before it, an icy blast which penetrates to the heart of
everything and passes right through to the other side! The freedom
and poverty of Zen is to leave everything and "Walk on/' for this
is what life itself does, and Zen is the religion of life.

Therefore the masters tell their disciples to forget all that they
have ever learnt before coming to the practice of Zen, to forget even
their knowledge of Buddhism. For the Buddha himself declared that
his teaching was only a raft with which to cross a river; when the
opposite bank has been reached it must be left behind, but so many
of his followers mistook the raft for the opposite bank. Yet this
negative aspect of Zen, this giving up, is only another way of ex-
pressing the positive fact that to give up everything is to gain all.
"He that loseth his life shall find it."

Professor Suzuki points out that while it was the custom of some
of the masters to express their poverty, others would refer rather to
the complete sufficiency of things. Thus while Hsiang-yen says :

My last year's poverty was not poverty enough;

My poverty this year is poverty indeed.

In my poverty last year there was room for a gimlet's point ;

But this year even the gimlet has gone—

Mumon emphasizes the other side of the picture:

Hundreds of spring flowers, the autumnal moon,
A refreshing summer breeze, winter snow —
Free thy mind from idle thoughts,
And for thee how enjoyable every season is!

68 The Way

Here we find the acceptance and affirmation of the seasonal changes,
and in the same way Zen accepts and affirms the birth, decay and
death of men ; there are no regrets for the past, and no fears for the
future. Thus the Zen disciple gains all by accepting all, since
ordinary possessiveness is loss — it is the denial of the right of people
and things to live and change; hence the only loss in Zen is the loss
of this denial.*

Alan W. Watts, 1915-. English author.
The Spirit of Zen.

As he was starting again on his journey, a man came running
up to him, and knelt at his feet and asked him,

"Good master, what must I do to make sure of eternal life ?"

But Jesus said to him,

"Why do you call me good? No one is good but God himself.
You know the commandments — 'Do not murder, Do not commit
adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud.
Honor your father and mother/ "

But he said to him,

"Master, I have obeyed all these commandments ever since I was
a child,"

And Jesus looked at him and loved him, and he said to him,

"There is one thing that you lack. Go, sell all you have, and give
the money to the poor, and then you will have riches in heaven; and
come back and be a follower of mine,"

But his face fell at Jesus' words, and he went away much cast
down, for he had a great deal of property.

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,

"How hard it will be for those who have money to enter the
Kingdom of God!"

But the disciples were amazed at what he said. And Jesus said
to them again,

"My children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God ! It is
easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to get into the Kingdom of God!"

From the Gospel According to Mark, first century.

The Implications of the Way 69

THE WAY IMPLIES SELF-KNOWLEDGE
AND SELF-ACCEPTANCE

One must be able to strip oneself of all self-deception, to see one-
self naked to one's own eyes before one can come to terms with the
elements of oneself and know who one really is.

Frances G. Wickes, 1882-. American psychotherapist,
The Inner World of Man.

A man has many skins in himself, covering the depths of his
heart. Man knows so many other things; he does not know himself.
Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, just like an ox's or a bear's, so
thick and hard, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn
to know yourself.

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.
Meister Eckjiart, Trans. R. Blakney,

To get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into
the core of himself at his least, for no one can know God who has
not first known himself. Go to the depths of the soul, the secret
place of the Most High, to the roots, to the heights; for all that God
can do is focused there.

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.
Meister Ecf^hart, Trans. R. Blakney.

We should mark and know of a very truth that all manner of
virtue and goodness, and even that Eternal Good, which is God
Himself, can never make a man virtuous, good or happy so long as
it is outside the soul, that is, so long as the man is holding converse
with outward things through his senses and reason, and doth not
withdraw into himself and learn to understand his own life, who
and what he is.

Written anonymously by one of the "Friends of God" in fourteenth century.

Thcologica Germanica.

If the desire to be honest is greater than the desire to be "good"
or "bad," then the terrific power of one's vices will become clear.
And behind the vice the old forgotten fear will come up (the fear of

70 The Way

being excluded from life) and behind the fear the pain (the pain of
not being loved) and behind this pain of loneliness the deepest and
most profound and most hidden of all human desires: the desire to
love and to give oneself in love and to be part of the living stream we
call brotherhood. And the moment love is discovered behind hatred
all hatred disappears.

Fritz Kunkcl, 1889-.
/;; Search of Maturity.

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 8

The Seeming-Self and the Real Self

All feelings about one's value and worth and about what one can
or cannot do are embodied in the Ego. So distorted and inaccurate
are they that the Ego is always a false image of the Self — yet to the
individual it seems to be what he really is and he acts accordingly.

In seeking to understand the effect of this Seeming-Self upon the
life of the individual, it is helpful to think of die Ego as something
in the nature of a psychological shell encasing the Self which may
be thought of as the heart at the centre of personality. No figure or
comparison can ever be relied upon to depict fully the reality we are
now discussing. At die moment the figure of the shell encasing the
"heart" serves us well in understanding the psychological situa-
tion.

This shell, with all its mistaken feelings and inaccurate ideas,
does indeed wall up the Self. The more firmly these errors are fixed
— the more inflexible one's ideas and feelings — the thicker and more
rigid this wall is. That means that the Ego limitations placed upon
one's productivity are greater and more inflexible, and the Self is
more and more restricted in its expressions. Life is less rich and
meaningful and creative than it might be otherwise, yet the indi-
vidual often has no idea of how vast are the unrealized potentialities
of his being.

3 The Way rests on the basic assumption of a "false" and a "true" clement within the
structure of the personality. This distinction is expressed variously by different authors, i.e.
"The Seeming-Self" and the "Real Self"; "The Conventional Self" and the "Self of an
Individual Vocation"; the "old" man and the "new" man; the "outer" self and the "inner"
self, ct cetera, (Ed.)

The Implications of the Way 71

Every human being is unconsciously shut up within a system of
mistaken ideas and feelings which thwart the fullest expression of
the powers of the Self. They add to the necessary limitations of the
natural laws of his being which he must take into account.

The individual is limited, also, by the defects of the culture of his
time. Its biases, prejudices, unscientific assumptions, historic errors,
mistaken beliefs all bind him with fetters that seem to be unbreak-
able and often are never discarded. Such is our human fate that how-
ever good may be the intentions of our educators, in the broad sense,
we suffer from the mistakes they unconsciously reflect in their deal-
ings with us. Being human, all such persons express in their be-
haviour the mistakes of their own Ego and unconsciously influence
us accordingly.

Under that influence we accept their own errors for ourselves, or
develop other mistaken ideas to counterbalance them. We enact
these errors and mistakes into laws which we now unconsciously
accept and submit to as the natural laws of our being. Thus we come
back to the basic psychological truth that the Ego serves as a shell,
limiting the expression of the capacities of the Self.

Now it follows that one basic task of man is the removal of this
shell. A lifelong problem is the discovery of the errors built into
one's Ego, for only by discovering them does one come to crack his
shell and remove its limitations even piecemeal. This discovery
grows only out of the realization that one's system of living does
not work.

It is possible for one to learn his mistaken ways from the rea-
sonably calm contemplation of his life in the light of kindly observa-
tions by a friend or helpful suggestions in a book. But we must dis-
tinguish between an intellectual insight into the broad fact that the
Ego is only our second, not our real, nature — and the actual break-
down of the shell. In only a very few instances is insight alone suffi-
cient. In the end, it seems that nothing short of the severest kind of
pressure is enough to shatter the shell.

This drastic experience we call the major crisis. All egocentricity
leads toward it. Moreover, it should be welcomed; for through its
suffering, as will be seen, we may move into that joy and peace

72 The Way

which comes from 'releasing the Self within from the limitations of
its shell into die creative, productive, courageous, loving expressions
of which it is capable. That is indeed the abundant life.*-**

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., German psychotherapist, and Roy E. Dickerson, American author.

How Character Develops.

The False and the True Self

Both Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism have a common basis
in the elementary principles of the Buddha's doctrine. Briefly, this
doctrine is that man suffers because of his craving to possess and
keep forever things which are essentially impermanent. Chief among
these things is his own person, for this is his means of isolating him-
self from the rest of life, his castle into which he can retreat and from
which he can assert himself against external forces. He believes that
this fortified and isolated position is his best means of obtaining
happiness; it enables him to fight against change, to strive to keep
pleasing things for himself, to shut out suffering and to shape cir-
cumstances as he wills. In short it is his means of resisting life. The
Buddha taught that all things, including this castle, are essentially
impermanent and that as soon as man tries to possess them they slip
away; this frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause
of suffering. But he went further than this, for he showed that the
fundamental cause is the delusion that man can isolate himself from
life. A false isolation is achieved by identifying himself with his
castle, the person, but because this castle is impermanent it has no
abiding reality, it is empty of any "self -nature" (atta) and is no more
die Self than any other changing object. What, then, is the Self?
The Buddha remained silent when asked this question, but he taught
that man will find out only when he no longer identifies himself
with his person, when he no longer resists the external world from
within its fortification, in fact, when he makes an end of his hostility
and his plundering expeditions against life. In contrast to this
philosophy of isolation the Buddha proclaimed the unity of all living
things and charged his followers to replace this hostility by divine
compassion (faruna).

The Mahayana considers that a true self is found when the false

The Implications of the Way 73

one is renounced. When man neither identifies himself with his
person nor uses it as a means for resisting life, he finds that the Self
is more than his own being; it includes the whole universe.

Alan W. Watts, 1915-. English author.
The Spirit of Zen.

The "Outward" and "Inner" Man

The Scriptures say of human beings that there is an outward man
and, along with him, an inner man.

To the outward man belong those things that depend on the soul
but are connected with the flesh and blended with it, and the co-
operative functions of the several members such as the eye, the ear,
the tongue, the hand, and so on. The Scriptures speaks of all this as
the old man, the earthy man, the outward person, the enemy, the
servant.

Within us all is the other person, the inner man, whom the
Scriptures calls the new man, the heavenly man, the young person,
a friend, the aristocrat.

Relative to the aristocracy of the inner, spiritual man and the
commonalty of the outward, physical person, the heathen philos-
ophers, Tully and Seneca, maintain that no rational soul is without
God. The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent farmer and a
diligent fieldhand, it will thrive and grow up to God whose seed it
is and, accordingly, its fruit will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow
into pear trees; nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God.

Mcister Johannes Eckart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.

Ec\hart, Trans. R. Blakney.

Ego Investigation

We should ask ourselves what type of egocentricity may be ours.
In the main, the Ego conforms more or less to one single pattern,
and it is ordinarily possible for a person through self-observation to
recognize which role he is acting, even though it is true that appear-
ances are often deceptive. It seems almost as if the Ego were a living
being seeking to deceive us by wearing a mask so lifelike that it is
almost impossible to distinguish it from the reality it covers,

74 The Way

The best way to conduct this Ego investigation is to ask oneself
what goal we would like to attain, if we could choose.4 It is im-
portant to imagine this choice as made quite alone or together with
some completely understanding comrade, not in the presence of
moralizing friends or relatives. We must be prepared to recognize a
choice which may seem somewhat embarrassing to us because it
would not be commended and might even be condemned. Frankly,
perhaps even jokingly, we should imagine ourselves in the situation
in which we should really like to be, laying aside all idealism.
Otherwise, our moral or philosophical or religious convictions would
be likely to keep us from being quite honest with ourselves. This
choice is bound to reflect the mistakes in our Ego. We seek that
understanding because we are misled and deceived by these mistakes.

We must have something akin to Paul's reaction.5 We feel like
saying, "It is I and yet not I. This choice seems to represent what I
am, yet it is not. If I were freed from the influence of my egoistic
thinking, I would choose differently. I would be no longer egocentric
but objective. I would see clearly. My Self would be free from its
shell, and my choices would be sound and wholesome. Until that
freedom comes, I, like all others, am the victim of the human process
by which the Ego is developed, and I am misled as they are." That is
the inevitable fate of every human being. All others have had the
same experience. If we could really know their egocentricity, we
should find in them mistakes and errors which are on the same level
as any of ours even though of quite a different type. There is no
necessity of judging ourselves harshly if we find that we are seeking
that which should not be sought. Our responsibility in character
development is to face what we find unflinchingly and when we
have become aware of mistakes to correct them as soon as we can.

Suppose now that, pursuing your inquiry in this spirit and for
this purpose, you discover you feel you want to be secure, peaceful,
unpretentious, left alone in calmness with sufficient supply of food,

4 Sometimes it is useful to try to recall one's earliest recollections in order to find out
what kind of fear or wish may have been developed. Our experience has shown that the
choice of our early recollections is influenced by our Ego and therefore our idea about our
earliest recollections may reflect our egocentricity and help us discover our type.

5 Romans 7 : 15-17.

The Implications of the Way 75

Are you acting objectively as a follower of Rousseau and a priest of
pure nature? Or would it be more honest to admit that you are
thinking of yourself in a rather well-formed Gaby Ego pattern ?

If your goal, your highest value, is security with indulgence, and
the protection of a good, reliable person: if you are looking all the
time to see whether this godlike person — a priest or employer or
husband or wife — may find you (without thinking too much of try-
ing to find him or her yourself), are you then a loyal and modest
servant of the good? Or wouldn't you acknowledge that you are
reacting according to the passive and dependent Clinging-Vine
pattern.

If you dream of laurels, fame, glory, and riches in order to be
admired, or of splendid achievements in arts or sciences, probably
you are playing the role of an egocentric Star. You may object that
good achievements are objectively necessary for cultural progress
and that your ideal is to serve the whole race and not just your Ego.
Well, that may be. If so, you would not be offended if you invent
something greatly beneficial to mankind and another person be-
comes famous because of it. Could you even imagine this without
rebellion ? And if you could, you must somewhat distrust your reac-
tion and be ready to recognize some egocentric remnants in your
We-feeling attitude. Even the martyr to injustice may be acting a
Star role.

Finally, if power is what you want and you think you want it
for the service of humanity, don't trust your thinking too much. It
is better to test it carefully. Imagine, for example, that you do every-
thing necessary to form and build up a new and needed organiza-
tion, but someone else, who has done nothing, is made president
and exercises many privileges, great authority, and extensive influ-
ence. Would you be satisfied ? St. Francis built a monastery and then
lived in it as a simple monk, one of the others being the abbot. He
seems clearly not to have had a Nero type Ego. And you ? The more
you really want the power for the power's sake only — and that
means for your own sake — the less you would feel you could tolerate
such injustice! And the more you are playing the part of a Nero.

The next step is to consider the abyss. For all of us there is some-

76 The Way

thing that seems to be an abyss into which we must not fall, an
experience or situation so dreadful that we can scarcely bear to
imagine it for ourselves. This abyss is always closely connected with
our Ego. It is the depth of life which is the very extreme opposite
of the heights of experience which our Ego leads us to seek. There-
fore, to know one's abyss is to know much about one's Ego type.

What would be the most unbearable, most horrible situation in
which you could imagine yourself? What seems to you worse
than death ? Is it more the loss of esteem and recognition (e.g., the
preacher who is laughed at), the loss of power (e.g., the officers
whose commands are not obeyed), the loss of security and protec-
tion (e.g., the spoiled rich woman who loses all her money) or the
loss of seclusion and privacy (e.g., the official who retired early but
who is called back to service again) ?

We should work out this part of our investigation as carefully as
possible, preferring always to think of the concrete situation — the
scene, the immediate experience — and not of the abstract term or
name for our reactions and apparent qualities. Only at last, having
collected many memories and made many "experiments by imagina-
tion/' can we come to see what intermixture of types is involved
in our Ego.*-**

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., German psychotherapist, and Roy E» Dickerson, American author.

How Character Develops.

DIFFICULTIES OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Many are the devices and marvelous the elaborations by which
men everywhere seek to avoid condemnation before that inner
tribunal known as conscience. To be at one with that which is
supreme in our hierarchy of loyalties, that to which men generally
give the name of God, is ever essential to mental health ; to be isolated
or estranged through the consciousness that there is that within
which we cannot acknowledge without being condemned means
mental disorder and spiritual death.

Anton T. Boisen, 1876-. American educator, theologian.
The Exploration of tht Inner World.

The Implications of the Way 77

So long as one has not attained perfection, one can know one's
self but imperfectly. The same self-love which causes our faults is
very subtle in hiding them both from ourselves and from others.
Self-love cannot endure to see itself; it would die of shame and vexa-
tion! If by chance it gets a glimpse, it at once places itself in some
artificial light, so as to soften the full hideousness and find some
comfort. And so there will always be some remains of self-delusion
clinging to us while we still cling to self and its imperfections. Before
we can see ourselves truly, self-love must be rooted up, and the love
of God alone move us; and then the same light which showed us our
faults would cure them. Till then we only know ourselves by halves,
because we are only half God's, and hold a great deal more to our-
selves than we imagine or choose to see. When the truth has taken
full possession of us, we shall see clearly, and then we shall behold
ourselves without partiality or flattery, as we see our neighbors.
Meanwhile God spares our weakness, by only showing us our own
deformity by degrees, and as He gives strength to bear the sight. He
only shows us to ourselves, so to say, by bits; here one and there
another, as He undertakes our correction.

Francois Fe*nelon, 1651—1715. French Archbishop of Cambray.
Spiritual Letters of Archbiship Ftnelon, Trans. H. L. Lear.

Difficulties and the Role of Pressure

The point at which the egocentric person is most readily touched
is his egocentric welfare; therefore, the original impulse toward
self-education often must be formulated as an appeal to our egocen-
tricity, wherein a strange paradox becomes apparent. We must face
the alternative either of suffering the consequences of our egocentri-
city even to the extent of experiencing a major crisis or of taking
this next step in the direction of religious and social progress. The
paradox is that even from the egocentric viewpoint it seems to be
advisable to decrease our egocentricity for the sake of decreasing the
suffering from it.

This paradox is the very kernel of our theory of the crisis. Even
egoism itself recommends that we become less egoistic. Here we

78 The Way

meet the first principle in the art of self-education as the We-Psychol-
ogy is to display it. Its name is: Pressure.

The task of character development is the destruction of our own
egocentric shell in order to set free and develop the We-feeling pro-
ductivity which was shut up within the shell. That would be well-
nigh an impossible task without the help of some power coming
from without. At first the shell is realized in the form of the Ego.
When I say I, I usually mean my Ego. The imprisoned Self is felt
— if at all — as an It, a kind of unknown, almost foreign force of
which one is ordinarily afraid. Thus the task is that I, saying I,
should not identify myself — as formerly — with the Ego, but now
with the Self. My viewpoint should shift from the Egocentre, the
Seeming-Self, to the true centre, the real Self.6

If this were possible by mere will-power the shell and the ego-
centricity would not be what they are — the old fortifications against
anguish and fear. Suppose that I have learned that I have to be the
"good," that is, the obedient, child. In playing my egocentric role, I
am impelled to look for approval and to avoid everything which
may displease my companions, but when I lay it aside I display the
courage and We-feeling qualities of my Self by opposing injustice
and objecting to my companions when they are wrong.

Insofar as I act my egocentric role, I feel afraid that my reactions
might, in a certain case, be the kind inspired by We-feeling and
courage. I fear such reactions because they seem to be dangerous to
what seems to be my best interests seen from the viewpoint of the
Ego or the Seeming-Self. Thus, the greedy Star fears his kindly
impulses because they tend to separate him from his money, which
seems so essential to his stardom, and the Nero fears his We-feeling
impulses because they are seemingly tendencies to that weakness
which would make others less fearful of him and therefore less sub-
missive. Therefore we unconsciously oppose the destruction of these
walls — these egocentric fortifications — even though we are con-
sciously trying to demolish them and to laugh at them as being
obsolete, useless, and childish.

0 In the later stagc-s of development, when "I" has grown to mean the Self, the Ego
is — not always but sometimes™— realized as the It, i.e., the bad old habit, the moral weak-
ness we repudiate, or even something like "the fiend" or temptation.

The Implications of the Way 79

We cannot pull ourselves out of the swamp by our own hair as
the famous knight in the fairy tale did. Therefore, we cannot suc-
ceed here unless an outer force — the pressure — comes to our assist-
ance. Mere idealism, or moral endeavour, or, in most cases, even
insight would not be sufficient. . . .

Pressure, it must be said, is inevitable. Egocentric living involves
acting on mistaken ideas, pursuing false goals, being swayed by un-
sound emotions, and all this leads certainly to difficulty and distress.
Life cannot be lived on untrue premises or filled with deluded beha-
viour without creating pressure sooner or later even though it be
felt only in the haunting fears or vicious nightmares of one's
dreams.

It follows, then, that one ought not to rebel against pressure.
Like bodily pain, this psychic discomfort is unpleasant and should
be relieved as soon as possible by dealing wisely with its cause. But
like pain, it is a beneficent thing, because it warns of danger. It
points out an unwholesome condition which might otherwise go
unnoticed far longer than it should. One of the first lessons in self-
education is that one should welcome the discomfort of pressure
because of the opportunities for growth which it is capable of reveal-
ing. One ought not to be sorry for himself but rather glad that some
source of difficulty in one's life may be disclosed by the pressure.

In discussing pressure we see that it is difficult to know when
real pressure, as opposed to mere imaginative suffering, is at work
and to what sources it can be traced. It is hard to distinguish between
the two so that we know when we have to deal with nothing more
than neurotic, imaginative suffering.

Here a certain amount of objective research is a necessary part
of the self-education that develops character. Unconscious connec-
tions must be discovered and cleared up; faults, weak spots, fears,
or aims of which we were not hitherto aware must be explored. We .,
must look at them with the curiosity of the scientist, not with shame
or moral devaluation or horror, as would be the case with the
moralist.

The moralistic standpoint strengthens the egocentric resistance
against self-knowledge, as we never see what our mistakes are, if

8o The Way

we wish to be "stainless." The most serious errors in the Ego will
not be realized as such because they are an essential part of this
Seeming-Self. The only way to escape self-deception and to unmask
ourselves successfully is to suspend all moral and ethical judgment
until the investigation has been ended. We must add at once a
psychological observation very important in our day. Many persons
live in what we call "reversed valuation." The mistakes of their Ego
are such that they would not have inferiority feelings even if reck-
lessness or sensuality or wantonness were discovered in the depth of
their unconscious life. On the contrary, they would be pleased. In
these cases the egocentric goal (+100) is something such as being
the Don Juan who conquers the greatest number of girls or the
"good fellow" who drinks the most wine or the shrewd trader who
"gets ahead of every person with whom he deals. Those who pursue
such goals would feel devalued if this research would prove them
more "moral" than they want to be.

From the viewpoint of their Ego, they cannot value loyalty, kind-
ness, righteousness, love, and religion. They are "forbidden" and
repressed or suppressed and seem intolerable when viewed from the
viewpoint of die Seeming-Self. Therefore, even in these cases it is
necessary, if a person would discover his mistakes, for him to suspend
at first all valuation of a situation as moral or immoral.

This unconscious defence of our Ego — the Seeming-Self may be
very helpful in our efforts to investigate our own lives. It may supply
us with an important clue as to our own weaknesses. The more we
feel offended by what we interpret as a reproach, the more it is prob-
able that the criticism hits the nail on the head, even if we do not at
the time find anything in our conscious life to support the reproach.

Strong negative emotions like anger, irritation, and indignation
usually but not always indicate that our weak spot has been touched
consciously or unconsciously* In order to discover our true inner
situation, it is necessary to overcome our own egocentric inner re-
sistance which often takes the form of negative moods. We should,
therefore, learn to understand and handle them.*

Fritz Kunkel, M.D,, German psychotherapist, and Roy E. Dickcrson, American author.

How Character Develops,

The Implications of the Way 81

Meeting One's Own "Shadow"

The man who looks into the mirror of the waters does, indeed,
see his own face first of all. Whoever goes to himself risks a con-
frontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully
shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the
world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor.
But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face.

This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way,
a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with
ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that may be avoided
as long as we possess living symbol-figures in which all that is inner
and unknown is projected.

The meeting with oneself is the meeting with one's own shadow.
To mix a metaphor, the shadow is a tight pass, a narrow door, whose
painful constriction is spared to no one who climbs down into
the deep wellspring. But one must learn to know oneself in order to
know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly
enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with
apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here
and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the
world of water, where everything living floats in suspension; where
the kingdom of the sympathetic system, of the soul of everything
living, begins; where I am inseparably this and that, and this and
that are I; where I experience the other person in myself, and the
other, as myself, experiences me.

No, the unconscious is anything but a capsulated, personal sys-
tem; it is the wide world, and objectivity as open as the world. I am
the object, even the subject of the object, in a complete reversal of
my ordinary consciousness, where I am always a subject that has
an object. There I find myself in the closest entanglement with the
world, so much a part of it that I forget all too easily who I really
am. "Lost in oneself" is a good phrase to describe this state. But this
self is the world, if only a consciousness could see it. This is why we
must know who we are.*

Carl G. Jung, MD., 1875-. Swiss psychologist.
The Integration of the Personality, Trans. S. Dell.

82 The Way

Facing the Darkness

There has come to me an insight into the meaning of Darkness.
The reason one must face his darkness, and enter into that darkness
is not that he may return purified to face God. One must go into
the darkness because that is where God is. The darkness is not sin,
not evil. Those are by-ways, side paths by which one can escape. The
darkness is pure terror, and die last terror of all is to know as one
turns downward that there is no God. Then the darkness is upon
you, and there is God Himself, for God is the greatest destroyer of
gods.

It seems as though we must each make himself a god of his own,
one not too big to carry. For some, the good will be God, or Nature,
or the Creative Idea, or the Indulgent Father. One must stay with
Him and in His universe, or go down into the darkness alone. It is
as though one had to take a hammer and smash his god to bits, only
to find that there on the instant stood God, God Himself, filling the
universe and personally near.

The meaning of the Crucifixion must be like this. One can ima-
gine the disciples talking among themselves : "How could God have
let him be killed? He was so good, so kind. He was surely doing
God's work if ever a man did. What kind of a God is it that lets
His own followers, His best follower die so ?" Until at last, they had
to deny their God, the God who wouldn't waste a good man's life—
and in that instant they found the God who sent them all over
the world, the God about whom no more can be said than that
He Is.

God is. That is so real, that to talk of His love, or of serving Him
is saying less, not more. He is, and He is with us, and there is no
need of promises.

Alfred Romcr, 1907-. American professor of physics.

I have fallen into the hands of God: the terrible wheel of provi-
dence is grinding me out of myself. I bleed well-nigh unto death.
Let me alone, for it is better thus. Every atom of vanity and evil
will be crushed in me, I become truer, diviner, every day. Grieve not

The Implications of the Way 83

even if I go down under the process. But verily I will not die. I will
live, and declare the glory of God.

Protap Chundar Mozoomder, 1827-1905. Brahmin leader

Heart Beats

Progress in self-knowledge leads inevitably to progress in humility
and to self acceptance— an acceptance which admits not only the "false"
self which needs "losing" but which includes the "real" self, which is to
be "preserved." (Editors)

Meekness is imperfect when it is caused of any other thing
mingled with God although He be the chief; and it is perfect when
it is caused of God by Himself. And first it is to wit, what meekness
is in itself.

Meekness in itself is nought else, but a true knowing and feeling
of a man's self as he is. For surely whoso might verily see and feel
himself as he is, he should verily be meek. Two things there be, the
which be cause of this meekness; the which be these. One is the
filth, the wretchedness, and the frailty of man, into the which he is
fallen by sin; and the which always him behoveth to feel in some
part the whiles he liveth in this life, be he never so holy. Another is
the over-abundant love and the worthiness of God in Himself; in
beholding of the which all nature quaketh, all clerks be fools, and
all saints and angels be blind. Insomuch, that were it not that
through the wisdom of His Godhead He measured their beholding
after their ableness in nature and in grace, I defail to say what should
befall them.

And therefore swink and sweat in all that thou canst and mayest,
for to get thee a true knowing and a feeling of thyself as thou art;
and then I trow that soon after that thou shalt have a true knowing
and a feeling of God as He is. Not as He is in Himself, for that may
no man do but Himself; nor yet as thou shalt do in bliss both body
and soul together. But as it is possible, and as He vouchsafed! to be
known and felt of a meek soul living in this deadly body.

And think not because I set two causes of meekness, one perfect
and another imperfect, that I will therefore that thou leavest the
travail about imperfect meekness, and set thee wholly to get the

84 The Way

perfect. Nay, surely; I trow thou shouldest never bring it so about.
I think to tell thee how that a privy love pressed in cleanness of spirit
upon this dark cloud of unknowing betwixt thee and thy God, truly
and perfectly containeth in it the perfect virtue of meekness without
any special or clear beholding of any thing under God. And because
I would that thou knewest which were perfect meekness, and settest
it as a token before the love of thine heart, and didst it for thee and
for me. And because I would by this knowing make thee more
meek.

For of ttimes it befalleth that lacking of knowing is cause of much
pride as me thinketh. For peradventure and thou knewest not which
were perfect meekness, thou shouldest ween when thou hadst a little
knowing and a feeling of this that I call imperfect meekness, that
thou hadst almost gotten perfect meekness: and so shouldest thou
deceive thyself, and ween that thou wert full meek when thou wert
all belapped in foul stinking pride. And therefore try for to travail
about perfect meekness; for the condition of it is such, that whoso
hadi it, and the whiles he hath it, he shall not sin, nor yet much
after.*

An unknown English mystic of the fourteenth century.
The Cloud of Unknowing,

SELF-ACCEPTANCE

The biological will is to biological self-perpetuation; the meta-
biological will is to the perpetuation of significant variations. But
these wills are not, save in rare conditions of ultimate crisis, dis-
crepant. Self-perpetuation is the condition of the perpetuation of
significant variations.

The position is this. The first necessity is metabiological unity;
only when emotion and intellect have achieved their own synthesis
is the true metabiological will operative. Instead of a will to this or
that posited and ideal end, there is a will to pure self-emergence.
We learn to wait upon the unknown which we are; we are dedicated
to whatever of creative newness may emerge through us. In that
condition, is given the possibility of complete self-acceptance; and
that is the whole duty of men.

The Implications of the Way 85

Than complete self-acceptance man can go no further. By tak-
ing upon himself the final responsibility, he has reached the point
where he has none. What values he is destined to perpetuate, those
will be perpetuated in and through him; what values he is destined
to let die, those will die in and through him. He can no more; nor
is it conceivable that he should desire more. Whether he has been
a significant variation, the organic process will ultimately and irre-
vocably decide.

To those who ask: "What shall I do?" we have finally one simple
answer: "Accept yourself." To those who ask: "But when I have
accepted myself, what then?" we answer: "By your question you
show that you have read without comprehension." To those who
demur: "But you say nothing of man's duties — the world problems
— peace or war — social reform — morality," we reply: "No, we say
nothing of these things." His attitude to these things each man must
let his accepted self determine. We have our own attitude to these
things, but it is not required to be formulated or defended here.
What values a man will perpetuate, what values he can perpetuate,
is for himself to decide. We claim no more than perhaps to help him
to a condition where these questions decide themselves with a differ-
ent and higher authority than any imposed decisions of the unin-
tegrated self could ever possess.

John Middleton Murry, 1889-. English author, critic.

Cod.

I CHARGE YOU

When men shall face their destiny like stones

with powerful indifference;
When men shall have the strength to say "Yes"

to the deepest hell
And walk unmoved across depths most desperate

and most absolute;

When they shall assume the burdens of darkness

and pass joyfully through all stench
Because in them abides the deathless fragrance

of their own soul;

86 The Way

When they shall forget their own little self,

their little purity and little comfort
And grow tragically into the great serenity,

quintessence of all storms;

When they shall wipe out the horrors of past days,

by facing evil as the elder brother of good,
Accepting the dead with the strength of living

and the understanding which is the core of love;

When they shall look beyond to Him

who tore from gods the fire of Self
And blessed us all with its curse,

bearing in their hearts His cross and His glory ;

Then shall there be peace and beauty in the lands of men.

Dane Rudhyar, 1895-. American poet, artist, philosopher.

White Thunder,

Recently I received a letter from a former patient which pictures
the necessary transformation in simple but expressive words. She
writes: "Out of evil, much good has come to me. By keeping quiet,
repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and hand in hand with that,
by accepting reality — taking things as they are, and not as I wanted
them to be — by doing all this, rare knowledge has come to me, and
rare powers as well, such as I could never have imagined before. I
always thought that, when we accept things, they overpower us in
one way or another. Now this is not true at all, and it is only by
accepting them that one can define an attitude toward them.7 So
now I intend playing the game of life, being receptive to whatever
comes to me? good and bad, sun and shadow that are forever shift-
ing, and, in this way, also accepting my own nature with its positive
and negative sides. Thus everything becomes more alive to me. What
a fool I was! How I tried to force everything to go according to my
idea!"

Only on the basis of such an attitude, which renounces none of

7 And thus become freer of the compulsive power ("participation mystique") that
arises from over-identification with them. (Ed.)

The Implications of the Way 87

the values won in the course of Christian development, but which,
on the contrary, tries with Christian chanty and forbearance to
accept the humblest things in oneself, will a higher level of con-
sciousness and culture be possible. This attitude is religious in the
truest sense, and therefore therapeutic, for all religions are therapies
for the sorrows and disorders of the soul. The development of
Western intellect and will has lent us the almost devilish capacity
for imitating such an attitude, apparently with success too, despite
the protests of the unconscious. But it is only a matter of time when
the counter position always forces recognition of itself with an even
harsher contrast. A more and more unsafe situation comes about by
reason of this crass imitation, and, at any time, can be overthrown
by the unconscious. A safe foundation is only found when the
instinctive premises of the unconscious win the same recognition as
the viewpoints of the conscious. No one will deceive himself as to the
fact that this necessary recognition of the unconscious stands in
violent opposition to the Western Christian, and especially to the
Protestant, cult of consciousness. Despite the fact that the new is
always hostile to the old, a deep desire to understand cannot fail to
discover that, without the more serious application of our acquired
Christian values, the new can never gain ground.

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychologist.
Secret of the Golden Flower, Trans. C. F. Baynes.

EMERGENCE OF THE REAL SELF

True self-revelation has always as its counter-part a growth in
knowledge of God. For it is only in the light of God that we see
ourselves for what we are. Hence self-abnegation in its full import
is not a merely negative thing. According as the soul ceases to be
"self regarding" in its activities, it becomes "God-regarding" As the
soul is being emptied of what is material, transient and perishable,
it is being filled with what is spiritual, enduring and incorruptible.

Edward Leen, 1885-. Irish Catholic Cleric, educator.
Progress Through Mental Prayer.

I am aware of something in myself whose shine is my reason. I
see clearly that something is there, but what it is I cannot under-

88 The Way

stand. But it seems to me that, if I could grasp it, I should know all
truth.

Anonymous.

Though God is everywhere present, yet He is only present to thee
in the deepest and most central part of thy soul. The natural senses
cannot possess God or unite thee to him; nay, thy inward faculties
of understanding, will and memory can only reach after God, but
cannot be the place of his habitation in thee. But there is a root or
depth of thee from whence all these faculties come forth, as lines
from a centre, or as branches from the body of the tree. This depth
is called the centre, the fund or bottom of the soul This depth is the
unity, the eternity— I had almost said the infinity— of thy soul ; for
it is so infinite that nothing can satisfy it or give it rest but the
infinity of God.

William Law, 1686-1761. English clergyman, mystic.

Do you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit
makes its home in you ? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God
will destroy him. For the temple of God is sacred, and that is what
you are.

Saint Paul, first century Christian Apostle.
The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Trans. E. J. Goodspeed,

THE WAY IMPLIES DEVOTION TO THE GOOD8

Being true to oneself is the law of God, trying to be true to oneself
is the law of man.

There is only one way for a man to be true to himself. If he does
not know what is good, a man cannot be true to himself. ... He
who learns to be his true self is one who finds out what is good and
holds fast to it.

Tscsze, Chinese philosopher, grandson of Confucius.
The Golden Mean of Tscsze, Trans, by Ku Hungming and Lin Yutang,

8 See Appendix on The Object of Devotion.

The Implications of the Way 89

Cleanse your own heart, cast out from your mind pain, fear, envy,
ill-will, avarice, cowardice, passion uncontrolled. These things you
cannot cast out unless you look to God alone; on him alone set your
thoughts, and consecrate yourself to his commands. If you wish for
anything else, with groaning and sorrow you will follow what is
stronger than you, ever seeking peace outside you, and never able to
be at peace; for you seek it where it is not, and refuse to seek it where
it is.

Epictetus, 60 A.D, Greek philosopher.
Discourses and Manual of Epictetus, Trans. R. E. Matheson.

I have often said that a person who wishes to begin a good life
should be like a man who draws a circle. Let him get the center in
the right place and keep it so and the circumference will be good.
In other words, let a man first learn to fix his heart on God and
then his good deeds will have virtue; but if a man's heart is unsteady,
even the great things he does will be of small advantage.

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.
Uelster Ecfyan, Trans. R. Blakney.

Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward
through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition,
and delusion and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe,
through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and
Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy
and religion till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which
we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin,
having a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place
where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamppost safely, or
perhaps a gauge, not a Kilometer, but a Realometer, that future
ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had
gathered from time to time.

Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862. American philosopher.

Walden.

Devotion and the Role of Ideals .

We must have some passionate devotion to give us the necessary
drive of life. If that passionate devotion is given to established and

90 The Way

accepted ideals, we cannot seek and find the new possibilities that
arise with changing conditions. Where, then, shall we find an object
of passionate devotion? Such an object is that order of value which
enters into our present state of existence, but which also includes the
highest possibilities of value however unknown and undefined by
us as yet. Without such a devotion, we maintain, maturity is not
attained, the art of living is not mastered, and the way is blocked
that leads to the good life in our present age of science, machinery,
and industry when all things are changing so rapidly.

There are two ways in which we can deal with the socially ac-
cepted ideals, these achieved structures of value and known possi-
bilities. We can live with them as though they were final, as though
they were the supreme good, as though there were nothing on
beyond them to seek and explore, or we can use them not as final
goods, not as our home and resting place, but as merely torches and
trails, leading on. In other words, there are two ways of life accord-
ing to what we make supreme. We may give our highest allegiance
to the socially accepted ideals, the known possibilities, the goods
achieved, while the unknown possibilities are for us more nebulosity
and dreamland. Or, on the other hand, we may give our supreme
loyalty to this realm of meanings yet to be achieved, these possible
structures of value not yet defined and mastered, while the known
possibilities and socially accepted ideals are for us mere tools and
instruments to be used in this higher devotion. This is the contrast
between religion forever on the defensive and in peril and religion
invincible.*

Henry Nelson Wieman.
Issues of LJfff.

The Invincibility of Devotion to the Good

Why does dedication to the supreme and unknown good en-
gender a striving so invincible? For three reasons. First, because
the object of devotion which then inspires the striving is invaluable,
being the best there is in all reality actual and possible, and hence
worth everything that may be endured or given. Second, because it is
not irrevocably identified with any known object of undertaking,

The Implications of the Way 91

these all being more or less tentative and exploratory; hence failure
or disaster to any of these does not blot out from life the star of
value which leads on. Third, under the dominance of such a devo-
tion all experience becomes a seeking of this highest value, an adora-
tion of it and a reaching after it. Hence all experience becomes a way
of experiencing the best there is in all reality. Even failure of any
specific enterprise,, even pain and all evil, since these along with
pleasure and successful fulfillments make up the medium of experi-
ence in which we seek for and reach after the supreme good, are
ways of experiencing this object of our supreme devotion.

Henry Nelson Wieman, 1884-. American philosopher, theologian, educator.

Issues of Life,

Hold fast to God and he will add every good thing. Seek God and
you shall find him and all good with him. To the man who cleaves
to God, God cleaves and adds virtue. Thus, what you have sought
before, now seeks you; what once you pursued, now pursues you;
what once you fled, now flees you. Everything comes to him who truly
comes to God, bringing all divinity with it, while all that is strange
and alien flies away.

Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic,
Meistcr Eckhart, Trans. R. Blakney.

We have to believe that in the final good designed by Him not a
cell of Being will be found missing or unfulfilled. Nor is this a
selfish view to take of the travail of the world in which we find
ourselves as if we were to regard the whole purpose of it as conver-
ging on our own private and exclusive good. For my final good
does not in any way obstruct or interfere with the good of any other
individual; and my good is in the end no other than the good of
God Himself. I am not lost in God in the sense that my individuality
ceases to be my own. It is just that in its perfection my happiness is
no other than the happiness of God, though all the more truly my
own. I do not cease to be myself because I have surrendered myself
wholly to him; there will be no surrender, no possession, no comple-
tion, if there be no I.

R, H. J. Steuart, S.J,, 1874-. English priest.
T/it Jnmrd Vision,

92 The Way

Partial allegiance to a perfect god is almost the last thing in
futility and dreariness. Nothing but thoroughness can save us here.
Half carrying, half dragging the yoke of fellowship will chafe and
gall Casual, shallow, trivial, reserved obedience will not answer.
You can go the whole length with him and live, live royally, live
exultingly and victoriously, but if you only partially enthrone him,
or if you crown him with mental reservations, you will not get far.

William Fraser McDowell, 1858-1937. American Methodist Bishop.

This Mind.

Doing the Will of God

"It is not everyone who says to me 'Lord! Lord!' who will get into
the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my
Father."

Jesus of Nazareth.
New Testament, (Matt. 7), Trans. E. J. Goodspecd.

The whole gist of the matter lies in the will, and this is what our
Dear Lord meant by saying, "The Kingdom of God is within you."
It is not a question of how much we know, how clever we are, nor
even how good; it all depends upon the heart's love. External actions
are the results of fove, the fruit it bears; but the source, the root, is
in the deep of the heart.

Francois F&iclon, 1651-1715.

And he is truly very learned, that doeth the will of God, and
forsaketh his own will.

Thomas a Kempis, 1380-1471. German mystic.
Imitation of Christ.

Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner
the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of
entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little
child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow
humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall
learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind
since I have resolved at all risks to do this.

Thomas Huxley, 1825-1895. English biologist.
Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley.

The Implications of the Way 93

Look now forwards and let the backwards be. And see what thou
lackest and not what thou hast; for that is the readiest getting and
keeping of meekness. All thy life now must all ways stand in desire,
if thou shalt advance in degree of perfection* This desire must all
ways be wrought in thy will, by the hand of Almighty God and thy
consent. But one thing I tell thee: he is a jealous lover and suffereth
no f ellowship, and he liketh not to work in thy will unless he be only
with thee by himself. He asketh no help but only thyself. He wills
thou do but look upon him and let him alone. And keep thou the
windows and the door from flies and enemies assailing. And if thou
be willing to do this, thou needest but meekly to set upon him with
prayer, and soon will he help thee. Set on then: let me see how thou
bearest thee. He is full ready, and doth but abide thee.

Unknown English mystic, fourteenth century.
The Cloud of Unknowing, Edited by Dom Justin McCann.

You are not wrong in distinguishing between willingness and
courage. Courage is a sort of strength and vigor of mind by which we
overcome everything; but souls which God intends to keep lowly,
and conscious of their own weakness, do all that is allotted to them
without any sense of their own capability to do it. They feel as if
everything were too much for them, yet they triumph over all diffi-
culties by a je ne sais quoi, which springs up altogether independ-
ently of themselves when needed, and for which they never dream
of taking credit to themselves. They do not lay themselves out to
suffer well, but somehow we find that each cross as it comes has been
bravely borne, because they have had no will save God's. There is
nothing striking, nothing powerful, nothing very obvious even to
others, still less to themselves. If you say to such a person that he has
endured bravely, he will not understand you. He does not know
how it has all been; he does not dissect his feelings. If he did there
would be no more simplicity. This is what you mean by Willingness,
which makes less show but is really much more solid than what is
generally called courage.

Willingness has no colour of its own, only at every call, it is ready

94 The Way

to will what God wills. Happy they who have ever so small a seed of
so great a blessing 1

Francois Fenelon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambiay.
Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Tendon, Trans. H. L. Lear.

A man who but rarely, and then only cursorily, concerns himself
with his relationship to God, hardly thinks or dreams that he has so
closely to do with God, or that God is so close to him, that there
exists a reciprocal relationship between him and God: the stronger
a man is, the weaker God is, the weaker a man is, the stronger God
is in him. Every one who assumes that a God exists naturally thinks
of Him as the strongest, as He eternally is, being the Almighty who
creates out of nothing, and for whom all the creation is as nothing;
but such a man hardly thinks of the possibility of a reciprocal rela-
tionship. But the loving God who in incomprehensible love made
thee to be something for Him, lovingly requires something of thee.

Here we have the reciprocal relationship. If a man would selfishly
keep for himself this something which love made him to be, and
would selfishly be something, then, in a worldly sense, he is strong—
but God is weak. And it is almost as if the poor loving God were
duped: with incomprehensible love God has gone ahead and made
man something— and thereupon man dupes Him and holds on to
this as if it were his own. The worldly man confirms himself in the
notion that he is strong, he is perhaps confirmed in it by other
people's worldly judgment to the same effect, perhaps by his pre-
sumed might he transforms the face of the world— but God is weak.
On the other hand, if man himself relinquishes this something, the
independence, the freedom to act for himself, which love bestowed
upon him; if this perfection of his which consists in existing for
God he does not abuse by taking it in vain; if God perhaps helps
him in this respect by bitter sufferings; he is weak— but God is
strong. He, the weak man, has relinquished entirely this something
which love made him to be, he has whole-heartedly consented to it
that God took from him everything there was to be taken. God only
waits for him to give lovingly and humbly his glad consent, and
therewith to relinquish it completely, then he is entirely weak— and

The Implications of the Way 95

then God is strongest. For God there is but one obstacle, man's
selfishness, which steps in between God and man like the shadow of
the earth when it produces the eclipse of the moon. If there is this
selfishness, then man is strong, but his strength is God's weakness; if
the selfishness is absent, then man is weak, and God strong; the
weaker man becomes, the stronger God becomes.

However, if this is so, then in another sense, in the true sense,
the relation is inverted; and with this we come to the joyfulness.

For he who is strong without God, precisely he it is who is weak.
The strength by which a man stands alone may be strength in com-
parison with that of a child. But the strength by which a man
stands alone without God is weakness, God is in such a degree the
strong one that He is all strength, is strength itself. So to be without
God is to be without strength. So to be strong without God is to be
strong . . . without strength; it is like being loving without loving
God, and so to be loving without love, for God is love.

But in him who became entirely weak God became strong. And
the fact that God is stronger and stronger in him signifies that he is
stronger and stronger. — If thou couldst become entirely weak in
perfect obedience, so that loving God thou didst understand that
thou art able to do nothing at all, then would all the mighty ones of
the earth, if they were to unite against thee, be unable to hurt a
hair of thy head — what prodigious strength! But in fact this is not
true, and let us not say anything untrue. Indeed they certainly would
be able to do this, they would be able even to put thee to death,
and the great conjunction of all the mighty ones of the earth is by
no means requisite to this end, a far, far inferior power can easily
enough do it. But yet if thou wert entirely weak in perfect obedience,
then all the mighty ones of the earth in conjunction are not able to
hurt a hair of thy head otherwise than as God wills. And when it is
hurt thus, when thou art reviled thus, when thou art put to death
thus — if thou wert entirely weak in perfect obedience — thou wouldst
lovingly understand that it does thee no harm, not the very least,
that it is for thy true welfare — what prodigious strength! *

Soren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855. Danish philosopher.
Christian Discourses. Trans. Walter Lowrie.

96 The Way

Loving God

Then an expert in the Law got up to test him and said,

"Master, what must I do to make sure of eternal life?"

Jesus said to him,

"What does the Law say? How does it read?"

He answered,

" 'You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your
whole soul, your whole strength, and your whole mind/ and 'your
neighbor as you do yourself.' "

Jesus said to him,

"You are right. Do that, and you will live."

From the Gospel According to Luke, first century.
New Testament, Trans. E. J. Goodspeed.

To love God with all our hearts and all our souls and all our
minds means that every cleavage in human existence is overcome.

Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-. American theologian, educator, author.

Interpretation of Christian 'Ethics.

Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow
and to love him as they love their cow — they love their cow for the
milk and cheese and profit it makes them. This is how it is with
people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward com-
fort. They do not rightly love God when they love him for their own
advantage. Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have on your
mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost
truth.

Meistcr Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.

Meister Eckhart, Trans. R. Blakney.

You will ask me questions how a man can give himself to
that which he has no feeling of, especially when it relates to an
Object which he does not see, nor never had acquaintance with?
Sir, every day of your life you love things you do not see. Do you
see for instance the wisdom of your friend ? Do you see his sincerity,
his disinterestedness, his virtue? You cannot see those objects with
the eyes of the body, yet you prize and value them, and love them
in that degree that you prefer them in your friend to riches, and

The Implications of the Way 97

outward beauty, and to everything that strikes the eye. Love then the
wisdom and supreme goodness of God, as you love the wisdom and
imperfect goodness of your friend. And if you cannot presently have
a sensible feeling of love, you at least may have a love of preference
in your will and desire, which is the essential point.

But this very love is not in your power, it does not depend on you
to give it. You must desire it, pray for it, wait for it, and labour to
merit it; and feel the unhappiness of being deprived of it.

When you come to be sensibly touched, you will find an easy
solution for every scruple. The scales will fall from your eyes; and by
the penetrating eyes of love you will discern that which your other
eyes will never see.

Frangois Fcnelon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambray.
Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Fenelon, Trans. H. L. Lear.

Because we are born of the flesh, it must needs be that our desire,
or love, begins from the flesh; and if it is directed by right order,
advancing by its several degrees under guidance of grace, it will at
last be consummated by spirit: for "that was not first which is spirit-
ual, but that which is natural; afterwards that which is spiritual"
And first we must bear "the image of the earthly," afterwards "the
image of the heavenly."

First, then, man loves himself for his own sake; he is flesh, for-
sooth, and can have no taste for aught beyond himself. And when he
sees that he cannot subsist of himself, he begins by faith to seek God
as necessary to him, and to love him. Thus he loves God in the
second degree, but for his own sake, not for Himself. But when by
occasion of his own necessity, he has begun to worship and approach
him, by meditation, reading, prayer, obedience; by a certain familiar-
ity of this kind, little by little and gradually, God becomes known
and consequently grows sweet; and thus, having tasted how sweet is
the Lord, he passes on to the third degree, so that he loves God, not
now for his own sake, but for Himself.

Assuredly the abiding is long in this degree; and I know not if
the fourth is perfectly attained by any man in this life, so that, that
is, a man love himself only for the sake of God. Let those, if any,
who have experienced, tell us; to me, I confess it seems impossible.

98 The Way

But it will be beyond question when the good and faithful servant
is brought into the joy of his Lord, and inebriated with the plenty of
the house of God. For in a certain wondrous fashion oblivious of
himself, and as it were utterly abandoning himself, he will wholly
pass on into God; and henceforth, joined to the Lord, will be one in
spirit with him.*1

Saint Bernard, 1091-1153. French Abbott of Clairvaux.
On the Love of God, Trans. E. G. Gardner.

It is when a man begins to know the ambition of his life not
simply as the choice of his own will but as the wise assignment of
God's love; and to know his relations to his brethren not simply as
the result of his own impulsive affections but as the seeking of his
soul for these souls because they all belong to the great Father-soul;
it is then that life for that man begins to lift itself all over and to
grow towards completion upward through all its length and
breadth.*

Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893. American clergyman.

Sermons of Phillips Broods.

I have but one word to say to you concerning love for your neigh-
bor, namely, that nothing save humility can mould you to it; nothing
but the consciousness of your own weakness can make you indulgent
and pitiful to that of others. You will answer, "I quite understand
that humility should produce forbearance towards others, but how
am I first to acquire humility?" Two things combined will bring
that about; you must never separate them. The first is contemplation
of the deep gulf whence God's All-powerful Hand has drawn you
out, and over which He ever holds you, so to say, suspended. The
second is the Presence of that All-penetrating God. It is only in be-
holding and loving God that we can learn forgetfulness of self,
measure duly the nothingness of that which has dazzled us, and
accustom ourselves thankfully to "decrease" beneath that Great
Majesty Which absorbs all things. Love God, and you will be
humble; love God, and you will throw off the love of self; love God,
and you will love all that He gives you to love for love of Him.

Francois Fenelon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambray.
Spiritual Letters of Archbishop tendon, Trans. H. L. Lear.

The Implications of the Way 99

FOLLOWING THE INNER LIGHT

If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius,
which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even
insanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more reso-
lute and faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured objection which
one healthy man feels will at length prevail over the arguments and
customs of mankind. No man ever followed his genius till it misled
him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one
can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a
life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are
such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like
flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more
immortal — that is your success. All nature is your congratulation,
and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains
and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to
doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest real-
ity. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never com-
municated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is some-
what as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or
evening.

Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862. American philosopher.

Walden.

To that in everyone of your consciences do I appeal to the meas-
ure God hath given, the light; loving it and taking heed to it, and
waiting in it for power from God, it will guide you to the Father of
light in whom ye will have all unity.*

George Fox, 1624-1691. English, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Letters.

Question. What is it to believe in the light?

Answer. To receive its testimony either concerning good or evil,
and so either to turn towards or from, in the will and power which
the light begets in the heart.

Question. How will this save me?

Answer. By this means; that in thee which destroys thee, and
separates thee from the living God, is daily wrought out, and the

ioo The Way

heart daily changed into the image of him who is light, and brought
into unity and fellowship with the light, possessing of it, and being
possessed by it; and this is salvation.

It brings peace, joy, and glory. Faith in the light breaks down the
wall of darkness, the wall of partition, that which separates from the
peace, that which causeth the anguish and trouble upon the soul,
and so brings into peace.

And man receives not these revelations by study, by reading, by
willing, by running, but by being formed in the will of life, by being
begotten of the will of the Father, and by coming forth in the will,
and lying still in the will, and growing up in the will, here the child
receives the wisdom which is from above, and daily learns that cross
which crucifies the other wisdom, which joins with and pleases the
other will, which loves to be feeding on the shadowy and husky part
of knowledge, without life.

Know the light, the eternal light of life, the little glimmerings
and shinings of it in thy soul This comes from the rock, to lead
thee to the rock; and if thou wilt follow it, it will fix thee upon
the rock where thou canst not be shaken.

Mind the reproofs of the light; for that will still be setting thee
to rights. That will still be bringing down that which would get up
above; and there lies the preservation. Oh the chastenings of the
light, the sweet chastenings of the love by the light! These are heal-
ing stripes. This brings down the exalter, and that in thee which
loves to be exalted, and to be seeking the honour of the spiritual
riches, before the humility is perfected.4

Isaac Pennington, 1616-1679. English Quaker,
Isaac Pcnnington's

Dwelling in the Light, there is no occasion at all for stumbling,
for all things are discovered with the Light. Thou that lovest it here-
with is Thy Teacher. When thou art walking abroad it is present
with thee in thy bosom. Thou needest not to say, lo, here, or lo, there;
and as thou liest in thy bed it is present to teach thee and judge thy
wandering mind \^hich wanders abroad and thy high thoughts and
imaginations and makes them subject. For following thy thoughts

The Implications of the Way 101

thou art quickly lost. By dwelling in this Light it will discover to
thee the body of sin and thy corruptions and fallen estate where
thou art. In that Light which shows thee all this, stand; neither to
the right nor to the left.

George Fox, 1624-1691. English, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is sound,
your whole body is light, but when it is unsound, your body is dark.
So take care! Your very light may be darkness! If, therefore, your
whole body is light with no darkness in it at all, it will all be as light
as a lamp makes things for you by its light.

Jesus of Nazareth.
New Testament (Luke n), Trans. E. J. Goodspeed.

THE WAY IMPLIES A REBIRTH

For thousands of years, rites of initiation have been teaching
spiritual rebirth; yet, strangely enough, man forgets again and again
the meaning of divine procreation. This is surely no evidence of a
strong life of the spirit; "and yet the penalty of misunderstanding
is heavy, for it is nothing less than neurotic decay, embitterment,
atrophy and sterility. It is easy enough to drive the spirit out of the
door, but when we have done so the salt of life grows flat— it loses
its savour. Fortunately, we have proof that the spirit always renews
its strength in the fact that the central teaching of the ancient initia-
tions is handed on from generation to generation. Ever and again
human beings arise who understand what is meant by the fact that
God is our Father. The equal balance of the flesh and the spirit is not
lost to the world.

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychologist.
Modern Man m Search of a Soul, Trans. W. Dell & C. Baynes.

This dying to self by dying into life result^ as Keats had dis-
covered, in the birth of a new self. For the mind through which
man acquires his sense of personal identity, is not luxuriously re-
laxed. The intensity of effort involved is vividly revealed in the lines

102 The Way

in which Keats described his agonized approach to the altar steps.
But this effort implies something other than the negative concentra-
tion of self-restraint which Mr. Babbitt preaches. It is a positive
crucifixion of self, whereby the mind ceases to be conscious of its
own petty rights and scruples, and knows in itself the Mind of life
labouring in the imperfect matter of humanity towards a perfect
realization of being.

For every moment of pure consciousness is a kind of death. The
self dies as a separate entity. It lives as a perfect unity. By giving
itself to the death that is in life, it receives the life that is in death,
and receives it, not with clouded faculties or in some swoon of sense,
but with a heightened awareness of reality. The self is so disinter-
ested that nothing is alien to it; it is so conscious of its own and so
of life's creative purpose that nothing is meaningless to it.*

Hugh I'Anson Fausset, 1895-. English critic, poet.
Proving of Psyche,

Obviously it is always an unfortunate thing to express, in intel-
lectual terms, subtle feelings which are none the less infinitely im-
portant for the life and well-being of the individual. In a certain
sense, the thing we are trying to express is the feeling of having
been "replaced/' but without the connotation of having been "de-
posed." It is as if the leadership of the affairs of life had gone over to
an invisible centre*

In this remarkable experience I see a phenomenon resulting from
the detachment of consciousness, through which the subjective "I
live," becomes die objective "It lives me." This condition is felt to be
higher than the earlier one; it is really as if it were a sort of release
from compulsion and impossible responsibility which are the in-
evitable results of participation mystique. This feeling of release
filled Paul completely. It is the consciousness of being a child of God
which then frees one from the spell of the blood. Also, it is a feeling
of reconciliation with what is happening, and that is the reason that
the glance of "one who has attained fulfillment,'* according to the
Hui Ming Ching,9 returns to the beauty of nature.

The Eoo\ of Changes — Ancient Chinese Scripture,

The Implications of the Way 103

In the Pauline Christ-symbol the deepest religious experience of
the West and East meet. On the one hand, Christ the sorrow-laden
hero; on the other, the Golden Flower that blooms in the purple
hall of the city of jade— what a contrast, what an unfathomable dif-
ference, what an abyss of history! This is a problem fit to be the
master-work of a future psychologist.**

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychologist.
Secret of the Golden Flower, Trans. C. F. Baynes.

Here it is necessary to distinguish two paths through the crisis to
a new start. We call the first one the human or earthly path. It ends
in a certain sense of fellowship in a We that consists of humans — an
earthly or human We. The second one may be characterized as the
religious path. Its outlet is — at least in our time— Christianity with its
sense of the manifestation of God in the We.

In the first case, the person has renounced all the former aims and
values of his Ego. In anticipation this process seemed to be death
itself, yet now, having passed through it, he realizes that he is alive
in spite of the terrible breakdown. Now he sees that the world is
quite different from what he formerly believed it to be. He seems
to look upon life with new eyes, seeing connections, facts, values,
goals, ways, possibilities he never saw before. A serious offense, which
yesterday seemed to be unbearable, is now a mere trifle. Like old
clothes, worn out and worthless, his egocentric prejudices, notions,
and ideas have been discarded for something better. Formerly it was
supposed that without these egocentric values life would be empty,
meaningless, nothing at all — that when these old egocentric ideas
had been dropped nothing would be left, that the rest of life would
be emptiness. But now the person discovers how mistaken he was.
For a new world opens up before him with a whole new life, richer
and more colorful and more differentiated than anything he knew
before.

This appearance in his life of the new values, new feelings and
new aims, which completes the new insight into the actual realities
of life, is the very essence of the crisis, and perhaps the essence of
human life itself. As has been said before, it is inexplicable, and we

104 The Way

must limit ourselves to describing it as carefully as possible. In the
case of the human or earthly path through crisis, we come to feel
that this "miracle of rebirth" seems to be a natural element in human
life. In the case of the religious path, we feel behind the sunrise of
the new life a higher Living Power who brings it about.

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., German psychotherapist, and Roy E. Dickerson, American author.

How Character Develops.

Among the Pharisees there was a man named Nicodemus, a
leader among the Jews, This man went to Jesus one night, and said
to him,

"Master, we know that you are a teacher who has come from
God, for no one can show the signs that you do, unless God is
with him."

Jesus answered him,

"I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born
over again from above!"

Nicodemus said to him,

"How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his
mother's womb over again and be born?"

Jesus answered,

"I tell you, if a man does not owe his birth to water and spirit,
he cannot get into the Kingdom of God. Whatever owes its birth to
the physical is physical, and whatever owes its birth to the Spirit is
spiritual Do not wonder at my telling you that you must be born
over again from above. The wind blows wherever it chooses, and you
hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or
where it goes. That is the way with everyone who owes his birth to
the Spirit."

From Gospel According to John, first century.
New Testament, Trans. E. J, Goodspced.

Nicodemus asked, expecting to end the discussion which had
grown too transcendental. Can a man enter again his mother's
womb and be reborn? That undoubtedly is the question with which
civilization is faced today: Can there be rebirth, or must the attempt
at metamorphosis always mean death?

The Implications of the Way 105

It is on that peculiar and vital point that we have today through
science a most significant addition to our knowledge. Today we
know that this way of rebirth is the way whereby all great critical
advances have been made by Life. All profoundly new development,
all development after the stage of complete functional power has
been attained, must be and can only be by a profound sloughing
and, more, by a recasting of the elder form and a completely fresh
growth build up from basic materials. This is the great principle
called now in science Foetalization, since its supreme biological im-
portance has been discovered, but known for long to the "artists of
thought" as metamorphosis or rebirth.

Naturally, faced by this demand of Life, with this dilemma to
take in more reality and to fulfill more courageously the psycho-
logical demands of his nature, man shrinks from the only way
forward — to keep on opening his mind, his heart, and his apprehen-
sions. He feels that he is being torn asunder and dissolved. Birth is
as terrible an agony as death. That it shall be birth and not death de-
pends on the creature's vitality. One thing is certain, that the old
narrower life is over. For a short time we shall see the violences of
this profound conflict, by those who suffer from them, thrown out
into the outer world of action. We shall see the outer violences of
class wars, experts' wars, nations' wars and age-group wars — all
projections of inner conflict striving to avoid the crisis that must be
fought out in itself. But in the end the force within us, which we
are now attempting to get rid of by our violent actions in the world
without, will turn in upon ourselves. For we are not answering its
demand that we should change ourselves by these our violent efforts
to overset the world. We cannot say whether we shall learn in time
where lies the true centre of our distress and so realize how it may be
cured, and cease before we have done fatal damage by striking
blindly about us as lunatics strike with mad fury at the phantasms
projected by their diseased minds. What our present knowledge does
tell us is either we shall shortly emerge into a new world in which
value and reality can be seen reconciled, or we shall die, leaving a
lesson and an empty field for those next chosen by Life to attempt
this crisis of creation. We can see the deep rend under us today so

io6 The Way

clearly because today it is risen to the surface and is sweeping us to
the brink.*

Gerald Heard, 1889-. English author, religious philosopher.

These Hurrying years.

I had learned^ it seemed, that a spiritual progress was possible
to man, by which out of the discordant elements of his being — the
desire of the Heart and the knowledge of the Mind— a harmony was
created. This harmony was a new kind of being, and it had been
called by Jesus and Eckhart and Keats, the Soul. This Soul was at
once a new condition of the total human being and a faculty of
knowledge. It was aware of the universe as a harmony, and of itself
as a part of that harmony; and this awareness was a joyful aware-
ness. This was the ground of the mystical faith that the Soul was
consubstantial with God. God, in this mystical sense, was the in-
separable counterpart of the Soul; and the Soul, in the process and
very moment of becoming aware of its own self-existence, became
also aware of the existence of an omnipresent God of which itself
was, as it were, a focus of self-knowledge.

This strange and simple process was the "rebirth" which Jesus
had taught, and which was the central mystery of all high religion.
It could occur in complete independence of any particular religion;
it was the outcome of an internecine conflict between the desire of
the Heart and the knowledge of the Mind.

This conflict between Heart and Mind, between feeling and
knowledge, was obviously independent of religion, in any ordinary
sense of the word. It was simply incidental to humanity. Man, being
man, was bound to endure this conflict. If he did not endure it, he
was less than man, in the sense that he was turning away from
something which it was his duty as a man to look upon.

Some drugged themselves with a religion which assured them
that the desires of the Heart would be realized, and that death was
only the doorway to life; some sought forgetfulness in busy plans
for the amelioration of human circumstance; some sought to live
in the moment. But there were always a few on whom these opiates
failed to work. By some queer destiny the conflict was forced upon

The Implications of the Way 107

them. Heart and Mind in them insisted each upon its rights., and
the claims could not be reconciled. There was a deadlock in the
centre of their being, and they passed steadily into a condition of
isolation, inanition, abandonment and despair. Their inward division
was complete.

Then came, out of that extreme and absolute division, a sudden
unity. A new kind of consciousness was created in them. Mind and
Heart, which had been irreconcilable enemies, became united in the
Soul, which loved what it knew. The inward division, which had
divided the human being also from the universe of his knowledge,
was healed; in a single happening, man became one in himself and
one with all that was without him. He knew that he was called
upon to play his part in the harmony revealed to him.

This was the great secret of religion; but only because it was
the great secret of life. Men who learned and obeyed it, became
different. They were a new kind of men.*

John Middleton Murry, 1889-. English author, critic.

God.

CHAPTER THREE

Progression on the Way

The sower went forth to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell by
the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them: and others fell
upon the rocky places, and straightway they sprang up: and when
the sun was risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root,
they withered away.

And others fell upon the thorns; and the thorns grew up, and choked
them: and others fell upon the good ground, and yielded fruit, some
a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
He that hath ears, let him hear.*

JESUS OF NAZARETH

People who are far from God think they are very near to him, when
they begin to take a few steps to approach him. The most polite and
most enlightened people have the same stupidity about this as a
peasant who thinks he is really at court, because he has seen the king.

FRANCOIS F£NELON

There are too many v^ho are content to learn words by heart, and
to put words in the place of experience. No one can really under-
stand these things unless he has experienced them himself.*

CARL G. JUNG

CHAPTER THREE

Progression on the Way

*CO Lord, this is not the work of one day, nor children's sport; nay,
in this short work * is included all the perfection of religious persons."
In this statement Thomas a Kempis voices an appropriate warning to all
who enter upon the religious Way, for it is not a short, nor an easy
undertaking. The rebirth that occurs is a continuous process. It challenges
to a persistent and concentrated effort, such as is required in learning
to apprehend and enter into the nature of reality in any new area. In the
religious realm the demands are greater than in all others, for the goal
is the apprehension of the nature of the real self ("Within, yet beyond the
person") and the organization of the personality around that Central
Reality.

The warning of this fifteenth century Religious refers to a grave
misunderstanding regarding the Way, one that has led to countless dis-
couragements and failures, i.e., the commonly held belief that the change
of conscious attitude which the Way involves will bring an immediate
and lasting transformation of personality. For many there may be a
tremendously clarifying initial experience, but for relatively few of whom
there is record, is there the cataclysmic conversion of a Paul or an
Augustine. For most people the transformation is a long and slow process
because of those obstacles of personality and social structure which so
effectively block the needed reorientation.

So much emphasis has been placed on beginning the religious Way,
and so little emphasis has been put on following it, that a startling
ignorance concerning the very fact of progression prevails. Doubtless
some of the disrepute into which religion falls can be traced to this un-
realism. Its effect is two-fold.

First it leads to the disillusionment of many aspirants, who, following
the first enthusiastic flush of devotion, gradually find themselves faced

1 "Let go all, and thou shall find all."

110

Progression on the Way in

with the same conflicts, tensions, and fears as before. What seems dis-
turbing to them is that these appear in intensified form. The aspirants
conclude, therefore, that they are growing worse instead of better and so
frequently fall by the wayside. They are the ones who may be heard to
exclaim, "I have tried religion, and it doesn't work." Thus do many lose
faith and discontinue their efforts, at least until their inner longing leads
them to a different approach to the Way, whereupon they are benefited
by another clarifying experience. This stop-and-go method is wasteful
and largely unnecessary, for we learn from the first rank religious as well
as psychotherapeutic helpers, that progress in self-knowledge leads in-
evitably to the uncovering of heretofore hidden egocentric motives— to
a greater awareness of a faulty condition that has existed for a long time.
This is a sign of progress, and not of failure.

The other situation stemming from this unrealism is even more dis-
turbing, because in it the victims are seldom aware of their plight. They
are those who start out with good promise, but not realizing the range of
progress which may be a possibility for them, nor the training that will
facilitate progress toward the further goals, gradually settle down into a
mediocrity that is complacent, and sterile. They may be, indeed, many
of them are, loyal church members. They believe themselves to be
leading the "good life" whereas they have barely stepped over the
threshold, for they have not yet come to grips with their deepest inner
nature. They have made little progress in eradicating the "false" elements
within the self and therefore the "real" elements remain still to be dis-
covered. Thus they continue to project upon society their unknown and
unresolved conflicts, and fail to project what could emerge through them—
some measure of the creative, loving power of God.

When mediocrity of achievement thus becomes the rule, it comes also
to be accepted as the only possible, practical goal. It is easy to see how the
religious Way, viewed with such distortion, ceases to hold out the answer
to man's longing for fulfillment, and falls into disrepute.

We may wonder why advice concerning progression has not been
made more available. The reasons are too involved to discuss here. How-
ever, there is no present excuse for lack of information in this area, for
in addition to the remarkably enlightened instruction of early religious
directors which has long been available, and too frequently neglected,
there is a comparatively new body of information provided by psychology
which throws light on the unconscious factors involved in any change of

[12 The Way

Character, Also there has come an increased influx of translations made
Erom the wealth of ancient Hindu and Buddhist sources concerning the
tneans whereby man can learn to apprehend Reality. The Westerner can
profit from some of the methods which these religions have developed,
even though many of them are not suitable to the Western temperament.

The information and advices which follow have been garnered from
these three areas of insight, as well as from contemporary religious
teachers.

Limitation of space prevents a thorough consideration of all the known
factors in progression on the Way. The reader will profit by further study
concerning them. (See Bibliography.) It should be said that the factors
governing the rate and range are complex and individually determined.
Biological equipment, mental and emotional endowment, temperament,
as well as environmental factors enter in. Recent studies in both physical
and temperamental types seem to indicate forward steps in insight, and
may be especially helpful in future instruction concerning techniques for
spiritual training.2

Since progression to the higher stages, which* Poulain and others would
designate as the mystical stages, is characterized among other things by an
intense concentration, such as is found to characterize the genius in all
fields, it may be that a prerequisite endowment is necessary for the degree
of achievement which marks a Saint Francis or a Saint John of the Cross
or a Gandhi. However, because of the early conditioning experiences
jvhich build up a "seeming-self" in all of us, it is difficult, if not im-
possible, to determine the native endowment for any person. It is of
little use, therefore, to predict a particular range of spiritual maturity for
anyone. This, added to the all-important factor that every step along the
Way brings immeasurable benefits, impels one to use every means for
accelerating his progress on the Way. The final range of achievement
depends not on one's own effort but on the Grace of God.

STAGES OF PROGRESSION 8

A tree that it takes both arms to encircle grew from a tiny
rootlet. A many storied pagoda is built by placing one brick upon

2 "Psychological Types" by Carl G. Jung, and "Varieties of Temperament" by William
H. Sheldon.

3 See Chapter IV "Kinds and Degrees of Prayer."

Progression on the Way 113

another brick. A journey of three thousand miles is begun by a
single step.

Laotzu, sixth century B.C. Chinese philosopher.
Laotzu's Tao and Wu-Wei, Trans. Bhikshu Wai-Tao and D. Goddard.

Our safety does not lie in the present perfection of our knowledge
of the will of God, but in our sincerity in obeying the light we have,
and in seeking for more.

Edward Worsdell, 1853-1908. English teacher.
The Gospel of Divine Help.

In the great mystics we see the highest and widest development
of that consciousness to which the human race has yet attained. We
see its growth exhibited to us on a grand scale, perceptible of all
men. . . . The germ of that same transcendent life, the spring of the
amazing energy which enables the great mystic to rise to freedom
and dominate his world, is latent in all of us; an integral part of
our humanity. Where the mystic has a genius for the Absolute, we
have each a little buried talent, some greater, some less; and the
growth of this talent, this spark of the soul, once we permit its
emergence, will conform in little, and according to its measure, to
those laws of organic growth, those inexorable conditions of trans-
cendence which we found to govern the Mystic Way.

Every person, then, who awakens to consciousness of a Reality
which transcends the normal world of sense is put upon a road which
follows at low levels the path which the mystic treads at high
levels. . . .

I do not care whether the consciousness be that of artist or
musician, striving to catch and fix some aspect of the heavenly light
or music, and denying all other aspects of the world in order to
devote themselves to this: or of the humble servant of Science, purg-
ing his intellect that he may look upon her secrets with innocence
of eye: whether the higher reality be perceived in the terms of
religion, beauty, suffering; of human love, of goodness, or of truth.
However widely these forms of transcendence may seem to differ,

the mystic experience is the key to them all Each brings the self

who receives its revelation in good faith, does not check it by self-

fi4 The Way

regarding limitations, to a humble acceptance of the universal law
D£ knowledge: the law that "we behold that which we are," and
hence that "only the Real can know Reality ." Awakening, Dis-
:ipline, Enlightenment, Self-surrender, and Union, are the essential
phases of life's response to this fundamental fact: the conditions of
our attainment of Being *

Evelyn Underbill, 1875-1944. English writer and mystic.

Mysticism.

No one can be enlightened unless he be first cleansed or purified
and stripped. So also, no one can be united with God unless he be
first enlightened. Thus there are three stages: first, the purification
(or purgation) ; secondly, the enlightening; thirdly, the union.

Written anonymously by one of the "Friends of God," in fourteenth century.

Theologica Germanica, Trans. Winkworth.

•Several mystic authors, according to the several notions that they
had both of the end of a spiritual life and means conducing thereto,
have by several terms made the division of its degrees. The most
ancient division is into three states: i. of beginners; 2. of proficients;
3. of such as are perfect. Yet withal they do not signify by what
distinctive marks each of these states is separated from the others;
but generally, in latter times, the whole course of a spiritual life is
divided: i. into the Purgative way, in which all sinful defects are
purged out of the soul; 2. the Illuminative way, by which divine
virtues and graces are introduced; 3. the Unitive way, by which a
soul attains unto the end of all other exercises, to wit, an union with
God in spirit by perfect charity,

Augustin Baker, 1575-1641. English Benedictine Father.

Holy Wisdom,

We must start without delay on the painful, steep, humiliating
path of undoing our busy, deliberately deluded selves. So only will
the Kingdom come, where it must come fully and where we alone
can decide whether it shall come— in ourselves. "The Kingdom of
God is within you," yes, but only if we are prepared to let that
powerful germ of eternal life grow, until it splits away and con-
sumes this husk, our ego. Unless we, this person with his tightly

Progression on the Way 115

bound triple self-love — love of his physical appetites and comforts,
of his possession, of his place, rank, and recognition— unless that
hard and hardening nut is buried and rots and is eaten away by the
new life's germ, there is no hope. Indeed we may say that the whole
secret of the spiritual life is just this painful struggle to come awake,
to become really conscious. And, conversely, the whole process and
technique of evil is to do just the reverse to us: to lull us to sleep, to
distract us from what is creeping up within us; to tell us that we are
busy workers for the Kingdom when we are absent-mindedly
(while we daydream of our importance) spreading death, not life;
to persuade us that we are wise, practical, creative, when we are
sinking daily into a blinder and more fatal automatism.

That, then, is the first step, known by the grim technical term,
purgation. I must start with myself, and stay with myself until some
intention appears in my actions, some consistency between what I
say and do. I must not escape into denunciation, coercion, or even
superior concern for anyone else. I shall do so if I can; that is the
invariable trick of the ego, trying to escape and save itself from its
necessary death. "When God turns on man, man turns on his
neighbor," said old Jeremy Taylor some three centuries ago. Then,
after that complete abandonment of serving two masters— my view
of myself as a master-builder gaining recognition by my active good-
ness, and of God— then comes the next step, illumination. I am still
far below being capable of a creative act. That is God's prerogative,
and He gives it only to those who have given themselves away that
He may occupy the space they once filled. But I am permitted at last
to see things as they are. Fear and hurry and anxiety leave me. Why?
Because, though still extremely ignorant, I know one thing at last.
I know that God exists. There is utter Reality, complete creative
power holding the entire creation in its grasp. The whole of time
and space is no more than an incident, a minute episode in the
immeasurable order, power, and glory of complete Being. Once I
have seen, really seen, that, once I am illuminated, then I have fully
attained one step in approaching God's Kingdom and in letting it
approach; I no longer am standing in the way. I cease to bar the
Light. I cease to be a reason for people not believing in God. The

n6 The Way

Light shines through those who have so opened themselves, or
rather let themselves be opened. Thank God we have all of us known
one or two of them. And there may be more of them than we notice,
for they are the reverse of showy. They may be very active, but when
we think of them it is not of their activity, physical or mental, of
which we think. It is of some still, firm quality, some essence deeper
than deeds, that we see in them. They see Reality, are always looking
at it, and, through that seeing, there is in them a quality of entire
Being.

Is there anything beyond that stage? That is indeed much . . . The
first stage is that of servantship, when we learn not to disobey. The
second stage is one of friendship, when we learn why we have had
to obey, and to abstain from much that seemed harmless and even,
in its way, right. Then comes the third stage, that of creative action,
the station and work of sons. They are not merely privileged on-
lookers, they are co-workers. This is the well-known (but seldom
climbed) ladder of the mystics. But let us look at it again, not dis-
missing it as a rare path reserved for ecstatics. Is it not also, here in
front of us today, unmistakably, an evolutionary path ? Is not this
the way to the Kingdom and is not the attainment of that final
station itself the Kingdom ? To some people this may seem something
of an anticlimax. Is the dream of the Kingdom to end simply with
the ivory-tower ideal of a large crop of saints ? If we think that goal
anything less than the highest, that can be because we have never
met any of that highest third rank — as well may be. They are them-
selves rare and, moreover, like all supreme masterpieces, those who
would understand them must in themselves have already something
of the nature they would appreciate. If we are quite blind, however
intense the sun, we shall still see only darkness. The sons of God
differ from us not only in character but in capacity. They are not
merely good and wise but theirs is of the essential nature of their
Father, a quality, an intensity of Being, which is, unless they screen
it from us, disquieting, uncanny. Real creativeness is far more terrible
than what we call destruction.

Can we ourselves hope to climb this tremendous way to the
Kingdom? Certainly: there will be no Kingdom unless and until

Progression on the Way HJ

we do so climb to that station. For only those who have attained
may safely be given the powers, the spiritual powers whereby, and
only whereby, God's Kingdom may come on earth. How can we
learn to climb to such immense heights? We have seen the first
steps. The very first is to know that I as I am, am an obstacle to the
Kingdom. I must start, before anything else, by clearing myself out
of the way. I must learn, right down to my reflexes, to say and mean
and know, "Let my name perish, so Thy Kingdom come." *

Gerald Heard, 1889-. English author, religious philosopher.

The Creed of Christ.

STAGES FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF DEPTH-PSYCHOLOGY

The more we can observe the details of the process the more we
discover the well-known features of the "Great Turn," or the "Great
Way," as it has been described by spiritual leaders all through the
history of religion. Seen from the viewpoint of depth-psychology
the essential stages of the journey are three.

The first stage is regression and reintegration. It corresponds to
the "purgation" of medieval mysticism. The Ego or the idol, the
rigid structure of the former life, collapses, together with all its
valuations, prejudices, resentments, desires and fears. The "censor-
ship," the screen between consciousness and the unconscious, breaks
down. Old images, forgotten emotions, repressed functions, come to
life again; primitive obsessions and projections, visions and night-
mares endanger the equilibrium of the good citizen. Without
adequate inner or outer help, religious and psychological, he will
be in an evil predicament.

This is the situation which the psalmists have described with
amazing exactitude: "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the
floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell com-
passed me about: the snares of death prevented me" (Psalm 18:4, 5).
And again: "Many bulls have compassed me; strong bulls of Bashan
have beset me round" (Psalm 22:12). The outer and the inner evil
fuse; death or insanity seems to be certain; all the negativity of the
universe seems to be arrayed against us. There is only one way out:

ii8 The Way

the religious way: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me" (Psalm

23=4)-

The power of the images/ terrifying as it may be, is borrowed

power. It appears to be genuine and invincible only as long as we
do not know the real center. The appeal to the center,5 therefore,
is the only thing left for the person who is "beset by the bulls" of the
collective unconscious.6 Even the atheist, if anything disagreeable
takes him by surprise, reacts with a superficial turn to the center.
He says "O God!" or "For goodness sake!" If the believer can do the
same thing in a more serious way, even though in the moment of
fear or pain his concept of God may be vague or childish, it will help
him more than anything else.

The turning towards the center is the second stage of the journey.
But the center itself, the aspect of God which can be experienced in
such a situation, is quite different from what most people expect it
to be. Either we project some learned or emotional ideas into the
universe; or, knowing we must have no image of God, we use an
empty frame, three feet square, and according to our creed we think
God will fit the frame. Yet he does not. His appearance, if he appears
at all, crushes our beautiful frame. We are frightened and offended
and decree that the power which destroyed our convictions must be
the devil.

The nearer we come to the center, the more we leave the images
behind, the more are our fears turned into anxiety. And anxiety, if
we face it, is turned into awe. What seemed to be the power of
darkness now manifests itself as the power of light. After the great
and strong wind comes the earthquake, then the fire, and then the
still small voice (I Kings 19:11-13).

The terrible and destructive aspect of the godhead— the "tremen-
dum" in theological language— originates as a subjective human
experience, though an unavoidable one if our religious convictions
and our rigid theology are smashed by the Grace of God. We live in

4 Symbols in dreams and fantasy.

5 The "Real Self"— "God within."

6 That deep, inborn layer of the unconscious which is not individual but universal in
content. (Editors).

Progression on the Way 119

a jail which we call our castle; a foreign soldier breaks through the
doors, come to free us by blasting the walls of our castle— and we
fight him with the last might of our broken Ego, calling him
scoundrel, knave and devil, until we are exhausted, overwhelmed
and disarmed. Then looking at the victor with disinterested ob-
jectivity we recognize him: St. Michael smilingly sheathes his sword.

The power which brought about the fight was grace. The "evil"
which caused our anxiety was, in the last analysis, grace. And even
the real scoundrels, our competitors in egocentricity who betrayed
us and wounded us so unjustly, even they, as we discover now, were
already working unknowingly and unwillingly in the service of the
super-human strategy of grace. This fact is no excuse for their evil-
doing; but it shows the transcendent power and wisdom of the
coming Kingdom of Heaven. And above all it shows that the King-
dom is there already and is working in spite of and even through
the errors and felonies of its prospective citizens.

Here begins the third stage of the journey, identical with the
"illumination" of the old mystics. It is not only an intellectual in-
sight but is at the same time an emotional experience of utmost
reality and a volitional change which overthrows the whole system
of our values, goals and means. It gives us a new viewpoint, or rather
a double viewpoint, which enables us to see people at the same time
as rascals and as children of God. Evil reveals its creative implica-
tions, and what we deemed to be good now shows its fiendish danger
as the devil's bait. Deeper insight, more power, increasing respon-
sibility, and above all a higher kind of love, more detached and more
comprehensive — these are the characteristics of the new life, as far
as we are able to describe them in a language of our empirical, and
that means humanly limited, psychology.

The "unconscious of the past," we may say, was conditioned by
our images and their historical forms. The "unconscious of the
future" is conditioned by the center itself. It is creative power, using
the images, now cleansed and timeless, according to its creative plans,
which are our own unconscious goals. The crisis then is the transition
from an eccentric, less conscious and less powerful life — pivoting
around the Ego-image or an idolized image— to a well-centered,

120 The Way

more conscious and more powerful life— pivoting around the real
Self. This Self proves to be the center both of the individual and
of the group, and therefore transforms the individual into a servant
of the group — that is love; and proves to be also our relation to God,
and therefore transforms individuals and groups into servants of God
—that is faith. The crisis, if it is complete, means conversion.7 *-**

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., 1889-. German psychotherapist.
In Search of Maturity.

The first stage (in the process of "individuation" 8) leads to the
experience of the shadow, which symbolizes our "other aspect,"
our "dark brother," who belongs inseparably to our totality. The
meeting with the shadow often coincides with the making conscious
of the functional type to which one belongs.9 The shadow is an
archetypal figure that often appears even today personified in many
forms in the conceptions of primitives. It forms a part of the in-
dividual, a kind of split-off part of his being which is nevertheless
joined with him just "like a shadow." Confronting one's shadow
means becoming unsparingly critically conscious of one's own
nature. The shadow stands, so to speak, on the threshold of the way
to the unconscious. Only when we have learned to distinguish our-
selves from it, having accepted its reality as a part of our being and
remaining always aware of this fact, can the encounter with the other
psychic pairs of opposites succeed. Then, and then only, commences
that objective attitude towards one's own personality without which
there is no progress along the way to totality.

The second stage of the individuation process is characterized
•by the meeting with the figure of the "soul-image," named by Jung
the anima in the man, the animus in the woman.

The soul-image is a more or less firmly constituted functional
complex, and the inability to distinguish one's self from it leads to
such phenomena as those of the moody man, dominated by feminine
drives, ruled by his emotions, or of the rationalizing, animus-obsessed
woman who always knows better and reacts in a masculine way, not

7 What the mystics called "union" is a later event.

8 See pages 32-35 for Jung's description of this process.

9 The four functions are: feeling, sensation, thinking, intuition.

Progression on the Way 121

instinctively. One has then the impression that another, a strange
person has "taken possession" of the individual.

The variety of forms in which the soul-image can appear is nearly
inexhaustible. It is seldom unambiguous, almost always a complexly
opalescent phenomenon, equipped with all properties of the most
contradictory nature in so far as these are typically feminine or
masculine respectively.

"The first bearer of the soul-image is probably always the mother;
later it is those women who excite the man's fancy, whether in a
positive or negative sense." The release from the mother is one of the
most important and most delicate problems in the realization of
personality. The primitives possess for this purpose a whole series
of ceremonies, initiations to manhood, rites of rebirth, etc., in which
the initiant receives such instructions as shall enable him to dispense
with the guardianship of the mother. The European, however, must
gain "acquaintanceship" with his feminine or masculine psycho-
logical component through the process of making conscious this com-
ponent in his own psyche. That the figure of the soul-image, the
contrasexual in one's own psyche, especially with the Occidental is
so deeply repressed in the unconscious and accordingly plays a de-
cisive and often troublesome role is in great part the fault of our
patriarchically oriented culture. The repression of feminine traits in
a man and inclinations leads naturally to an accumulation of these
needs in the unconscious. Thus it can often be his own worst weak-
ness that the man marries, which explains many a "queer marriage,"
and it happens no differently to the woman.

The animus is mostly represented by a multiplicity of figures, by
"something like an assemblage of fathers and other authorities who
pronounce ex cathedra incontestable, 'sensible' judgments." Often
these are, in the first place, uncritically accepted opinions, prejudices,
principles, which mislead the woman to wrangling and argumenta-
tion. But just as the anima is not merely symbol of the dangers of
the drives waiting their chance for seduction in the dark of the
unconscious, but at the same time signifies man's light and inspiring
guide, leading him onwards, not downwards, so is the animus not
only the "devil of opinions," the renegade from all logic, but "also a

122 The Way

productive,, creative being, albeit not in the form of masculine pro-
ductiveness but as fructifying word, as "logos spermati\ps" As the
man gives birth to his work out of his inner "femininity," as a
rounded whole, and the anima thereby becomes his inspiring muse,
so the inner "masculine" of the woman often brings forth creative
germs able to fertilize the feminine in the man. Thus the two sexes
complement each other here as well in a fortunate interplay, not
only on the physical level but also in that mysterious stream pregnant
with images that flows through and unites the depths of their souls.
We generally choose our partners so that they stand for the un-
known, unconscious part of our psyche. When this part has been
made conscious, one no longer shoves off his own faults onto the
feminine or masculine partner, i.e., the projection is resolved. Thus
a quantity of psychic energy, which up to then lay bound in the
projection, is taken back and can be placed at the disposal of one's
own ego. In this way too one comes "to one's self" — not in the way
of self-complacency indeed, as in narcissism, but in the way of self-
recognition. If one has seen through and made conscious the con-
trasexual in his own psyche, then one has himself and his emotions
and affects in hand. That means above all real independence, although
at the same time — isolation, that isolation of the "inwardly free"
whom no love relation or partnership can hold in chains, for whom
the other sex has lost its mystery because they have learned to know
its fundamental traits in the depths of their own psyche. Such a man,
too, will scarcely be able to "fall in love" any more, for he can no
more lose himself in another; but he will be capable of so much the
deeper "love" in the sense of consciously giving himself to the other.
For his isolation does not estrange him from the world; it only gives
him a proper distance from it. It makes possible to him a devotion to
fellow-men still more unrestricted because no longer dangerous to
his individuality. True, it requires in most cases half a lifetime until
this step is reached. Probably no one attains it without a struggle.
A full measure of experience — indeed of disappointment — likewise
belongs thereto. The encounter with the soul-image is therefore not
a task of youth but of maturity. Probably on this account it becomes
only in the course of later life a necessity to dispose of this problem.

Progression on the Way 123

As the making conscious of the shadow makes possible the
knowledge of our other, dark aspect, so does the making conscious
of the soul-image enable us to gain knowledge of the contrasexual in
our own psyche. When this image is recognized and revealed, then it
ceases to work from out of the unconscious and allows us finally to
differentiate this contrasexual component and to incorporate it into
our conscious orientation,, through which an extraordinary enrich-
ment of the contents belonging to our consciousness and therewith
a broadening of our personality is attained.

A further portion of the way is now made free. When all the
difficulties of the confrontation with the soul-image are overcome,
then new archetypes arise that compel the individual to a new reckon-
ing and a new definition of his position. The whole process is, as
far as we can see, directed towards a goal.

The personification of the spiritual principle, can be distinguished
as the next milestone of inner development. Its counterpart in the
individuation process of the woman is the Magna Mater, the great
earth-mother, which represents the cold and objective truth of
nature. The moment has arrived for analysing and exploring no
longer the contrasexual part of the psyche, as in the case of the
anima and the animus, but that part of it which constitutes, so to
speak, our very essence— for going back to the primordial image
after which it has been formed. It is necessary to make conscious the
whole range of possibilities one carries within one's self, from the
crudest "primordial being" up to the highest, most differentiated and
most nearly perfect symbol. To this end both figures, the "Old Wise
Man" as well as the "Magna Mater," may appear in an infinite
variety of shapes. Jung calls these archetypal figures of the un-
conscious "Mana personalities." To possess mana means to have
effective power over others, but also to run the danger of becoming
presumptuous and vainglorious thereby. The making conscious of
those contents which constitute the archetype of the mana personality
signifies therefore "for the man the second and true liberation from
the father, for the woman that from the mother, and therewith the
first perception of their own unique individuality." Only when the
individual has come thus far can he, may he in the true sense of the

124 x The Way

word "become united with God in a spiritual childhood." The
basically double nature of the psyche is recognized. Yet the forces
activated in the individual by these insights only stand really at his
disposal when he has learned to distinguish himself from them in
humility.

Now we are no longer far from the goal. The archetypal image
that leads out of this polarity to the union of both partial systems-
consciousness and the unconscious — through a common mid-point
is named : the self. It marks the last station on the way of individua-
tion, which Jung calls self-realization. Only when this mid-point is
found and integrated can one speak of a "whole" man. Only then,
namely, has he solved the problem of his relation to the two realities
to which we are subject, the inner and the outer, which constitutes an
extraordinarily difficult, both ethical and epistemological task.

The birth of the Self signifies for the conscious personality not
only a displacement of the previous psychological centre, but also as
consequence thereof a completely altered view of and attitude towards
life, a "transformation" in the fullest sense of the word.*-**

Jolan Jacobi, contemporary German psychologist.
The Psychology of Jung, Trans. K. W. Bash.

Progression Presented Allegorically

"Picture men in an underground cave-dwelling, with a long
entrance reaching up towards the light along the whole width of the
cave; in this they lie from their childhood, their legs and necks in
chains, so that they stay where they are and look only in front of
them, as the chain prevents them turning their heads round. Some
way off, and higher up, a fire is burning behind them, and between
the fire and the prisoners is a road on higher ground. Imagine a wall
built along this road, like the screens which showmen have in front
of the audience, over which they show the puppets."

"I have it," he said.

"Then picture also men carrying along this wall all kinds of
articles which overtop it, statues of men and other creatures in stone
and wood and other materials; naturally some of die carriers are
speaking, others are silent."

"A strange image and strange prisoners," he said.

Progression on the Way 125

"They are like ourselves," I answered. "For in the first place, do
you think that such men would have seen anything of themselves or
of each other except the shadows thrown by the fire on the wall of
the cave opposite to them?"

"How could they," he said, "if all their life they had been forced
to keep their heads motionless?"

"What would they have seen of the things carried along the wall ?
Would it not be the same?"

"Surely."

"Then if they were able to talk with one another, do you not think
that they would suppose what they saw to be the real things?"

"Necessarily."

"Let us suppose one of them was released, and forced suddenly to
stand up and turn his head, and walk and look towards the light.
What do you think he would say if he were told by some one that
before he had been seeing mere foolish phantoms. And, further, if
each of the several figures passing by were pointed out to him, and
he were asked to say what each was, do you not think that he would
be perplexed, and would imagine that the things he had seen before
were truer than those now pointed out to him?"

"Yes, much truer," he said.

"Then if he were forced to look at the light itself, would not his
eyes ache, and would he not try to escape and turn back to things
which he could look at, and think that they were really more
distinct than the things shown him?"

"Yes," he said.

"But," I said, "if some one were to drag him out up the steep and
rugged ascent, and did not let go till he had been dragged up to the
light of the sun, would not his forced journey be one of pain and
annoyance; and when he came to the light would not his eyes be so
full of the glare that he would not be able to see a single one of the
objects we now call true?"

"Certainly, not all at once," he said.

"Yes, I fancy that he would need time before he could see things
in the world above. At first he would most easily see shadows, then
the reflections in water of men and everything else, and, finally, the

126 The Way

things themselves. Last of all, I fancy he would be able to look at the
sun and observe its nature, not its appearances in water or on alien
material, but the very sun itself in its own place ?"

"Inevitably,*' he said.

"And that done, he would then come to infer concerning it that
it is the sun which produces the seasons and years, and controls every-
thing in the sphere of the visible, and is in a manner the author of
all those things which he and his fellow-prisoners used to see?"

"It is clear that this will be his next conclusion," he said.

"Well, then, if he is reminded of his original abode and its
wisdom, and those who were then his fellow-prisoners, do you not
think that he will pity them and count himself happy in the change ?"

"Certainly."

"Would he not rather suffer anything rather than be so the victim
of seeming and live in their way?"

"Yes," he said, "I certainly think that he would endure anything
rather than that."

"Then consider this point," I said. "If this man were to descend
again and take his seat in his old place, would not his eyes be full of
darkness because he had just come out of the sunlight?"

"Most certainly," he said.

"And suppose that he had again to take part with the prisoners
there in the old contest of distinguishing between the shadows,
while his sight was confused and before his eyes had got steady (and
it might take them quite a considerable time to get used to the dark-
ness), would not men laugh at him, and say that having gone up
above he had come back with his sight ruined, so that it was not
worth while even to try to go up ? And do you not think that they
would kill him who tried to release them and bear them up, if they
could lay hands on him, and slay him?"

"Certainly," he said.

"Now this simile, my dear Gloucon, must be applied in all its
parts to what we said before. In the world of knowledge the Form
of the good is perceived last and with difficulty, but when it is seen
it must be inferred that it is the cause of all that is right and beautiful
in all things, producing in the visible world light and the lord of

Progression on the Way 127

light,, and being itself lord in the intelligible world and the giver of
trust and reason and this Form of the good must be seen by whoso-
ever would act wisely in public or in private."

"I agree with you/5 he said, "so far as I am capable.*'

"A sensible man would remember that the eyes may be confused
in two ways, and for two reasons — by a change from light to dark-
ness, or from darkness to light. He will consider that the same may
happen with the soul, and when he sees a soul in trouble and unable
to perceive, he will not laugh without thinking; rather he will
examine whether it has come from a brighter light and is dim
because it is not accustomed to the darkness, or whether it is on its
way from ignorance to greater brightness and is dazzled with the
greater brilliance; and so he will count the first happy in its condition
and its life, but the second he will pity."

"Then," I said, "if these things be true, education is not what
certain of its professors declare it to be. They say, if you remember,
that they put knowledge in the soul where no knowledge has been,
as men putting sight into blind eyes."

"Yes, they do," he said.

"But our present argument," I said, "shows that there resides in
each man's soul this faculty and the instrument wherewith he learns,
and that it is just as if the eye could not turn from darkness to light
unless the whole body turned with it; so this faculty and instrument
must be wheeled round together with the whole soul away from
that which is becoming, until it is able to look upon and to endure
being and the brightest blaze of being; and that we declare to be the
good. Do we not?"

"Yes."

"Education then," I said, "will be an art of doing this, an art of
conversion, and will consider in what manner the soul will be turned
round most easily and effectively. Its aim will not be to implant vision
in the instrument of sight. It will regard it as already possessing that,
but as being turned in a wrong direction, and not looking where it
ought, and it will try to set this right." *

Plato, 427-347 B.C. Greek philosopher, disciple of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle.

The Republic, Trans. A. D. Lindsay.

128 The Way

OBSTACLES TO PROGRESSION10

Something hath puddled his clear spirit. . . . And in such cases,
men's natures wrangle with inferior things, though great ones are
their object.*

William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, English poet, dramatist.

Othello.

Contradictions within Modern Culture

Making use of anthropological findings we must recognize that
some of our conceptions about human nature are rather naive, for
example, the idea that competitiveness, sibling rivalry, kinship
between affection and sexuality are trends inherent in human nature.
Our conception of normality is arrived at by the approval of certain
standards of behavior and feeling within a certain group which im-
poses these standards upon its members. But the standards vary with
culture, period, class and sex.

Modern culture is economically based on the principle of in-
dividual competition. The isolated individual has to fight with other
individuals of the same group, has to surpass them and, frequently,
thrust them aside. The advantage of the one is frequently the dis-
advantage of the other. The psychic result of this situation is a
diffuse hostile tension between individuals. Everyone is the real or
potential competitor of everyone else. This situation is clearly ap-
parent among members of the same occupational group, regardless
of strivings to be fair or of attempts to camouflage by polite con-
siderateness. It must be emphasized, however, that competitiveness,
and the potential hostility that accompanies it, pervades all human
relationships. It pervades the relationships between men and men,
between women and women, and whether the point of competition
be popularity, competence, attractiveness or any social value it greatly
impairs the possibilities of reliable friendship. It also, as already in-
dicated, disturbs the relations between men and women, not only
in the choice of the partner but in the entire struggle with him for

10 Also see Chapter II (Self-Knowledge) and Chapter VI (Psychotherapy),

Progression on the Way 129

superiority. It pervades school life. And perhaps most important of
all, it pervades the family situation, so that as a rule the child is
inoculated with this germ from the very beginning. The rivalry
between father and son, mother and daughter, one child and another,
is not a general human phenomenon but is the response to culturally
conditioned stimuli.

The potential hostile tension between individuals results in a con-
stant generation of fear— fear of the potential hostility of others,
reinforced by a fear of retaliation for hostilities of one's own. Another
important source of fear in the normal individual is the prospect of
failure. The fear of failure is a realistic one because, in general, the
chances of failing are much greater than those of succeeding, and
because failures in a competitive society entail a realistic frustration
of needs. They mean not only economic insecurity but also loss of
prestige and all kinds of emotional frustrations.

All these factors together result psychologically in the individual
feeling that he is isolated. Even when he has many contacts with
others, even when he is happily married, he is emotionally isolated.
Emotional isolation is hard for anyone to endure; it becomes a
calamity, however, if it coincides with apprehensions and un-
certainties about one's self.

It is this situation which provokes, in the normal individual of
our time, an intensified need for affection as a remedy. Obtaining
affection makes him feel less isolated, less threatened by hostility
and less uncertain of himself. Because it corresponds to a vital need,
love is overvalued in our culture. It becomes a phantom— like
success — carrying with it the illusion— although in our culture it is
most often a screen for satisfying wishes that have nothing to do
with it— but it is made an illusion by our expecting much more of it
than it can possibly fulfill. And the ideological emphasis that we
place on love serves to cover up the factors which create our ex-
aggerated need for it. Hence the individual—and I still mean the
normal individual— is in the dilemma of needing a great deal of
affection but finding difficulty in obtaining it.

The situation thus far represents a fertile ground for the develop-

130 The Way

ment of neuroses. The same cultural factors that affect the normal
person . . . affect the neurotic to a higher degree and in him the
same results are merely intensified,

When we remember that in every neurosis there are contradictory
tendencies which the neurotic is unable to reconcile, the question
arises as to whether there are not likewise certain definite contradic-
tions in our culture, which underlie the typical neurotic conflicts.
It would be the task of the sociologist to study and describe these
cultural contradictions. It must suffice for me to indicate briefly and
schematically some of the main contradictory tendencies.

The first contradiction n to be mentioned is that between com-
petition and success on the one hand, and brotherly love and humility
on the other.

The second contradiction is that between the stimulation of our
needs and our factual frustrations in satisfying them. The psychic
consequence for the individual is a constant discrepancy between his
desires and their fulfillment.

Another contradiction exists between the alleged freedom of the
individual and all his factual limitations. The individual is told by
society that he is free, independent, can decide his life according to
his own free will. In actual fact, for the majority of people all these
possibilities are limited. The result for the individual is a wavering
between a feeling of boundless power in determining his own fate
and a feeling of entire helplessness. While the normal person is able
to cope with the difficulties — in the neurotic all the conflicts are in-
tensified to a degree that makes a satisfactory solution impos-
sible.

It seems that the person who is likely to become neurotic is one
who has experienced the culturally determined difficulties in an
accentuated form, mostly through the medium of childhood ex-
periences, and who has consequently been unable to solve them, or
has solved them only at great cost to his personality. We might call
him a stepchild of our culture.*

Karen Homey, M.D., 1885-. American psychoanalyst.
The Neurotic Personality of Our Time.

11 See the author's text for a fuller discussion of these contradictions, pages 281-290.
Published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Progression on the Way 131

Society Based on Organized Lovelessness

Our present economic, social and international arrangements are
based, in large measure, upon organized lovelessness. We begin by
lacking charity towards Nature, so that instead of trying to cooperate
with Tao or the Logos on the inanimate and subhuman levels, we try
to dominate and exploit, we waste the earth's mineral resources, ruin
its soil, ravage its forests, pour filth into its rivers and poisonous
fumes into its air. From lovelessness in relation to Nature we advance
to lovelessness in relation to art — a lovelessness so extreme that we
have effectively killed all the fundamental or useful arts and set up
various kinds of mass production by machines in their place. And of
course this lovelessness in regard to art is at the same time a loveless-
ness in regard to the human beings who have to perform the fool-proof
and grace-proof tasks imposed by our mechanical art-surrogates and
by the interminable paper work connected with mass production and
mass distribution. With mass-production and mass-distribution go
mass-financing, and the three have conspired to expropriate ever-
increasing numbers of small owners of land and productive equip-
ment, thus reducing the sum of freedom among the majority and
increasing the power of a minority to exercise a coercive control over
the lives of their fellows. This coercively controlling minority is
composed of private capitalists or governmental bureaucrats or of
both classes of bosses acting in collaboration — and, of course, the
coercive and therefore essentially loveless nature of the control re-
mains the same, whether the bosses call themselves "company
directors" or "civil servants." The only difference between these two
kinds of oligarchical rulers is that the first derive more of their power
from wealth than from position within a conventionally respected
hierarchy, while the second derive more power from position than
from wealth. Upon this fairly uniform groundwork of loveless rela-
tionships are imposed others which vary widely from one society to
another, according to local conditions and local habits of thought
and feeling. Here are a few examples: contempt and exploitation of
coloured minorities living among white majorities, or of coloured
majorities governed by minorities of white imperialists; hatred of
Jews, Catholics, Free Masons, or of any other minority whose

132 The Way

language, habits, appearance or religion happens to differ from those
of the local majority. And the crowning superstructure of uncharity
is the organized lovelessness of the relations between state and
sovereign state — a lovelessness that expresses itself in the axiomatic
assumption that it is right and natural for national organizations to
behave like thieves and murderers, armed to the teeth and ready, at
the first favourable opportunity, to steal and kill.

So long as the organized lovelessness of war and preparation for
war remains, there can be no mitigation, on any large, nation-wide
or world-wide scale, of the organized lovelessness of our economic
and political relationships. War and preparation for war are standing
temptations to make the present bad, God-eclipsing arrangements
of society progressively worse as technology becomes progressively
more efficient.*

Aldous Huxley, 1894-. English author.
The Perennial Philosophy.

The Habitual Cast of Thought

Novices in the spiritual life know of sin only as a positive violation
of God's Law, and are unaware that there is an habitual cast of
thought that is more dangerous than an actual evil act. They come
imbued with the spirit of the world and fashioned to the habits,
formed by the years of living according to that spirit. Life has been
for them a tissue of those ideas, judgments, sentiments, principles,
hopes, fears, desires, regrets and dreams which envelop the souls of
men, corrupt their vision and little by little hide from them heaven
and the eternity for which they are destined. To those entering on
the spiritual life, things spiritual have appealed but vaguely, whilst
all that can be seen, weighed, touched and handled, alone have had
value in their eyes. . . . The beginning of the interior life is there-
fore much occupied with intellectual activity. It is devoted to the
consideration of what we are, of what God is.*

Edward Leen, 1885-. Irish Catholic cleric, educator.
Progress Through Mental Prayer,

How many people swell with pride and vanity, for such things
as they would not know how to value at all, but that they are

Progression on the Way 133

admired in the world ? Would a man take ten years more drudgery
in business to add two horses more to his coach, but that he knows,
that the world most of all admires a coach and six? How fearful are
many people of having their houses poorly furnished, or themselves
meanly clothed, for this only reason, lest the world should make no
account of them, and place them amongst low and mean people ?

How often would a man have yielded to the haughtiness and ill-
nature of others, and shewn a submissive temper, but that he dares
not pass for such a poor-spirited man in the opinion of the world ?
Many a man would often drop a resentment, and forgive an affront,
but that he is afraid if he should, the world would not forgive him.

How many would practice Christian temperance and sobriety in
its utmost perfection, were it not for the censure which the world
passes upon such a life? Thus do the impressions which we have
received from living in the world, enslave our minds, that we dare
not attempt to be eminent in the fight of God, for fear of being little
in the eyes of the world. But as great as the power of the world is, it
is all built upon a blind obedience, and we need only open our eyes,
to get quit of its power.

And therefore, I hope, you will not think it a hard saying, that
in order to be humble, you must withdraw your obedience from that
vulgar spirit, which gives law to Fops and Coquets, and form your
judgments according to the wisdom of Philosophy, and the piety of
Religion. Who would be afraid of making such a change as this ?

William Law, 1686-1761. English clergyman and mystic.
Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

The Lack of Psychical Culture

A Christian may believe in all the sacred figures and yet remain
undeveloped and unchanged in his innermost soul, for he sees the
"whole God outside" and does not experience him in his own soul.
His decisive motives, interests and impulses do not come from the
sphere of Christianity, but from the unconscious and undeveloped
soul, which is just as pagan and archaic as ever. The truth of this
statement is not only evident in the life of the individual but also
in the sum total of individual lives, the people. The great events of

134

our world, which are planned and carried out by man, do not breathe
the spirit of Christianity but of unadorned paganism. These things
originate in a psychical condition that has remained archaic and that
has not been in the least affected by Christianity . . . Christian culture
has turned out to be hollow in a terrifying degree. The condition of
the soul does not correspond with the outward creed; in his soul, the
Christian has not kept step with the outward development. Every-
thing is to be found outside, in image and word, in Church and
Bible. But it is not inside. In other words, through the lack of
psychical culture the inner factor, which corresponds to the outer
image of God, has remained undeveloped and has therefore stuck
fast in paganism. Christian education has indeed done everything
which was humanly possible, but it was not sufficient. Too few people
have experienced the Divine Figure as the innermost possession of
their own soul. They have only met a Christ outwardly, but he has
never approached them from their own soul; so dark paganism is
still reigning there, and is flooding the so-called Christian cultural
world, partly in a blatant form which can no longer be denied and
partly in all too threadbare disguise,

It is yet to be understood that the mysterium magnum does not
only exist in itself, but that it is established above all in the human
soul*

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychotherapist, founder of system of Analytical Psychology.

Psychology and Alchemy, Trans. Barbara Hannah.

Confusion Concerning Self Regard

It is one of the great discoveries of modern psychology that our
attitudes toward ourselves are just as complicated as our attitudes
toward others— sometimes more so. The great commandment of
religion, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," might now be
better interpreted to mean, "Thou shalt love thyself properly, and
then thou wilt love thy neighbor". . . .

This condemnation of selfishness and exaltation of altruism is
the traditional attitude of religion. It holds up a worthy goal to be
sure, but there are many errors in its estimate of human nature. Is

Progression on the Way 135

it true that we are spontaneously good to ourselves? The evidence
points in quite the opposite direction. Men may wish to be good to
themselves, but how misguided and unwise they are in their attempts
to reach that goal! The fact is that we often treat ourselves more
rigidly, more fanatically, more vengefully, than we do others.
Suicide, self-mutilation, and more subtle forms of self-degradation
such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and promiscuity are pitiful proofs
of this. Such self-hate is not restricted to the weak and the insane.
Violent forms of aggression against the self occur daily and less
dramatically in the lives of ordinary men and women.

He who hates himself, who does not have proper regard for
his own capacities, powers, compassions, actually can have no respect
for others. Deep within himself he will hate his brothers when he
sees in them his own marred image. Love for oneself is the founda-
tion of a brotherly society and personal peace of mind. By loving
oneself I do not mean coddling oneself, indulging in vanity, conceit,
self-glorification. I do, however, insist on the necessity of a proper
self-regard as a prerequisite of the good and the moral life.

Psychology reveals the underlying causes of false self-love and
destructive self-hatred. Religion, allied with psychology, can demon-
strate just what true self-regard means.

Theoretically, religion has always been concerned with the
achievement of true self-love. It eternally proclaims the value of
every human personality, the sanctity of every man. But it has been
strangely impotent to implement that sanctity. All the streets of the
world are teeming with men and women who mutilate themselves
spiritually and mentally in the invisible ways of self-criticism and
self-degradation. . . .

It is important that all of us become wise enough to recognize
where we go astray in our attitudes toward ourselves and how we
become enslaved to false notions of what we are and what we ought
to be. Some of us think we are loving ourselves when we are really
strangling or suffocating ourselves with morbid self-concern. We
maintain a cruel contempt for our own capabilities and virtues or
become unconscious victims of a paralyzing egocentricity. When we

136 The Way

free ourselves from that false self-love which is narcissism, that
destructive self-hatred which is masochism, we become for the first
time integrated enough to become friendly with ourselves and with
others. We are on the road to proper self-love. Such self-love implies
many things, but above everything else it is rooted in self-respect.
And no man or woman can have self-respect unless he has learned
the art of renunciation and the equally vital art of self-acceptance.*

Joshua Loth Liebman, 1907-. Jewish Rabbi, educator.

Peace of Mind.

The Obstacles in the Personal Unconscious

The true self-sacrifice is the one that sacrifices the hidden thing
in the self which would work harm to ourselves and to others. It is
an effort to become more and more conscious of all the forces in the
unconscious, of the unworthy personal motives that work under-
ground, as well as the inherited forces, so that our lives shall become
more and more full of understanding and of really conscious choice.
In this way we do "descend into hell," the depth of the unconscious
where lie all those things that would destroy our conscious attitude
and which we most fear to face and acknowledge. From such a
descent can come a new life if the new understanding is accepted
by the individual.

This new life carries on the vital thing which has been born from
the old. It often appears in dreams as a child, thus adopting the
symbol of the religious concept and giving it form in the rebirth of
the individual. Jung, in his dream analysis, calls this the "puer
aeternus" the ever-living child. In dreams this child often takes on
characteristics which symbolize the special need of the individual,
and which give a clue to the new adaptation needed in order to
further his integration.

Our greatest task is to have the courage to face the thing that rises
in us, whether it take the form of doubt which must be thought out,
or the knowledge of the unacceptable thing in ourselves with which
we must reckon. In this way only can be found the acceptance of
greater consciousness.*

Frances G. Wickes, 1882-. American psychotherapist.
The Inner World of Childhood.

Progression on the Way 137

Reservations

If you really look into the state of things between God and your
soul, you will find that there are certain limits beyond which you
refuse to go in offering yourself to Him. People often hover around
such reservations, making believe not to see them, for fear of self-
reproach, guarding them as the apple of the eye. If you were to
break down one of these reservations, you would be touched to the
quick and inexhaustible in your reasons for self-justification, a very
sure proof of the life of evil. The more you shrink from giving up
any such reserved point, the more certain it is that it needs to be
given up. If you were not fast bound by it, you would not make so
many efforts to convince yourself that you are free.

It is but too true that these and the like frailties hinder God's
work in us. We move continually in a vicious circle round self,
only thinking of God in connection with ourselves, and making
no progress in self-renunciation, lowering of pride or attaining
simplicity. Why is it that the vessel does not make way? Is the
wind wanting? Nowise; The Spirit of Grace breathes on it, but the
vessel is bound by invisible anchors in the depths of the sea. The
fault is not God's; it is wholly ours. If we will search thoroughly, we
shall soon see the hidden bonds which detain us. That point in which
we least mistrust ourselves is precisely that which needs most
distrust.

Francois Fenelon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambray.
Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Fenelon, Trans. H, L. Lear.

The Unconscious "Guiding Image" as a Major Obstacle

The purpose of every objective function is service to the world.
The purpose of every egocentric function is service to the ego. That
is why the egocentric, whether he knows it or not, always acts ac-
cording to self-evaluation. He has an ego-ideal which he strives to
attain, a guiding image by which he measures his worth or worth-
lessness. He judges everything that happens on the basis of whether
it brings him nearer this guiding image or not. The nearer he
fancies himself, the happier he is; his unhappincss grows with in-
crease in distance.

138 The Way

This guiding image can be variously formed. It may be, "I want
to be as rich as Rothschild," or "as famous as Goethe," or "as poor
as Francis," or "suffer as much as Christ on the Cross." The ego-
ideal is always distinguished by the fact that its possessor tries to
make the material world serve him, while the objective human
being places himself (i.e.f his ego) at the service of the
world.

The number of forms in which egocentricity may appear is
infinite. A good portion of an understanding of human nature is
necessary to ferret it out of all its disguises and hiding places. It is
generally easier to discover egocentricity in others than in ourself,
for its discovery in others raises our own ego. Everything is easy for
us which serves to elevate our secret picture of ourself.

The more egocentric we are, the more distinctly effective in us
are the two extreme levels of the ladder of self-evaluation. The
wretcheder we feel, the higher lies the level of happiness to which we
make claim. The less money we have, the greater the sum which we
dream we shall inherit or win in a lottery. The nearer we feel to
our ideal, the deeper the level of which we are afraid. The more
important a man believes himself, the more irritated he is when he
does not receive the customary greeting from a mere mortal.

Characteristic of egocentricity is always the inexorableness of its
demands. The ego acts like a monarch who tolerates no contradic-
tion.

Egocentricity without self-deception is not possible. Even he who
says, like Richard III, "I am determined to prove a villain," fools
not only the world by hiding his weakness in violence; he fools also
himself. He conceals from himself the fact that he hates only because
he has not the courage to love, and that he says no to the joys of the
word because he does not want to say yes to his own suffering. Every
egocentric human being deceives himself. Complete insight and ego-
centricity cannot exist side by side, which is why insight is lessened by
egocentricity. It is also why it is possible to discover a little self-deceit
in everyone (for everyone is a little egocentric). The more ego-
centric a person is, however, the more cunningly does he arrange his
self-deceit, and the slyer the subterfuges he uses to protect himself

Progression on the Way 139

against an unmasking. He feels, without admitting it, that his ego
centricity would go to pieces in the face of the truth.1*

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., 1889-. German psychotherapist.

Let's Be Normal.

Obstacles of "The More Spiritual Self"

There are two shapes assumed by self, the one is gross and
material, the self of worldly men, who are forever in pursuit of
earthly gain, and of those who, misled by a delusive intellectual
pride, affect to be superior to common prejudices, and make a law
of their own reason. Nearly all the vices which degrade mankind
and afflict the world are the offspring of this grosser self.

But there is another more spiritual self which is peculiar to
religious people, the evil of which it would not be easy to describe;
how it blights and withers devotion, warping and misdirecting it,
and bringing holiness into contempt and ill-repute. Who can tell
all the meanness, the weakness, the falls to which it leads; how it
fills pious people with fretting scruples, and makes them restless,
uneasy, fanciful, capricious, absurd, jealous, censorious, ill-tempered,
often intolerable to themselves and others! Who can say how it
hinders and thwarts the work of grace. How many noble aims it
turns aside, how many good works it poisons, how many faults it
disguises till we mistake them for virtues.

The spirit of self, whether it takes a material or a moral shape,
has ever the same result, that of utterly blinding us. We fancy that
we see and know ourselves truly, but nothing can be a greater
delusion; we will not let our eyes be opened, and are vexed with
those who attempt the task. All suggestions and remonstrances are
attributed either to unkindness or error; however justly fault is found,
wounded self-love is irritable and intolerant of the slightest touch.
On the same principle we feel perfectly competent to decide every-
thing for ourselves, and even those whose office it is to advise us. Self-
love thinks no guide wise who will not soothe and flatter it; and he
who asks of us the submission of our own opinion and will stands
a chance of being forsaken as depriving the conscience of liberty.
Tell us, when under the influence of this dangerous enemy self, that

140 The Way

we must resist it, and conquer our dislikes, try to open our eyes to
our pet faults, point out the hollowness of our motives, ask any
sacrifice of us, and we start away at once from the intolerable yoke.
Excuses without end are at hand; we are misunderstood, it is all
exaggeration or mistake, in short everybody is wrong save ourselves.
But all the time there can be no real holiness without the destruction
of this odious self.*

Jean Nicholas Grou, 1731-1803. French Catholic priest.

The Hidden Life

Self-Conceit

You have spent all your life in the belief that you are wholly
devoted to others, and never self-seeking. Nothing so feeds self-
conceit as this sort of internal testimony that one is quite free from
self-love, and always generously devoted to one's neighbors. But all
this devotion which seems to be for others is really to yourself. Your
self-love reaches the point of perpetual self-congratulation that you
are free from it; all your sensitiveness is lest you might not be fully
satisfied with self; this is at the root of all your scruples. You may
prove it by your indifference to the faults of others: if you thought
of nothing save God and His Glory, you would be as keen and
sensitive to others' losses as to your own. But it is the "I" which makes
you so keen and sensitive. You want God as well as man to be always
satisfied with you, and you want to be satisfied with yourself in all
your dealings with God.

It is mere self-love to be inconsolable at seeing one's own im-
perfections; but to stand face to face with them, neither flattering nor
tolerating them — this is to desire what is good for its own sake, and
for God's, rather than merely treating it as a self-satisfying decora-

tion.*

Francois F&ielon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambray,

Want of Consecration

Anything cherished in the heart which is contrary to the will
of God, let it seem ever so insignificant, or be ever so deeply hidden,
will cause us to fall before our enemies. Any conscious root of bitter-
ness cherished toward another, any self-seeking, any harsh judg-

Progression on the Way 141

ments, any slackness in obeying the voice of the Lord, any doubtful
habits or surrounding— these things or any one of them, consciously
indulged, will effectually cripple and paralyze our spiritual life.
We may have hidden the evil in the most remote corner of our
hearts, and may have covered it over from our sight, refusing even
to recognize its existence, although we cannot help being all the time
secretly aware that it is there. We may steadily ignore it, and persist
in declarations of consecration and full trust; we may be more
earnest than ever in our religious duties, and have the eyes of our
understanding opened more and more to the truth and the beauty
of life and walk of faith. We may seem to ourselves and to others
to have reached an almost impregnable position of victory, and yet
we may find ourselves suffering bitter defeats. We may wonder, and
question, and despair, and pray. Nothing will do any good until the
wrong thing is dug up from its hiding-place, brought out to the
light, and laid before God.

The moment, therefore, that a believer who is walking in this
interior life meets with a defeat, he must at once seek for the cause,
not in the strength of that particular enemy, but in something
behind — some hidden want of consecration lying at the very
centre of his being.*

Hannah Whitehall Smith, 1832-1911. American Quaker.
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life.

Hiding from Truth

This is the happy life which all desire, to joy in the truth all men
desire. Why then joy they not in it? Why are they not happy?
Because they are more strongly taken up with other things which
have more power to make them miserable, than that which they
so faintly remember to make them happy. For there is yet a little
light in men; let them walk, let them walk, that the darkness over-
take them not.

But why doth "truth generate hatred/' and the man of thine,
preaching the truth, become an enemy to them? whereas a happy
life is loved, which is nothing else but joying in the truth. They
love truth when she enlightens, they hate her when she reproves.
For since they would not be deceived, and would deceive, they love

142 The Way

her, when she discovers herself unto them, and hate her, when she
discovers them. Whence she shall so repay them, that they who
would not be made manifest by her, she both against their will
makes manifest, and her self becometh not manifest unto them.
Thus, thus, yea thus doth the mind of man, thus blind and sick,
foul and ill-favoured, wish to be hidden, but that aught should be
hidden from it, it wills not. But the contrary is requited it, that
itself should not be hidden from the Truth; but the Truth is hid
from it. Yet even thus miserable, it has rather joy in truths than in
falsehoods. Happy then will man be, when, no distraction interpos-
ing, he shall joy in that only Truth, by Whom all things are true.

All consult Thee on what they will, though they hear not always
what they will. He is Thy best servant, who looks not so much to
hear that from Thee, which himself willeth; as rather to will that,
which from Thee he heareth.*-**

Saint Augustine, 354-430. Latin church Father, early mystic.
Confessions, Trans. E. B. Pusey.

Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal
with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead
of realising them as parts of one whole. If our practical life is
centered on our own interests, cluttered up by possessions, distracted
by ambitions, passions, wants and worries, beset by a sense of our
own rights and importance, or anxieties for our own future, or
longings for our own success, we need not expect that our spiritual
life will be a contrast to all this. The soul's house is not built on
such a convenient plan: there are few sound-proof partitions in it.
Only when the conviction— not merely the idea— that the demand
of the Spirit, however inconvenient, comes first and is first, rules
the whole of it, will those objectionable noises die down which
have a way of penetrating into the nicely furnished little oratory, and
drowning all the quieter voices by their din.

For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes
from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life self-given to
the great movement of His will.*

Evelyn Undcrhill, 1875-1944. English writer, mystic.

The Spiritual Life.

Progression on the Way 143

Impatience and the Lack of Humility

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in
such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his
companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far
away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple
tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the con-
dition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any
reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked
on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass
over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still
at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?

Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to
many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like
darkness reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and
meanness gather around us, "and lo! creation widens to our view."
You are then confined to the most significant and vital experiences;
you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most
sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.

We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which
we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor
leaped as many above it. We know not where we are. Besides, we
are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we esteem ourselves wise,
and have an established order on the surface. Truly, we are deep
thinkers, we are ambitious spirits ! As I stand over the insect crawling
amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal
itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble
thoughts and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its
benefactor, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence
that stands over me, the human insect.*-**

Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862. American philosopher.

Walden.

With the double-minded one, it is thus clear that time and
eternity cannot rule in the same man. He can, but he will not,
understand the Good's slowness; that out of mercy, the Good is
slow; that out of love for free persons, it will not use force; that in

144

its wisdom toward the frail ones, it shrinks from any deception. He
can, but he will not, humbly understand that the Good can get on
without him. He is double-minded, he that with his enthusiasm
could apparently become an apostle, but can quite as readily become
a Judas, who teacher ously wishes to hasten the victory of the Good.
He is scandalized, he that by his enthusiasm seems to love the Good
so highly. He is scandalized by its poverty, when it is clothed in the
slowness of time. He is not devoted to the Good in service that may
profit nothing. He only effervesces, and he that effervesces loves the
moment. And he that loves the moment fears time, he fears that the
course of time will reveal his double-mindedness, and he falsifies
eternity; for otherwise eternity might still more effectively reveal
his double-mindedness. He is a falsifier. For him eternity is the
deceptive sensory illusion of the horizon; for him eternity is the
bluish haze that limits time; for him eternity is the dazzling sleight-
of-hand trick executed by the moment.

Such a double-minded person is perhaps hardly recognizable in
this world, because his double-mindedness is not evident inside the
world. The world's reward and punishment do not serve as in-
formers against him; for he has overcome the world, even if by a
higher deception. Hence his double-mindedness is first recognizable
at the boundary where time and eternity touch upon each other.
There it is clear and is always recognized by the all-knowing One.
He will not be content with the blessed assurance which comforts
beyond all measure: that eternally the Good has always been vic-
torious; the blessed assurance which is a security that passeth all
understanding; the blessed assurance that the unprofitable servant
may have within himself at each moment, even when the time is the
longest and he seems to have accomplished least of all, the blessed
assurance which allows the unprofitable servant if he loses honor to
speak more proudly than that royal word: All is lost save honor. And
when even honor is lost to say: Nothing is lost, but all is gained.

But this double-minded person is not so easily recognizable on
earth. He does not will the Good for the sake of reward, for then he
would have become obvious in his aspiration or in his despair. He
does not will the Good out of fear of punishment, for then he would

Progression on the Way 145

have become obvious in his cowardice, in his shunning of punish-
ment, or in his despair, when he was not able to avoid it. No, he
wishes to sacrifice himself in daily self-forgetfulness. This he fears
to do.*

Soren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855. Danish philosopher.
Purity of Heart, Trans. Douglas Steere.

O! wait to, be taught and enabled by God to fetch right steps in
thy travels. The Lord show thee the snares and dangers to which
thou art liable, and lead thee out of them; that whatever hindereth
may be discovered to thee, and thy mind singly joined to that which
discovereth, that so it may be removed out of the way; and all
crooked things be made straight in thee, and the rough plain, and
the high low, and the low high, and the weak and foolish strong
and wise, and the wise and strong weak and foolish.

Thou must be very low, weak, and foolish, that the seed may
arise in thee to exalt thee, and become thy strength and wisdom;
and thou must die exceedingly, again and again, more and more,
inwardly and deeply! that thy life may spring up from the holy
root and stock; and thou mayest be more and more gathered into it,
spring up into it, and live alone in the life, virtue, and power thereof.
The travel is long, the exercises many, the snares, temptations, and
dangers many; and yet the mercy, relief, and help, is great also.

O! that thou mayest feel thy calling and election, thy sinking
down, springing up, and establishment, in the pure seed, in the light
and righteousness thereof over all; that thou mayest sing songs of
degrees to the Redeemer of Israel, and mayest daily more and more
partake of and rejoice in him, who is our joy, and the crown thereof.

Isaac Pennington, 1616-1679. English Quaker.
Letters of Isaac Pennington.

ROLE OF SUFFERING AND CRISIS12

We suffer, yet do not allow the mission of suffering to be ac-
complished in us. I pray the Lord that we may none of us fall into
that torpid state in which our crosses do us no good.

Francois F&ielon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambray.
Spiritual Letters of Archbishop FSnelon, Trans. H. L. Lear,
12 See Role of Pressure under Self-Kuowledge, Chapter II.

146 The Way

He who dreams must be awakened, and the deeper the man is
who slumbers, or the deeper he slumbers, the more important it is
that he be awakened, and the more powerfully must he be awakened.
In case there is nothing that awakens the youth, this dream-life is
continued in manhood. The man doubtless thinks that he is dream-
ing no more, and in a sense he is not; perhaps he scorns and despises
the dreams of youth, but precisely this shows that his life is a failure.
In a sense he is awake, yet he is not in an eternal sense and in the
deepest sense awake. And so his life is something far less significant
than that of the youth, and it is his life rather which deserves to be
despised; for he has become an unfruitful tree, or like a tree which
has died, whereas the life of youth verily is not to be despised. The
dream-life of childhood and youth is the time of blossoming. But in
the case of a tree which is to bear fruit, the time of blossoming is a
time of immaturity. It may indeed seem like retrogression when the
tree which once stood naked and then burst into bloom, now casts
off its blossoms; but it also may be progress. Fair is the time of
blossoms, and fair is the blossoming hope in the child and in the
youth ; and yet it is immaturity.

Then comes affliction to awaken the dreamer, affliction which like
a storm tears off the blossoms, affliction which nevertheless does not
bereave of hope, but recruits hope.

Affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice, that is precisely
what it has to do, but the voice of eternity within a man it cannot
drown. Or conversely: it is the voice of eternity within which
demands to be heard, and to make a hearing for itself it makes use
of the loud voice of affliction. Then when by the aid of affliction all
irrelevant voices are brought to silence, it can be heard, this voice
within.

O thou sufferer, whosoever thou art, if only thou wilt listen!
People generally think that it is the world, the environment, external
relationships, which stand in one's way, in the way of one's good
fortune and peace and joy. And at bottom it is always man himself
that stands in his own way, man himself, who is too closely attached
to the world, to the environment, to circumstances, to external re-
lationships, so that he is not able to come to himself, come to rest.

Progression on the Way 147

to have hope, he is constantly too much turned outward, instead of
being turned inward, hence everything he says is true only as an
illusion of the senses.

For Affliction Recruits Hope. It does not bestow hope, but it
recruits it. It is man himself who acquires it, this hope of eternity
which is deposited in him, hidden in his inner man; but affliction
recruits it. For affliction prevents him mercilessly from obtaining any
other help or relief whatsoever; affliction compels him mercilessly to
let go of everything else; affliction schools him mercilessly, schools
him thoroughly, that he may learn to grasp the eternal and to hold
on to the eternal. Affliction does not help directly, it is not affliction
that acquires or purchases hope and makes a present of it to a man;
it helps repellently, and can do no otherwise, because hope is in
man himself. Affliction preaches awakening. Affliction is no con-
gratulatory caller who comes bearing hope in his hand as a present.
Affliction is the villain who cruelly says to the sufferer, "I shall re-
cruit hope for thee all right." But as it always is in life, that he who
has to play the villain is never appreciated, that nobody takes the
time to put himself in the villain's place and to recognize how
admirably he plays his part and conforms to his role, how admirably,
without letting himself be moved by any sighs or tears or in-
gratiating prayers — so it is also with affliction, it always has to hear
itself spoken ill of. But just as little as it troubles the physician that
the sick man in his pain scolds and clamours, or even kicks at him,
just so little is affliction put out at this; God be praised, it is not put
out — it recruits hope. Just as Christianity, precisely by all that un-
appreciation and persecution and injustice which the truth must
suffer, proves that righteousness must exist (oh, marvellous infer-
ence!), so there is in the extremity of affliction, when it presses
hardest, this inference, this ergo: Ergo there is an eternity to set
one's hope upon.

Imagine hidden in a simpler exterior a secret receptacle wherein
the most precious treasure is deposited — there is a spring which has
to be pressed, but the spring is hidden, and the pressure must have
a certain strength, so that an accidental pressure would not be
sufficient — so likewise is the hope of eternity hidden in man's in-

148 The Way

most parts, and affliction is the pressure. When it presses the hidden
spring, and strongly enough, then the contents appear in all their
glory.

Soren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855. Danish philosopher.
Christian Discourses. Trans, Walter Lowrie.

It must be remembered that even though the Ego is the in-
dividual's inaccurate conception of himself, it seems to him to be
what he is.

It follows that all the thinking and striving of the egocentric
person is basically concerned with avoiding all damage to his
cherished Ego — his Seeming-self. He constantly fights against the
breakdown of his Ego because its collapse seems to him to mean the
destruction of his very Self, but even by these defensive efforts he
inevitably brings about that breakdown which he dreads most. This
is the result of the so-called vicious circle.

In his consciousness the egocentric person may feel that he is
rather secure and successful, but unconsciously he feels that some
critical moment for his Ego is close at hand. Being increasingly cut
off by his egocentricity from the We — the source of real life — he
suffers from a lack of inner psychic vitality and becomes less and
less creative. This makes him insecure and anxious first in his un-
conscious and then more and more in his conscious mind.

Seemingly inexplicable inferiority feelings, irritability, sensitive-
ness and other signs of increasing "nervousness" always stand out
more distinctly. The more the individual comes to feel that ego-
centric goals probably will not be attained, the more he seems to
attach value to them, and now he strives for them more than ever.
The unconscious anxiety whispers to him more distinctly in the form
of bad dreams, melancholic or troubled moods or even as physical
disturbances. At last they speak out loud, and mercilessly say that,
in spite of all endeavour and apparent success, he has really failed.
Life is passing. Perhaps much has already gone, but he has not yet
really lived.

But now these symptoms which seemed to be bad and inimical,
namely, this anxiety or guilt, prove themselves to be helpful and

Progression on the Way 149

friendly, for they intrude themselves in order to bring healing by
awakening this living yet unalive person. They are the voice of this
life which is not lived, and their force is the power of life itself. They
are the messengers of the We which represents this power of life,
even within the egocentric mind.

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., German psychotherapist, and Roy E. Dickerson, American author,

How Character Develops.

Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.
No man hath affliction enough that is not matured, and ripened by
it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in
bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into currant
Monies, his treasure will not defray him as he travells. Tribulation
is Treasure in the nature of it, but it is not currant money in the use
of it, except wee get nearer and nearer our home. Heaven, by it.
Another man may be sicke too, and sick to death, and this affliction
may lie in his bowels, as gold in a Mine, and be of no use to him;
but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out, and applies that
gold to mee: if by this consideration of another's danger, I take mine
owne into contemplation, and so secure my selfe by making my
recourse to my God, who is our onely securitie.

John Donne, 1573-1631. English poet, divine.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.

At first one passes some time in suffering from things which
seem to come from other persons, or from circumstances outside
oneself. Gradually one finds a great part (or all) one's troubles are
in oneself!

When we come to know that our whole environment and every-
thing that happens is God's hand upon us, and that we are in touch
with Him at every moment, because every detail of life is a means
arranged by Him to lead us to Himself; then we find that our
great trouble is self. Only the very top, or very centre, or very ground
(as you please — these are metaphors), of our soul is quite united to
God; and all the rest is horribly unquiet, and makes us miserable.
This is an unavoidable process of "purification," or Purgatory!

We used to think we were good — now we know we are not.

150 The Way

We suffer from this, and, as we realise our imperfections more and
more, we seem to be going backwards. Only we have got to be
resigned to seeing these imperfections. We must not make light of
them, in the sense of not hating them; but it is quite good to laugh
at them. The more we ridicule ourselves the better, as we see our
constant failures.

It is not possible to make sensible "acts of contrition" for sins
and imperfections which are not voluntary, or only partly voluntary.
If we try, we only feel dry, and that we can't. So it is better to make
"acts of humility": (r) either laughing at ourselves, for our failures,
carelessness, want of love and so forth; or (2) say, "You see, O
Lord, how silly I am — this is all you can expect!"; or (3) "I am
delighted to see how imperfect I am — reveal more to me of my
wretchedness.'*

We say of course: "You see what I am, without Your grace."
Only don't think God is not giving you a great deal of grace. It is an
enormous grace to be left to be conscious of our own want of recol-
lection and want of energy.

Hence this second state consists in a continual perception that
we are wanting; that we are careless, half-hearted, etc.

Consequently the earlier stage was much more comfortable; but,
on looking back, we see it was a half-truth, or a tenth-truth!

The first stage : "I feel I habitually am doing and suffering God's
Will in everything."

The second stage: "But I see this is only half-hearted and not
thorough."

The third stage: "Habitually I perceive that I am never really
doing and suffering God's Will, except most miserably and im-
perfectly; and I am, therefore, habitually miserable about it,"

Consequently we begin to realise that we can only get union with
God by very unpleasant suffering, and not by very enjoyable feel-
ings! I gather from your letter that you are making real progress.
All progress in virtue is progress in humility — knowledge of our
own wretchedness.

Only try to enjoy knowing it! Thank God for showing it to you,
and long to see it more and more.

Progression on the Way 151

(Only of course don't dwell upon it. All this introspection is un-
avoidable, but the shorter it is, the better.)

Fervour consists in dissatisfaction with ourselves — provided we
also have confidence in God. He never takes us by the way we should
expect. So do not worry, but accept all your imperfections — when
past or present— as inevitable, and use them as steps up. But future
ones are neither to be wished for, nor to be worried about.

Dom John Chapman, O.S.B,, 1865-1933. English, Biblical and Patristic Scholar.

Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman.

Our greatest hope is in this, that suffering is there. It is the
language of imperfection. Its very utterance carries in it the trust
in the perfect, like the baby's cry which would be dumb if it had no
faith in the mother. This suffering has driven man with his prayer
knocking at the gate of the infinite in him, the divine, thus revealing
his deepest instinct, his unreasoning faith in the reality of the ideal—
the faith shown in the readiness for death, in the renunciation of all
that belongs to the self. God's life is also abroad in his career of
freedom. When the discord rings out, man cries — "asato ma sad
gamaya" Help me to pass through the unreal to the real. It is the
surrender of his self to be tuned for the music of the soul. This
surrender is waited for, because the spiritual harmony cannot be
effected except through freedom. Therefore man's willing surrender
to the infinite is the commencement of the union. Only then can
God's love fully act upon man's soul through the medium of free-
dom. This surrender is our soul's free choice of its life of cooperation
with God— cooperation in the work of the perfect moulding of the
world of law into the world of love.

Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1941. Indian poet, dramatist, novelist.

Personality.

Even if we have to face the utmost negative possibility, death, or
what may be really worse than death, chronic sickness, imprison-,
ment, accidental injuries, we must understand that life includes these
possibilities and that an apparently harmless decision may bring
about such a terrible thing. Should we shun, therefore, every

152 The Way

decision? Would it be better to close our eyes to all the perils of life
and to enjoy the present moment as long as it is possible?

The too superficial person, as well as the too scrupulous one, is
not able to face real life. All escape from crisis leads into more
serious crises, and the only way out is to learn how to endure
life as it is, including all its terrible dangers as well as its wonderful
gifts

It is human to go through negative experiences, disappointments
and frustrations. It is one of the ways leading us to maturity. Indeed,
it is the opportunity to become We-feeling, objective, creative. , . .

We should find in our own past one or two small experiences
which give us the assurance, at least in subsequent analysis, that the
abyss, the dark situation which we fear more than death, can be
faced daringly and confidently — and that it proves then to be the
door leading us to objectivity and creativeness. Fear of failure, frustra-
tion, defeat and at last even fear of death has to be faced, explored,
lived through, in vivid imagination. Gradually all the "perils of the
soul," all castastrophies of life, lose their terrifying aspects, though
certain very serious results from them may still remain. They become
parts of human life, and we learn to think of them without anxiety.
Fear of death disappears and religious confidence develops the more,
the more we discover the deepest values of life, understanding that
human life tends to lead us into maturity of character, We-feeling
units of individuals and the creative development of personality.

The more we realize that this is true, the less we are afraid of
making mistakes and the more we are able to make creative decisions.
Then our courage and confidence increase through favourable ex-
periences. Our readiness to take risk and responsibility grows. Life
becomes fuller, richer, more successful and our confidence increases.
The deeper meaning of human life, the meta-physical goals of
history and culture become almost perceptible, though it may not be
possible to formulate any statement about them. A new kind of
security and confidence is felt— a confidence that does not need
guarantees, that is based simply on our growing inner experience.
This is in accordance with the experience of many religious per-

Progression on the Way 153

sonalities. Out of this experience may one day arise the highest value
of our life— real, living, efficient faith.*

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., German psychotherapist, and Roy E. Dickerson, American author.

How Character Develops.

I should like this to be accepted as my confession. There is no
limit to human suffering. When one thinks: "Now I have touched
the bottom of the sea— now I can go no deeper," one goes deeper.
And so it is for ever. I thought last year in Italy, any shadow more
would be death. But this year has been so much more terrible that
I think with affection of the Casetta! Suffering is boundless, it is
eternity. One pang is eternal torment. Physical suffering is— child's
play. To have one's breast crushed by a great stone— one could laugh!

I do not want to die without leaving a record of my belief that
suffering can be overcome. For I do believe it. What must one do ?
There is no question of what is called "passing beyond it." This is
false.

One must submit. Do not resist. Take it. Be overwhelmed. Accept
it fully. Make it part of life.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So
suffering must become Love. This is the mystery. This is what I
must do. I must pass from personal love to greater love. I must give
to the whole of life what I gave to one. The present agony will
pass — if it doesn't kill. It won't last. Now I am like a man who has
had his heart torn out— but— bear it— bear it! As in the physical
world, so in the spiritual world, pain does not last forever. It is only
so terribly acute now. It is as though a ghastly accident had hap-
pened. If I can cease reliving all the shock and horror of it, cease
going over it, I will get stronger.

Here, for a strange reason, rises the figure of Doctor Sorapure.
He was a good man. He helped me not only to bear pain, but he
suggested that perhaps bodily ill-health is necessary,, is a repairing
process, and he was always telling me to consider how man plays
but a part in the history of the world. My simple kindly doctor was
pure of heart as Tchehov was pure of heart. But for these ills one is

154 The Way

one's own doctor. If "suffering" is not a repairing process, I will
make it so. I will learn the lesson it teaches. These are not idle words.
These are not the consolations of the sick.

Life is a mystery. The fearful pain will fade. I must turn to work.
I must put my agony into something, change it. "Sorrow shall be
changed into joy."

It is to lose oneself more utterly, to love more deeply, to feel one-
self part of life — not separate.

Oh Life! accept me — make me worthy — teach me.*

Katherine Mansfield, 1890-1923. English writer, critic.
Journal of Katherine Mansfield.

God's; Crosses Safer Than Self-Chosen Crosses

The crosses which we make for ourselves by over-anxiety as to
the future are not Heaven-sent crosses. We tempt God by our false
wisdom, seeking to forestall His arrangements, and struggling to
supplement His Providence by our own provisions. The fruit of our
wisdom is always bitter. God suff ers it to be so that we may be dis-
comfited when we forsake His Fatherly guidance. The future is
not ours: we may never have a future; or, if it comes, it may be
wholly different to all we foresaw. Let us shut our eyes to
that which God hides from us in the hidden depths of His
Wisdom. Let us worship without seeing; let us be silent and lie
still.

The crosses actually laid upon us always bring their own special
grace and consequent comfort with them; we see the Hand of God
when It is laid upon us. But the crosses wrought by anxious fore-
boding are altogether beyond God's dispensations; we meet them
without the special grace adapted to the need— nay, rather in a faith-
less spirit, which precludes grace. And so everything seems hard and
unendurable; all seems dark, helpless, and the soul which indulged
in inquisitively tasting forbidden fruit finds nought save hopeless
rebellion and death within. All this comes of not trusting to God,
and prying into His hidden ways. "Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof," our Lord has said, and the evil of each day becomes
good if we leave it to God. Let us throw self aside, and then God's

Progression on the Way 155

Will, unfolding hour by hour, will content us as to all He does in or
around us. The contradictions of men, their inconstancy, their very
injustice, will be seen to be the results of God's Wisdom, Justice, and
unfailing Goodness; we shall see nought save that Infinitely Good
God hidden behind the weakness of blind, sinful men. Let us be glad
when our Heavenly Father tries us with sundry inward or outward
temptations; when He surrounds us with external contrarieties and
internal sorrow, let us rejoice, for thus our faith is tried as gold in
the fire. What! shall we be disheartened while God's Hand is
hastening His work? We are perpetually calling on Him to do it,
and so soon as He begins we are troubled, our cowardice and im-
patience hinder Him. I said that in the trials of life we learn the
hollowness and falseness of all that is not God — hollowness, because
there is nothing real where the One Sole Good is not; and falseness,
because the world promises, kindles hopes, but gives nought save
vanity and sorrow of heart — above all, in high places. Unreality must
be unreal everywhere, but in high places it is all the worse because it
is more decorated; it excites desire, kindles hope, and can never fill
the heart. That which is itself empty cannot fill another. All that is
not God will be found to be vanity and falsehood, and consequently
we find them in ourselves. What is so vain as our own heart? With
what delusions do we not deceive ourselves? Happy he who is
thoroughly undeceived, but our heart is as vain and false as the outer
world; we must not despise that without despising ourselves. We
are even worse than the world, because we have received greater
things from God.*

Francois Fenelon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop o£ Cambray.
Spiritual Letters of Archbishop FSnelon, Trans. H. L. Lear,

The Everlasting No— to the Everlasting Yea

I seemed to have nothing given me but eyes, whereby to

discern my own wretchedness To me the Universe was all void

of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge,
dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference,
to grind me limb from limb. So had it lasted, as in bitter protracted
Death-agony, through long years. Having no hope, neither had I

156 The Way

any definite fear, were it of Man or of Devil: and yet, strangely
enough, I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear: apprehensive
of I know not what.

Full of such humor, and perhaps the miserablest man in the
whole French capitol or suburbs, was I, one sultry Dogday, toiling
along the dirty little Rue Saint-Thomas de I'Enfer, when, all at
once, there rose a Thought in me, and I asked myself: "What art
thou afraid of? Despicable biped! what is the sum-total of the worst
that lies before thee? Death? Well, Death; and say the pangs of
Tophet, too, and all that the Devil and Man may, will, or can do
against thee! Hast thou not a heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever
it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet
itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will
meet it and defy it!" Then was it that my whole me stood up, in
native God-created majesty, and with emphasis recorded its Protest.
The Everlasting No had said: "Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast,
and the Universe is mine (the Devil's)"; to which my whole me
now made answer: "I am not thine, but Free, and forever hate
thee!"

It is from this hour that I incline to date my Spiritual New-birth;
perhaps I directly thereupon began to be a Man. . . .

The hot Harmattan wind had raged itself out; its howl went
silent within me; and the long-deafened soul could now hear. I
paused in my wild wanderings; and set me down to wait, and con-
sider; for it was as if the hour of change drew nigh. I seemed to
surrender, to renounce utterly, and say: "Fly, then, false shadows of
Hope; I will chase you no more, I will believe you no more. And
ye too, haggard spectres of Fear, I care not for you; ye too are all
shadows and a lie. Let me rest here: for I am way-weary and life-
weary; I will rest here, were it but to die; to die or to live is alike
insignificant." Here, then, as I lay in that centre of indifference,, cast,
doubtless, by benignant upper Influence, in a healing sleep, the heavy
dreams rolled gradually away, and I woke to a new Heaven and a
new Earth. The first preliminary moral Act, Annihilation of Self
(Sdbst-todtung), had been happily accomplished; and my mind's
eyes were now unsealed, and its hands ungyved.

Progression on the Way 157

The Everlasting Yea

Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing and
meditating; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains; over
me, as a roof, the azure Dome, and around me, four walls, four
azure-flowing curtains, namely, of the Four azure Winds . . . O,
Nature! Art not thou the "Living Garment of God"? 0, Heavens,
is it, in very deed, He, then, that ever speaks through thee; that lives
and loves in me?

Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendors, of that Truth, and
Beginning of Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. With other eyes,
too, could I now look upon my fellow-men: with an infinite love, and
infinite Pity— Poor, wandering, wayward man! Art thou not tried,
and beaten with stripes, even as I am? ... The poor Earth, with
her poor joys, was now my needy Mother, not my cruel Stepdame;
Man, with his so mad Wants and so mean Endeavors, had become
the dearer to me; and even for his sufferings and his sins, I now first
named him Brother. Thus was I standing in the porch of that
"Sanctuary of Sorrow"; by strange, steep ways had I too been guided
thither; and ere long its sacred gates would open, and the "Divine
Depth of Sorrow" lie disclosed to me.

A vain, interminable controversy touching what is at present
called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, arises in every soul, that
would pass from idle Suffering into actual Endeavoring, must first
be put an end to ... In each era such Solution comes out in different
terms; and ever the solution of the last era has become obsolete, and
is found unserviceable. For it is man's nature to change his Dialect
from century to century; he cannot help it though he would ... for
my own private behoof, I attempt to elucidate the matter so. Man's
Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there
is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury
under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholsterers
and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, in joint stock com-
pany, to make one Shoeblack happy? They cannot accomplish it,
above an hour or two Always there is a black spot in our sun-
shine: it is even, as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves.

So true is it, what I then said, that the Fraction of Life can be in-

158 The Way

creased in vcdue not so much by increasing your Numerator as by
lessening your Denominator. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me,
Unity itself divided by Zero will give Infinity. Make thy claim of
wages a zero, then; thou hast the world under thy feet. Well did the
Wisest of our time write: "It is only with Renunciation (Entsagen)
that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin."

I asked myself: "What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou
hast been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self -tormenting on
account of? Say it in a word: is it not because thou art not happy?
Because the thou (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honored,
nourished, soft-bedded and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul!" . . .

Es leuchtet mir ein, I see a glimpse of it! There is in man a higher
than Love of Happiness : he can do without Happiness, and instead
thereof find Blessedness ! Was it not to preach forth this same higher
that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest, in all times, have
spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, through life and through
death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike only
has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspired Doctrine art
thou also honored to be taught; O Heavens! and broken with
manifold merciful Afflictions, even till thou become contrite and
learn it! O, thank thy Destiny for these, thankfully bear what yet
remain: thou hadst need of them; the Self in thee needed to' be
annihilated. By benignant fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the
deep-seated chronic Disease, and triumphs over Death. On the roar-
ing billows of Time, thou art not ingulfed, but borne aloft into the
azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure; love God. This is the Ever-
lasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein who so walks
and works, it is well with him.*-**

Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881. Scottish essayist, historian, philosopher.

Sartor Resartus.

MEETING OF TEMPTATION AND FAILURE

Defeat must necessarily split attention and create unhappiness,
unless in some way it is possible,, in the pursuit of definite ends, to
combine an unlimited attachment with an unlimited detachment.

William Ernest Hocking, 1873-. American philosopher.
The Meaning of God in Human Experience.

Progression on the Way 159

Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation. Nor
does it mean freedom from mistakes. We are personalities in the
making, limited and grappling with things too high for us. Ob-
viously, we, at very best, will make many mistakes. But these
mistakes need not be sins. Our actions are the result of our intentions
and our intelligence. Our intentions may be very good, but because
the intelligence is limited the action may turn out to be a mistake —
a mistake, but not necessarily a sin. For sin comes out of a wrong
intention. Therefore the action carries a sense of incompleteness and
frustration, but not of guilt. Victorious living does not mean perfect
living in the sense of living without flaw, but it does mean adequate
living, and that can be consistent with many mistakes.

Nor does it mean maturity. It does mean a cleansing away of
things that keep from growth, but it is not full growth. In addition
to many mistakes in our lives, there will be many immaturities.
Purity is not maturity. This gospel of ours is called the Way. Our
feet are on that Way, but only on that Way; we have not arrived
at the goal.

Nor does it mean that we may not occasionally lapse into a wrong
act, which may be called a sin. At that point we may have lost a
skirmish, but it doesn't mean we may not still win the battle. We
may even lose a battle and still win the war. One of the differences
between a sheep and a swine is that when a sheep falls into a mud-
hole it bleats to get out, while the swine loves it and wallows in it.
In saying that an occasional lapse is consistent with victorious living
I am possibly opening the door to provide for such lapses. This is
dangerous and weakening. There must be no such provision in the
mind. There must be an absoluteness about the whole thing. But
nevertheless victorious living can be consistent with occasional
failure.

E. Stanley Jones, 1884-. American, Christian missionary to India, author.

Victorious Living.

My son, if thou come to serve the Lord,
Prepare thy soul for temptation.
Set thy heart aright, and constantly endure,
And make not haste in time of trouble.

160 The Way

Cleave unto him, and depart not away,
That thou mayest be increased at thy last end.
Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully,
And be patient when thou art changed to a low estate.
For gold is tried in the fire,
And acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.
Believe in him, and he will help thee;
Order thy way aright, and trust in him.

Ecclcsiasticus. About the second century B.C.
From the Apocrypha.

Most men have a dual interpretation of themselves — two pictures
of their two selves in separate rooms. In one room are hung all of
the portraits of their virtues, done in bright, splashing, glorious
colors, but with no shadows and no balance. In the other room hangs
the canvas of self-condemnation.

Instead of keeping these two pictures isolated from one another,
we must look at them together and gradually blend them into one.
In our exalted moods we are afraid to admit guilt, hatred, and shame
as elements of our personality; and in our depressed moods we are
afraid to credit ourselves with the goodness and the achievement
which really are ours.

We must begin now to draw a new portrait and accept and know
ourselves for what we are. We are relative, and not absolute,
creatures; everything we do is tinged with imperfection. So often
people foolishly try to become rivals of God and make demands of
themselves which only God could make of Himself— rigid demands
of absolute perfection. . . .

A splendid freedom awaits us when we realize that we need not
feel like moral lepers or emotional pariahs because we have some
aggressive, hostile thoughts and feelings toward ourselves and
others. When we acknowledge these feelings we no longer have to
pretend to be that which we are not. We discover that rigid pride
is actually the supreme foe of inner victory, while flexible humility,
the kind of humility that appears when we do not demand the im-
possible or the angelic of ourselves, is the great ally of psychic peace.

Progression on the Way 161

We should learn to rejoice in the truth that we human beings
consist of a variety of moods, impulses, traits, and emotions

If we become pluralistic in thinking about ourselves, we shall
learn to take the depressed mood or the cruel mood or the unco-
operative mood for what it is, one of many, fleeting, not permanent.
As pluralists we take ourselves for worse as well as for better, cease
demanding a brittle perfection which can lead only to inner despair.
There are facets of failure in every person's make-up and there are
elements of success. Both must be accepted while we try to emphasize
the latter through self-knowledge.*

Joshua Loth Liebman, 1907-. Jewish Rabbi, educator.

Peace of Mind.

March 21, 1690.

As light increases, we see ourselves to be worse than we thought.
We are amazed at our former blindness as we see issuing forth from
the depths of our heart a whole swarm of shameful feelings, like
filthy reptiles crawling from a hidden cave. We never could have
believed that we had harboured such things, and we stand aghast
as we watch them gradually appear. But we must neither be amazed
nor disheartened. We are not worse than we were; on the contrary,
we are better. But while our faults diminish, the light by which we
see them waxes brighter, and we are filled with horror. Bear in mind,
for your comfort, that we only perceive our malady when the cure
begins. So long as there is no sign of cure, we are unconscious of the
depth of our disease; we are in a state of blind presumption and
hardness; the prey of self-delusion. While we go with the stream, we
are unconscious of its rapid course; but when we begin to stem it
ever so little, it makes itself felt.

Francois F6nelon, 1651-1715. French Archbishop of Cambray.
Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Ftnclon, Trans. H. L. Lear.

God intends even our faults to set forward the sanctification of
our souls, and it rests with ourselves whether they do so or not. Not
infrequently we suffer less real injury from a fault itself, than from
the way in which we deal with it. I am not now speaking of people
who give themselves grudgingly to God, and so commit numberless

162 The Way

deliberate faults, which can in no way be turned to good account.
The souls to which I refer are those who, in spite of all their resolu-
tions against sin, are continually committing faults through im-
petuosity, weakness, or inadvertence. Such people are wont to be
greatly surprised and troubled at their faults; they give way to
false shame, and become fretful and disheartened. But these are so
many signs of self-love, more hurtful to the soul than the original
fault. You are surprised at your imperfections— why? I should infer
from that, that your self-knowledge is small. Surely you might rather
be astonished that you do not fall into more frequent and more
grievous faults, and thank God for His upholding Grace. You are
worried when you detect a fault, you lose your inward peace, and
your disturbance lasts hours or days, as the case may be. This is not
right. You should never allow yourself to be disturbed, but when
fallen you should rise up quietly, turn with a loving heart to God
for forgiveness, and put away the thought of your fault until the
proper time comes for self -accusation, then own to it frankly and
fully, and do not afterwards be disturbed.

False shame is another besetting evil; perhaps you are afraid
fully to own all your faults to another. You are forever saying to
yourself, "What will he think of me, after all my promises and
resolutions?" But if you own to everything, simply and humbly, you
will not lose in the estimation of a true servant of Christ; if he sees
that it costs you a severe struggle, he may not improbably attribute
your reluctance to pride; and if he sees that you are not quite true
in the matter, he will not have full confidence in you.

The worse evil, however, is when we grow vexed at our faults;
as St. Francis de Sales says, "We are angry because we have been
angry; impatient at having shown impatience." But this is sorry
work, and if you will be honest with yourself, you will see that it is
altogether pride; you are mortified to find yourself weaker, less holy
than you fancied yourself to be; perhaps too your aim was self-satis-
faction, you wanted to be able to congratulate yourself on having
spent a day or a week free from faults. Then you grow discouraged,
you relax your devotional exercises, and begin to look upon perfec-
tion as unattainable. "What is the use of such perpetual self-restraint

Progression on the Way 163

and watchfulness?" you ask; "What good does all my recollection
and mortification do me, if none of my faults is corrected, and I
grow no better?" This is neither more nor less than a snare of the
devil, and if you would escape it, you must resolve not to be dis-
heartened, but even if you were to fall a hundred times a day, deter-
mine to rise up each time, and go onwards. What will it matter
though you have fallen by the way, if you reach your journey's end
safely at last? God will forgive the falls: they often are caused by
undue haste, which prevents us from taking fitting precautions, or
with timid souls from a perpetual looking round for imaginary
dangers which causes them to stumble. Perhaps the holiest men are
not always those who commit the fewest faults, but those who have
most courage, most love, and the most free spirit; those who make
the heartiest efforts for conquering self and who are not afraid of a
stumble, even of a fall, so long as their progress is certain.

Jean Nicholas Grou, 1731-1803. French Catholic priest.

The Hidden Life.

That the 'greatest pains or pleasures of this world were not to be
compared with what he had experienced of both kinds of a spiritual
state: so that he was careful for nothing and feared nothing, desiring
only one thing of God, viz., that he might not offend Him.

That when he had failed in his duty, he simply confessed his
fault, saying to God, I shall never do otherwise, if Thou leavest me
to myself; 'tis Thou must hinder my falling, and mend what is
amiss. That after this, he gave himself no farther uneasiness about it.

That we ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speak-
ing to Him frankly and plainly, and imploring His assistance in our
affairs, just as they happen. That God never failed to grant it, as he
had often experienced.

That we should not wonder if, in the beginning, we often failed
in our endeavours; but that, at last, we should gain a habit, which
would naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our
exceeding great delight.

That the whole substance of religion was faith, hope, and love;
by the practice of which we became united to the will of God; that

164 The Way

all beside is indifferent, and to be used only as a means, that we may
arrive at our end, and be swallowed up therein, by faith and love.

That all things are possible to him who believes, that they are
less difficult to him who hopes, that they are easier to him who loves,
and still more easy to him who preseveres in the practice of these
three virtues.*

Brother Lawrence (Nicholas Herman), 1611-1691. French Carmelite Friar.
The Practice oj the Presence of God, Translator unknown.

PART TWO

The Techniques

It is one thing from the woody top of a mountain to see the land of
peace, and not to find the way thither; and another to keep on the
way that leads thither.

ST. AUGUSTINE

If we are to have vision, we must learn to participate in the object
of the vision. The apprenticeship is hard.

ANTOINE DE ST. EXUPERY

moments

PART TWO

THE TECHNIQUES

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 167

CHAPTER

IV. PRAYER AND MEDITATION 175

General Definitions 176

Value and Function 183

Kinds and Degrees 195

Role of the Spiritual Director 210

Important Aids to Prayer 218

V. PRAYER AND MEDITATION (Continued) 231

Procedures and Patterns 232

Instruction on Discursive Meditation 235

Suggested Patterns for Meditation 247

Brief Instruction for Affective Prayer 277

Difficulties of the Beginner 282

VI. PSYCHOTHERAPY 299

Relation of Psychotherapy and Religion 300

Role of Dream Analysis 309

Some Self-education Procedures 322

VII. FELLOWSHIP 335

VIII. ACTION 349

PART TWO

The Techniques

Part one enunciated the conditions of the Way trodden by men and
women in all ages who have in varying degrees become free and creative
in spirit. This Way was seen to demand a transformation of the conscious
and unconscious purposes, to require the development of a new focus of
attention — based on a redirected will — which would enable discrimination
between what is variously designated as the Real and unreal, the
permanently valuable and the transiently pleasureable, the meaningful
and the trivial, the " things of God" and the "things of the world." It was
seen that such heightened awareness is, in most cases, achieved slowly,
and that it generally seems to lead through several stages.

It is during the first stage that the aspirant finds himself in need of
every available help. His rate of progress depends upon many factors,
among them being the depth and kind of his original experience of
commitment to Reality (devotion to the Good), the degree of the rigidity
in his unconscious egocentric purpos.es, and the effectiveness of the
techniques which he develops for the maintenance and growth of the new
attitude of devotion. It is with this latter factor, the techniques, that this
section is concerned.

The widespread unrealism which obscures the fact of progression in
the inner life, affects in a major way the prevailing attitude toward
techniques also. But if one will face the enormity of the modification of
character which is envisioned, the extent of revision to which the Will,
the Emotions, the Intellect, the Imagination — indeed all of the functions
of the conscious and unconscious personality structure — are to be sub-
jected, one will be impelled to seek the advice of persons of profound
religious and psychological insight concerning the important "how" of
this gigantic task.

These proficients are found to agree that "training" is a necessity.
They advise kinds of training that will provide reconditioning experiences

167

168 The Techniques

of sufficient vitality to offset the influence of society which, since "man's
sin is stamped upon man's universe," is for the most part diametrically
opposed to the new direction. They must be effective in transforming the
egocentric set of man's own psyche which tends to choke out his new
resolve— to develop the behavior patterns consistent with the new
Direction. One becomes convinced that definite training is as necessary
in this area as it is in any other kind of proficiency which one may desire
to attain.

The chief method found to have been effective through the centuries
is that form of inner activity known as prayer and meditation. These
terms, as do the words "God" and "Religion/' need to be freed from
certain restricted and distorted meanings. Many people, otherwise in-
terested in the religious Way, shy off from any mention of prayer because
of two major confusions. One arises from the lack of information con-
cerning the distinctions between what can be designated for the purposes
of clarification, as low, medium and high prayer.1 In low prayer there
are two levels of petitionary prayer: (i) asking for material things for
oneself, (2) asking for material things for another. Though these levels
are rudimentary, they have significance since they recognize the fact
of a higher Reality and manifest faith in it. But, for the kind of training
being discussed here, they are likely to be limiting and blocking rather
than releasing, for they set up "specific" desires as definitive of the Good,
and thus obscure the Good.

Medium prayer is petition for particular virtues for oneself or another.
It indicates high aspiration, but it may contribute to an inner rigidity —
a tense striving toward goals which are beyond the beginner — and there-
fore it also may be detrimental to progress. We find that petitionary
prayer in any form is really appropriate only for a person whose inner
nature has been largely purged of greed and fear. He can ask because he
is more illumined in the asking.

High prayer belongs in a different category. It is first of all a mental
activity which makes use of that capacity for abstraction which dif-
ferentiates mankind from all other creatures. This is the capacity by
which he escapes being bound by mere stimulus-response reactions and
concrete performances; the capacity by which he can choose essential and
appropriate aspects, in respect to a whole situation, to which to respond.
The discipline of mental prayer makes the highest possible use of this

1 See Preface to Prayer by Gerald Heard, pages 24-51. We are indebted to Mr. Heard
for this classification although it is developed differendy herein.

The Techniques 169

abstract attitude, for in prayer one chooses to learn t® apprehend and
respond to those aspects of Reality which are infinite.

Several kinds and degrees of high prayer are described in Chapter
Four of this section. They are said to correspond to the several stages of
progression and represent one of the main techniques for actuation on
the Way.

Even among those who understand the distinctions just made, there
are many who still shy away from the practice of prayer because of the
fear of being obliged to use prescribed subject matter, which to them
may be meaningless. However, since in discursive meditation the under-
standing is directed to a consideration of subject matter for the purpose
of convincing the self of the fact of ultimate Reality, and of recognizing
the inner blocks to the perception of that Reality, the choice of subject
matter should be determined by what is most real and meaningful to
each individual.

We have seen that there are a number of approaches to the Way.
There is, therefore, a variety of subject matter suitable for meditation.
Whether one chooses to meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus, or
other historical figures in whom God appears manifest to a high degree,
or on certain stirring philosophical hypotheses, or the intimations of God
received through nature, art, science or history; whether one meditates
upon the concept of the Real Self (advanced by several psychotherapeutic
systems as well as by early Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian mystics), or
upon some other significant approach, one will be provided with enor-
mously challenging subject matter. Happy is the man for whom all these
approaches are meaningful!

(In Chapter Five the reader will find suggestions for the development
of some of the different subjects into discursive meditative patterns. Also
several suggested supplementary practices are described in Chapters Four
and Six.)

The extended emphasis on the technique of Prayer as well as the in-
elusion of material on the role of the spiritual "Director" may appear
strange to some readers. In respect to skilled guidance it may help to recall
that one of the effects of the Reformation was to disregard the contribution
of the religious director, as well as to neglect the findings of the great
mystics concerning spiritual training as such. Individual desire coupled
with Scripture reading, vocal prayer, and pulpit exhortation were too
frequently considered sufficient practice to insure spiritual progress. They

1 70 The Techniques

superseded the Catholic over-emphasis on the authority of the church and
the need for intermediaries, and were a reaction against the complicated
and often extreme austerities practiced at the time. But the over-rationaliza-
tion of Protestantism contributed to the development of that tragic un-
realism, previously discussed, regarding the requirements for progression
on the Way. "Training" consequently became neglected, and neglect has
been so long the rule, that to many people it no longer appears an in-
adequacy,

It is hoped that the material assembled in this section will stimulate a
re-evaluation of some of the neglected emphases and will inspire increased
practice of individually-suited methods — such as can help in the develop-
ment of that reconditioning, refocusing skill known as prayer.

The next technique discussed in this section is that fairly new "tool"
of character modification known as psychotherapy. It is striking to note
how many of the insights and practices of this developing science were
known and used by the great religious teachers of the past. Interesting
evidence of such fore-running knowledge is seen in ancient Buddhist,
Hindu and early Christian training systems. For example, there is an
ancient Buddhist meditative pattern known as Backward Meditation,
which after long practice is said to open up the memory to all details of
life experiences back to birth. One obvious but significant parallel to the
catharsis emphasis of psychotherapy is also the Catholic Confessional
In the Patanjali Aphorisms 400 A.D. the importance of seeking insight
through meditation on dreams is mentioned. In fact, Patanj all's system
of Yoga rests on many of what we now term psychological laws.

The scientific classification of what was already known, and the ex-
tensive development of that knowledge through experimental processes
presents us with a dependable body of psychological data regarding the
structure and functioning of personality. This we have seen, contributes
greatly to the process of clarification. It not only throws light on Self-
knowledge (the seeming-self, and the Real-self) and therefore on those
obstacles to growth which stem from the unconscious, but frequently is
successful in probing to and effecting a removal of the roots of those
obstacles.

On the same basis depth-psychology contributes to the effective prac-
tice of prayer through: (i) revealing some of the unconscious blocks to
mental concentration, (2) lessening the danger of repression which in-
appropriate prayer techniques may invoke, (3) providing helpful "checks"

The Techniques 171

for judging the quality of inner impulses, whether they are of spiritual or
egocentric origin, and thereby lessening the loose practice of interpreting
quite-at-random impulses as Inner Guidance.

Psychotherapy has made us aware of rationalization and of those
other tricks of the unconscious whereby the egocentric purposes gain
control. This all contributes toward the decrease of that dangerous
tendency of confusing the "unconscious'5 with God.

Besides the light which psychotherapy throws on the understanding of
the process of progression, and besides the valuable suggestions for general
Self -education which it has originated, it has developed its own particular
technique by which it seeks in rather drastic fashion to break up the
unconscious habit patterns through the aid of dream-analysis. This method
is direct as contrasted to the indirect method of prayer. One of the dangers
in the direct method is the tendency to become overly absorbed in the
revelations of the unconscious obstacles, and thus to sidetrack the primary
goal which is the release of the living reality which they obstruct. Another
danger is that the egocentric demands frequently are only modified in-
stead of being steadily reduced and eliminated. This is partly due to the
partial view of man's world which is accepted by so many psychologists 2
— one in which the human mind and body, the human external and
internal environments, are considered the whole of the real world. In
prayer there is a wider point of reference. Both of these dangers, how-
ever, can be avoided through the wise choice of professional help. Fortu-
nately there are therapists of profound insight who are qualified to assist
one by this method.

The material included in Chapter Six on psychotherapy is necessarily
inadequate. No trustworthy introduction to this important field can be
gained without careful reading of at least one or two books on the subject.
(See Bibliography.) It will be noted that of the material included some
refers to the more general Self-education procedures and the rest to the
highly specialized analytic procedure. The reader is urged to avail himself
of the help which the Self-education procedures offer, and to take note of
a new and arresting suggestion in this connection which attempts to
synthesize the religious and psychological techniques to form a type
of discursion known as Confessional Meditation. Other specialized pro-
cedures are also included in Chapter Six. One views the frontier findings

2 The Analytical Psychology of Jung and the We-psychology of Kunkel are profoundly
religious, in basic concepts and in implication.

172 The Techniques

of this fast-developing science of human behavior with high hope. The
promise it holds for a better understanding of the whole Life-giving
process is encouraging.

Concerning the third suggestion for furthering progression,, there is
little needed in introduction. It is obvious that for strength of purpose to
carry on through the perplexities and discouragements met along the
Way the value of intimate fellowship is immeasurable. Many small,
seriously-intented groups can be discovered though it may require patience
to seek them out. When such "cells" of real community develop within
the life of the church, they contribute profoundly to its vitality. In
religious fellowship, as in personal religious exercise, unobtrusiveness
should be the rule as together the group, seeking to avoid pretention and
false enthusiasm, moves quietly toward the mutual goal. Success in any
venture of fellowship may be difficult, but in an intimate fellowship of
this kind there are particular dangers which may arise from the tendency
of the members to idealize one another, while at the same time disregard-
ing those individual differences in temperament and experience which
vary the rate of progress as well as determine the particular emphasis
which the progress will take in each. These unrealistic expectations if not
checked may lead to unnecessary disillusionment and false discourage-
ment. In spite of the hazards, however, there are few experiences as rich
as that of religious fellowship. The help of a wise religious advisor can
be of value in this area also.

A prerequisite to any effective practice of techniques is that initial step
in reorganizing one's life around the new center — the attempt to prune
away whatever activities do not contribute to the new resolve. As with all
beginning steps, this one is difficult; enough so, indeed, to prove the mettle
of one's sincerity and to represent what we can call the technique of
Action. This term is somewhat of a misnomer, but the tremendous im-
portance of forming the habit of expressing in action the new insights
received, and of valuing sufficiently the role of action in the liberating
process, makes its use in this connection seem permissible. For unless
there is action up to the height of insight, there can be no increase of
insight. "Action," as used herein, therefore, refers to the habit of saying
"Yes" to the Light. Its specific expression differs in each person depend-
ing on the progress he has achieved and the type of personality he repre-
sents.

Probably no other aspect of the Way has known greater controversy

The Techniques 173

than that which surrounds this one of action. In the study of both
Western and Eastern advices concerning this point, there were found
what can be considered not so much conflicting points of view, such as
have been allowed to crystallize into the expression "social gospel" and
"personal gospel," or into "entering into life" versus "retreating from
life," but rather what we believe is a confusion regarding kinds of
action. In this connection we again meet with the damaging unrealism
which disregards the fact of progression, for what could be expected of
and urged on a proficient in the way of action would be folly, and a waste
of time and possibly worse in effect, if urged on a beginner. Likewise
what one beginner should do may differ considerably from the wise
activity prescribed for another beginner of different temperament. The
material assembled in Chapter Eight presents different points of view,
or what we may call different kinds or degrees of action.

In addition to availing himself of the four major techniques described
herein, the aspirant will, of course, seek out whatever other opportunities
will deepen his conviction and experience of Reality and encourage his
perseverance in training. Special retreats, study of the lives and teach-
ings of those in whom God seems most perfectly manifest, corporate
worship of the type that holds special appeal to the individual, and similar
corporate experiences are essential.3

In closing, some mention should be made of the many people who do
not believe in any form of spiritual training. They believe that "life" is
the greatest teacher and, therefore, depend on life's experiences to further
their progress on the Way. This is an understandable attitude, for the
circumstances of each life do offer the needed material for clarification;
but how successfully in most of us does the loud clamor of egocentric
interests prevent the hearing of what "life" is saying! It is to recover this
hearing faculty that spiritual training is recommended. A contemporary
religious4 puts it something like this: The spiritual life resembles a
fertile egg whose embryo is surrounded by the exact sustenance needed
for its development. It grows by feeding on its environment, achieving
the strength needed finally to peck through the shell. So, likewise, the
spiritual germ— -"the spark of the soul" within each human being— is
surrounded by the exact food necessary for its development. This food

3 See Worship by Evelyn Underbill.

4 Howard Thurman, formerly Professor of Philosophy, Howard University. Now co-
pastor of The Fellowship Church (inter-racial), San Francisco.

174 The Techniques

consists o£ the essence of all the circumstances, the difficulties, the op-
portunities, the relationships — personal and world — in which each person
at every moment of time is environed. But man tends to resist, even to
fight against this given sustenance. He fails to recognize it as the perfect
nutriment for his spiritual development.

It is to awaken this recognition of what "life" is offering in the way
of spiritual food that the techniques described herein are important.
As Ramakrishna once said, "The breeze of Divine grace is blowing upon
us all. But one needs to set the sail to feel this breeze of grace,"

CHAPTER FOUR

Prayer and JNleditation

Adherence to the status quo requires as a rule little reflection, while
release from it to something better requires much.

GEORGE ALBERT COE

The practice of reflective meditation, which consists in holding cer-
tain ideas in the mind long enough to enable them to form emo-
tional connections, tends to break up the crust of habit and to create

a new will.*

TV ALTER MARSHALL MORTON

Worship in all its degrees is an education in charity, a purgation of
egoism.

EVELYN UNDERHILL

Prayer is the most perfect and most divine action that a rational soul
is capable of. It is of all other actions and duties the most indis-
pensably necessary.

AUGUSTIN BAKER

CHAPTER FOUR

Prayer and Meditation

GENERAL DEFINITIONS OF PRAYER1

Prayer is disciplined opening of the self to God. My social, verbal,
officious, work-a-day self has something closed and set about it. It is
a mass of predispositions, preconceptions, inhibitions, settled beliefs
and expectations. There is a convenient fixity about it. It assures me
of my identity, it provides me with the least laborious responses to
the stresses of my environment, it gives me a stable base from and on
which to grow. But that fixity must never be suffered to become
final. This would be death. Prayer is the persistent effort to guard
against that death — the effort toward effordessness, receptivity. So
long as the tenseness of the daily struggle remains, one battles the
old problems with the old resources and the old insights. If one could
only suspend that conscious fight, one might be able to meet the same
reality that is to be subdued with a larger, more complete, more
relaxed self: one might harness to the fight not only the thin upper
surface of one's .esolutions but a more massive undercurrent of habit
and emotion. This is just what can be achieved by the difficult art
of prayer, and its discipline of silence.

For there is strength in you greater than any strength of your
own, the Will that stirs within you when your own will is at rest.*

Gregory Vlastos, 1909-. Canadian, Professor of Philosophy.

The Religious Way.

Prayer is that act by which the individual faces himself, relative to
his fundamental attitude, and seeks to make sure that this basic

1 These definitions do not particularize the different kinds of prayer. For that see —
Kinds and Degrees of Prayer, pages 195-210.

176

Prayer and Meditation 177

attitude is one of complete commitment to the Good, and that there
are no reservations.

It is a focusing of the personality, and an intensifying of aware-
ness, by which the individual seeks to tear off the layers upon layers
of unreality that are his heritage from the past. And to make his
motive, and supreme ambition, and utmost effort, harmonious with
and parallel with the Good.

Prayer is the juridic bar at which he can determine how much
of sincerity and how much of destructive reservation there is in his
intended dedication. He can there declare, if he so wills, his one
and only allegiance.

It is an attitude of keen observation, in which one looks and
judges: observation of the self that comes no other known way than
through that distinctive discipline.

Prayer is the discipline through which one learns whether funda-
mental attitudes, when taken, have profound effects on personality.
And if so, what those effects are essentially.

Prayer may purely assume a God, for experimental purposes, not
affirming that it knows in advance anything about God, and only
very little, in advance of experiment, about the universe or the possi-
bilities and potentialities for personality resident in absolute abdica-
tion.

i Anonymous.

By worship I mean a reflective activity of the "total mind" by
means of which the Self relates itself to its Total Environment in
so far, that is, as the Self can become aware of and responsive to
its Total or Effective Environment. In my view it is true to say that
we can worship Nature or Humanity or Art, or God. I believe that
all of these are the same activity, but that they differ in quality. They
differ in the sense that Whitehead means when he speaks of "high-
grade" and "low-grade" experiences. The chief difference between
these "grades" of worship can be measured by the differences in the
objects of worship and in the effects produced by higher or lower-
grade worship upon the organization of the personality of the wor-
shipper and upon his experience. Worship requires3 firstly, stillness

178 The Techniques

in the "ego"; secondly, openness to or awareness of the object of
worship; and, thirdly, the establishment of mutual relations between
the worshipper and the object of worship. In essence, worship is the
whole process of valuation. In Christian worship, God in Christ is
the Divine Object.

Howard E. Collier, M.D., contemporary English physician.
The Place of Worship in Modern Medicine.

Moral and religious reality cannot be perceived without transfor-
mation of self, without submission of the individual to its exigencies.
One condition has to be met; the decision must be taken in advance
not only in words but in reality to say "yes" to the light. And this
attitude is called prayer. In fact it is prayer even before we realize
that we should call it so. One should therefore say that the only
search for God is through prayer — but what prayer? Not the
formulas of ritual, not the multiplication of words ... "I am nothing;
I know nothing, save the fact that I am here, full of need and misery,
full of ignorance, doubt and fear. But, I am finding my direction; I
turn inward toward an ideal of higher, purer spirituality; I will the
good, even the good unknown to me; I aspire and trust; I crave; I
open myself; I abandon myself to the God whose inspiration I feel at
work in the depths of myself; I will the light; I call upon it; I am
confident that it will answer me and I accept in advance everything
that it will exact from me." Moreover this prayer must not only
be dreamed about, it must be prayed in very fact, explicitly. It is not
sufficient to approve of it as a theoretical principle, to admit its
necessity in an abstract movement of pure mind; at one precise
moment of time, withdrawing in one's self and seizing hold of that
self to its uttermost depths, one must make it give birth to the act
in its reality. Only with the fulfilment of this condition will one's
search be fully sincere, and not a vain lie and a mere sham. If one felt
I know not what obscure aversion for this act, that would be the
best proof that the fact of experience does add something to simple
reflection on it. And this aversion we would then have to conquer,
for it would mark in us a secret refusal of the ethical demand.*

Edouard LcRoy, 1870-. French philosopher.
From Le Problems dc Dieu, Trans. Dora Willson.

Prayer and Meditation 179

Mental prayer means the occupation of our faculties upon God,
not in the way of thinking or speculating about Him, but stirring
up the will to conform itself to Him and the affections to love Him.*

Author unknown.

There is no fear of the charge of autosuggestion in prayer that so
haunted the last generation. It is freely admitted from the outset that
large elements of prayer are and should be of that character. All that
is meant by this word "autosuggestion," or self-suggestion, is that the
suggestion is selected and presented by the person to himself. We
have come to recognize that all we know has been suggested to us
either by our external or internal environment in the form of
what is called heterosuggestion.

In entering prayer we have a perfect right to choose from this
random mass of heterosuggestions some that we regard as more
significant than others, and to dwell upon them. Autosuggestion
is no more than this act of dwelling upon selected aspects of experi-
ence. By the mere act of dwelling upon them we do not necessarily
prove them to be true. Nor did we intend to. That matter of truth
is both a prior and a subsequent matter of tests and interpretations
to which either auto- or heterosuggestions must be submitted. These
selected aspects of experience with which we may enter prayer are,
however, only a threshold of past experience that we cross in order
to engage with what is there. And they are subject to revision and to
addition as the prayer brings its bearer to new levels of insight.

Douglas Van Steere, 1901-. American Professor of Philosophy.

Prayer and Worship.

Worship, or prayer, is the especial sphere of the will in religion.
It is an act of approach to God; and while this act involves a lifting
of thought to God, it is more than an act of thought— it intends to
institute some communication or transaction with God wherein will
answers will.

Within the motive of worship there is to be discerned, I believe,
a weariness of the old, the habitual, the established— a hunger for
what is radically new and untried. This is, in part, the significance

180 The Techniques

of that deliberate undoing of all bonds and attachments, all received
knowledges and properties, which is part of the preparation for the
mystical experience in all ages. If it were possible for the soul to
become aware of all its attachments and habits, how could it be
better disposed for originality? The scientific discipline of the mind
is of the same effect in its own sphere; to disaffect oneself as far as
may be of prepossessions; to recognize and allow for the biases of the
person, the body, and the age. It is not improbable, then, that worship
may include this value of preparing the soul for the reception of
novelty with its primary value of uniting the worshipper with his
God.

Worship is indeed a reasonable act, even when instinctive and
momentary: it is informed of God; it uses and contains all available
knowledge of the being whom it addresses. But in worship the
universality of thought is overcome; and God is appropriated
uniquely to the individual self. Worship brings the experience of
God to pass in self-consciousness with a searching valency not
obligatory upon the pure thinker: in some way it enacts the presence
of God, sets God into the will to work there. In the nature of the
case, the aspect of deity which reason discovers is an unconditional,
inevitable, universal presence: from such a presence there can be no
escape — and so no drawing near — save by the movements of de-
liberate attention. But the drawing-near of worship is more than a
movement of attention.

Worship may be regarded as an attempt to detach oneself from
everything else in uniting with God. It seeks God first as an object,
that Other of all worldly objects; and it seeks to join itself to that
absolute Other. The mystic proceeds by negation; this and that, he
says, are not God; it is not these that I seek. The effort of worship
measures the soul's power of detachment. And my power of detach-
ment measures the whole of my freedom, the whole of my possibility
of happiness, the whole of my possible originality, the whole depth
and reach of my morality and of my human contribution!

What the mystic reaches is, in terms of his world-conceptions, a
zero; not indeed the Whole of reality, but Substance, the heart of
God. It is just such a zero as one encounters when he seeks his own

Prayer and Meditation 181

soul behind the shifting content of his experience, or when he seeks
the soul of another, in distinction from that other's various external
expressions. This zero is not a place to stay in; but it may be pre-
eminently a place to return to, and to depart from. In worship one
touches the bottom of that bottomless pit of Self and perceives at
hand the real Origin of things; gaining not the whole of any
knowledge, but the beginning and measure of all knowledge.

May not worship be described as the will to become, for a
moment and within one's own measure, what existence is; or more
simply, as the act of recalling oneself to being? It might be described
as a spontaneous impulse for spiritual self-preservation; for self-
placing, for the ultimate judgment of life, and for the perpetual
renewal of the worth of life. And in thus returning to the sources
of being we may still more dimly discern, it may be, a self-preserva-
tion of farther scope, such as immortality may hang on; a glint of
ontological bearing of unlimited importance. . . .

The worth of God's presence to the genuine mystic is a sufficient
and absolute good; and he often expresses himself as if the ecstasy
of his moment were its own justification. But every immediate value
must be sanctioned by its bearings in the system of all values, must
have a meaning which can give account of itself in the form of
knowledges such as we have suggested. Worship must not be an
intoxication which alienates the soul from the duller interests of
experience; and hence, as mysticism has learned its own meaning, it
has realized that subjective delight recommends nothing, and that
the supremacy of the moment of its experience must be judged by
the staying powers of its insight.*

William Ernest Hocking, 1873-. American philosopher.
The Meaning of God in Human Experience.

By prayer, I do not understand petition or supplication, which,
according to the doctrine of the schools, is exercised principally by
the understanding, being a signification of what the person desires
to receive from God. But prayer here especially meant is rather an
offering and giving to God whatsoever He may justly require
from us.

182 The Techniques

Now prayer, in this general notion, may be defined to be an
elevation of the mind to God, or more largely and expressly thus:
prayer is an affectuous actuation of an intellective soul towards God,
expressing, or at least implying, an entire dependence on Him as
the Author and Fountain of all good, a will and readiness to give
Him His due, which is no less than all love, obedience, adoration,
glory, and worship, by humbling and annihilating of herself and all
creatures in His presence; and lastly, a desire and intention to aspire
to an union of spirit with Him.

Hence it appears that prayer is the most perfect and most divine
action that a rational soul is capable of. It is of all other actions and
duties the most indispensably necessary.*

Augustin Baker, 1575-1641. English Benedictine Father.

Holy Wisdom.

Prayer is not asking for things— not even for the best things;
it is going where they are. The word, with its inevitable sense and
stain of supplication, is therefore best abandoned. It is meditation
and contemplation; it is opening another aperture of the mind, using
another focus, that is the real recreative process.

Anonymous.

Prayer consists in renouncing all that is of this world, external,
and evoking in oneself the divine part of one's soul by throwing one-
self into it, entering by it communion with Him of whom It is a
part; recognizing oneself as the slave of God; and testing oneself,
one's actions, one's desires, according to the demands not of the
external circumstances of the world but of this divine part of one's
soul.

I regard it (prayer) as a necessary condition of spiritual (true)
life*

Lyof N. Tolstoi, 1828-1910. Russian novelist, moral philosopher.
Complete Works, Trans. Aline Delano.

Let any true man go into silence: strip himself of all pretense,
and selfishness, and sensuality, and sluggishness of soul; lift off
thought after thought, passion after passion, till he reaches the in-

Prayer and Meditation 183

most depth of all; remember how short a time and he was not at
all; how short a time again, and he will not be here; open his
window and look upon the night, how still its breath, how solemn
its march, how deep its perspective, how ancient its forms of light;
and think how little he knows except the perpetuity of God, and
the mysteriousness of life:— and it will be strange if he does not
feel the Eternal Presence as close upon his soul as the breeze upon
his brow; if he does not say, "O Lord, art thou ever near as this,
and have I not known thee?" — if the true proportions and the
genuine spirit of life do not open on his heart with infinite clearness
and show him the littleness of his temptations and the grandeur of
his trust. He is ashamed to have found weariness in toil so light,
and tears where there was no trial to the brave. He discovers with
astonishment how small the dust that has blinded him, and from
the height of a quiet and holy love looks down with incredulous
sorrow on the jealousies and fears and irritations that have vexed
his life. A mighty wind of resolution sets in strong upon him and
freshens the whole atmosphere of his soul, sweeping down before
it the light flakes of difficulty, till they vanish like snow upon the
sea. He is imprisoned no more in a small compartment of time,
but belongs to an eternity which is now and here. The isolation
of his separate spirit passes away; and with the countless multitude
of souls akin to God, he is but as a wave of his unbounded deep.
He is at one with Heaven, and hath found the secret place of the
Almighty.

James Martineau, 1805-1900. English religious director.
Endeavors A,]ter the Christian Life.

VALUE AND FUNCTION OF PRAYER 2

For World Salvation

The world can be saved — by one thing only and that is worship, f
For to worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God,
to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination

2 Also see Confessional Meditation, page 327.

184 The Techniques

by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to
devote the will to the purpose of God.

William Temple, 1881-1944. English, Archbishop of Canterbury

The Hope of a New World.

For Unity

"People cannot be loyal to what they have not experienced."
If so, meditation would seem to be almost necessary to most religious
people who wish to remain sincere and consistent. Meditation gives
opportunity to ponder over the subtler realities which are not easily
or hastily perceived but which are nevertheless constantly operative
and controlling life. Meditation provides opportunity for weighing
values. In so far as will is choice or perceiving a pattern, it is aided
by meditation. Meditation also provides opportunity for us to examine
our assumptions about human nature, about the spirit, about our
relations to one another and to God. Often these assumptions lie at
the base of our choice and our action. Meditation is of special value
for those who desire peace, helping to create an inner harmony
and unity. Until we attain these we cannot reach harmony or unity
with other people. Modern psychiatry shows that clearly, and since
conflict and disunity are two of the greatest evils of our time,
meditation as a corrective of this condition is highly important. I
am not advocating it as a method of escape or retreat, but as a means
of making us more efficient in the world.

During the greater part of man's history, fight or flight were his
only two ways of getting physical security. Owing to the great in-
crease of integration and awareness and sensitiveness of modern
society as a result of modern transport and communications, our
physical security now depends much more on intangible relation-
ships, on trust, on moral and psychological imponderables than it
used to. The psychological equivalent of physical security is inner
unity, the integration of spiritual and moral unity between men.
Men's chief insecurity now is caused by separateness or divisiveness.
Therefore unity means security. The search for inner unity is thus
the psychological equivalent of physical fight or flight. When once
attained, that inner unity must of course be translated into cor-
responding consistent action. The search for spiritual unity is one

Prayer and Meditation 185

important means of attaining spiritual, moral, psychological, and
even physical security. Hence the importance of meditation.*

Richard Gregg, 1882-. American author, Professor of Philosophy.

Inward Light.

Revelation of Self-Love

Prayer, if properly carried out, will have as its effect the gradual
revelation to the soul of the disease of self-love which so intimately
penetrates the very fibres of its being as to pass unobserved by the
person that does not lead an interior life. In prayer the soul gradually
draws into the radiant purity and truth of the soul of Jesus. It
becomes bathed through and through with that radiance; and in
this splendour all in it that is of self and not of God stands clearly
revealed to that soul's gaze.

Prayer reveals the presence of this self-love and secures the aid
of God in its extermination.*

Edward Leen, 1885-. Irish Catholic cleric, educator.
Progress Through Mental Prayer.

To Combine Thought and Devotion

Of all things that militate against the spiritual life, none is more
disastrous and far-reaching in its effect than the divorce of thought
from devotion. The divine precept which bids us love God with all
our mind seems to many to have but little connection with thought.

Where the understanding is exercised upon the things of God,
there the will begins to energise towards the Divine and love bursts
into flame. Meditation begets a deep yearning; apprehension and
adhesion march together. We understand with the heart; we love
with the mind.

Emily Herman, 1876-1923. English writer.
The Touch of God.

Making Faith Real

If our Faith is to be made vivid, it must be by meditation. We
are told that "Faith cometh by hearing." But we have to do more
than hear it, merely. Meditation is meant to make our Faith real
to us, so that we shall realise in our lives what we know and believe.

Dom John Chapman, O.S.B., 1865-1933. English, Biblical and Patristic scholar.

Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman.

1 86 The Techniques

Adjustment to Cosmic Reality

This solitary response to reality is the deepest religious experience
one can have. It is turning from the periphery of life to the core of
existence. In this solitary moment it is as if one entered into the
scheme of things. He penetrates the outer glare and comes into a
sombre retreat where perspective is steady and clear. But the solitary
view does more than intensify the subjective focus; it illumines the
objective reference. It deafens one's ears to folk noises and fills them
with the sound of vastness. It stirs one from the mood of living to
a sense of life in its immensities. Solitariness makes one world-
conscious. And in becoming world-conscious he becomes God-
conscious.

I have known solitary moments such as these to bring me a
peculiarly intimate understanding of the movement of life. It was
as if I were momentarily lifted from the scene of details to a lone
plateau where a broader vista was possible. The universe as an entity
seemed to be moving through space-time, an earnest, living organism
of huge dimensions, pulsating with innumerable life-activities, yet,
like a massive liner at sea, plowing its own course through waves
of time, whither, there was no knowing. There is a feeling of eternity
or timelessness that comes over one in such a glimpse of the total
course of things that seems to give dignity and worth to the temporal
passage of events.

Contemplating this vast, on-going process of life in this intimate
way makes one vividly aware of the great community of cosmic
activities which sustain and promote life. The cosmos becomes a
community, near and neighborly. It is, indeed, a vivid awareness of
God.

In this solitary hour, the worshiper, looking beyond himself, is
moved to prayer. The awareness of reality quickens him. He feels
the surge drawing him, the creature, toward the source of being.
Prayer of this sort is not just meditation; it is tropism of a human
sort. It is a profound organic movement that impels man to reach
toward reality and to lay hold of the "gift of life" that issues from
that profound reciprocity.

A clear awareness of self in relation to reality silhouettes the

Prayer and Meditation 187

worshiper against the cosmic background. Thus solitariness con-
fronts him with what he is. It strips him of his social shroud and
reveals him in creature form. It gives voice to his silenced thoughts
and unmasks his impurities that threatened his health of soul. This
religious solitude may also inspirit the worshiper with what he
might be. It may arouse in him the feel of his authentic self.

In this solitary hour of awareness, the religious man's response
is not always an easy adjustment. Exposure before reality carries no
guarantee of blessing. He may find "God the enemy." And the
revealment may leave him tentatively damned. Faced with "what is
permanent in the nature of things/' many men and women arc
wretched creatures, sorely out of adjustment with what fulfills life.
If there is no original sin in the sense of a predestined bent toward
maladjustment, there certainly is a vicious inclination away from
the better self, easily acquired and difficult to overcome.

The prayer of penitence is an essential step in the process of ad-
justment, for it brings the wrong-doer boldly, however humbly, into
the presence of the reality he has shunned. Wrong-doing persists as
long as the offender continues to shun reality.

Like men of all ages, modern man is threatened with dissolution
or with failure to fulfill his life-process. The religious man, aware
of this possible death or defeat of spirit, reaches out continually
toward goals that inspire and toward realities that sustain and fulfill.
His prayer, then, is made redemptive through his adjustment to
realities that may bear or break his being. He recovers himself and
the course toward fulfillment through penitence, aspiration, and
devotion.*

Bernard Eugene Meland, 1899-. American philosopher and Professor of Religion.

Modern Man's Worship.

As Method for Achieving Integral Thought

Evolution did not cease with the evolution of man. On the con-
trary henceforward it became vastly accelerated. Instead of having
to be carried on through change of physique it can now be advanced
through change of tools, tools which are extensions of limbs created
by an extension of consciousness, a more intense form of conscious-

The Techniques

ness than that which was formerly homogeneous with the physique.
This, however, necessitates a separation in the individual conscious-
ness, one level still running the body while a new range experiments
with the external world. Henceforward therefore progress must be
a balance and each aspect of consciousness — the inward- and the
outward-looking — must keep pace in their advance and intensifica-
tion of focus. Finally a direct consciousness emerges and man dis-
cards evolution through tools, as he, when he became man, disre-
garded the first aeonic evolution through the development of new
bodily organs.

Man then is seen as a creature who is achieving pure conscious-
ness and, in the end, achieving it as a purely voluntary act.

It is in this frame of reference that we can set and see the life of
prayer, prayer as a pure act of the will, seeking an integral under-
standing of and union with the Whole, the One. We can see prayer
as not only the continuation of evolution in consciousness by con-
sciousness but the essential method whereby today man achieves
integral thought when analytical thought is threatening to unbalance
him. For analytical thought is the only thought which the ego-
consciousness can command (though sometimes the higher, integral
thought breaks up and through the threshold of the ego) and analyt-
ical thought is a form which can only give rise to means and powers.
Integral thought which springs from the deep mind alone can give
rise to meaning, value, sanctions and truly creative integration.

Gerald Heard, 1889-. English author, philosopher of history and anthropology.

A Preface to Prayer.

Remaking of Personal and Social Life

Meditation is essential. Imports must balance exports. Everyone
must first learn by himself what he would practise in public.
Through insight acquired in solitude he must study to recognize the
underlying pattern and coherencies so that when he comes out into
the contemporary confusion he may still detect and discriminate the
fundamental design and meaning, though it be blurred by the
surface disturbances. Only those who have first taught themselves
by listening to clear unambiguous enunciation to recognize a

Prayer and Meditation 189

language new to their ear, can hope to pick up from the clipped
and elided vernacular the meaning of casual speech. To less prac-
tised ears it sounds no more than a confusion of indistinguishable
noises incapable of any specific meaning. The individuals whom
any other individual sees are not in themselves immediately appeal-
ing, still less inspiring. They seem pointless, futile, boring. They, as
he, are engrossed in their own cares and careers. Even if he tries to
treat them as creatures with immense capacities within them, he
sees they are not that now. On the contrary, they are blind to what
they might be, and unless he can take the initiative with a generous
and assured conviction, which is positively creative, it is they who
convince him of his individualism and separateness, not he who con-
vinces them of their general eternal life and common union.

He cannot, * then, begin by feeling a creative, non-personal
generosity, which they deny and he rather desires than possesses.
The first step, therefore, is practice — practice in throwing the mind
open by meditation to its larger being, practice in throwing off the
individuality where there is space — in the silence where the pressing
claims and strident assertions of others' individualism are not
challenging him and rousing his own reaction to protect himself
against such incursions, encroachments, and collisions.

The slowness of self-change, against which so many rebel and
because of which even greater numbers abandon this essential
process, becomes more endurable when we realize two things. The
first is that, considering the results to be produced, change, if it is
to be effective, could not be faster. To change oneself— that seems
a small preliminary thing. In fact it is nothing of the sort. It is
the most radical of alterations. To change oneself is not merely to
alter one's relations to all fellowmen, to alter the whole of self and
social nexus. That is much. We are, even the most independent, un-
suspectedly integrated with our society. We cannot move without
affecting all those around us: they have made and make us largely
what we are. Self-change must always be social change: that is why
moral courage is rarer than physical courage; the determination to
alter the social will needs more energy than the determination to
sacrifice the self to that will.

me 1 ecnniques

To change oneself is to have to do that, but it is also to do far
more. It is to alter one's outlook literally — to attend to what has
been overlooked, to see through what has riveted attention. It is to
see another world. Once that other world is seen, once the new
faculty has grown, then a new way of action is natural and inevitable.
Seeing, realization of the further range of reality, that is the step
that really counts. The task is an immense one, for by remaking
the self, we remake, and can only remake the world.*

Anonymous contemporary.

Method for Acquiring Knowledge

The function of meditation is to help a man to put forth a special
quality of will. ("Meditation," says San Pedro de Alcantara, "is
nothing but a discourse addressed by the intellect to the will.") This
special quality of will, which is peculiar to man, must be regarded
as a fact of observation and experience. How shall this fact be
explained ? The Christian, as Babbitt points out, explains it in terms
of divine grace, as something imparted from some supernatural
source existing outside the individual. The Buddhist affirms that
"self is the lord of self" and sees the super-rational will as something
latent in the individual psyche, a potentiality that any man, if he so
desires and knows how, can actualize either in his present existence
or (more probable, since the road to enlightenment is long and
steep) in some future life. We see, then, that from a humanistic point
of view, meditation is a particularly effective method of self-edu-
cation.

But meditation is more than a method of self -education; it has
also been used, in every part of the world and from the remotest
periods, as a method for acquiring knowledge about the essential
nature of things, a method for establishing communion between the
soul and the integrating principle of the universe. Properly practised,
with due preparation, physical, mental and moral, meditation may
result in a state of what has been called "transcendental conscious-
ness"—the direct intuition of, and union with, an ultimate spiritual
reality that is perceived as simultaneously beyond the self and in
some way within it. ("God in the depths of us," says Ruysbroeck,

Prayer and Meditation 191

"receives God who comes to us: it is God contemplating God.")
Non-mystics have denied the validity of the mystical experience,
describing it as merely subjective and illusory. But it should be re-
membered that, to those who have never actually had it, any direct
intuition must seem subjective and illusory. It is impossible for the
deaf to form any idea of the nature or significance of music. Nor
is physical disability the only obstacle in the way of musical under-
standing. An Indian, for example, finds European orchestral music
intolerably noisy, complicated, over-intellectual, inhuman. It seems
incredible to him that anyone should be able to perceive beauty and
meaning, to recognize an expression of the deepest and subtlest
emotions, in this elaborate cacophony. And yet, if he has patience
and listens to enough of it, he will come at last to realize, not only
theoretically, but also by direct, immediate intuition, that this music
possesses all the qualities which Europeans claim for it. Of the
significant and pleasurable experiences of life only the simplest are
open indiscriminately to all. The rest cannot be had except by those
who have undergone a suitable training. First Shakespeare sonnets
seem meaningless; first Bach fugues, a bore; first differential equa-
tions, sheer torture. But training changes the nature of our spiritual
experiences. In due course, contact with an obscurely beautiful poem,
an elaborate piece of counterpoint or of mathematical reasoning,
causes us to feel direct intuitions of beauty and significance. It is the
same in the moral world. A man who has trained himself in good-
ness comes to have certain direct intuitions about character, about
the relations between human beings, about his own position in the
world — intuitions that are quite different from the intuitions of the
average sensual man. Knowledge is always a function of being. What
we perceive and understand depends upon what we are; and what
we are depends partly on circumstances, partly, and more pro-
foundly, on the nature of the efforts we have made to realize our
ideal and the nature of the ideal we have tried to realize. The fact
that knowing depends upon being leads, of course, to an immense
amount of misunderstanding. The meaning of words, for example,
changes profoundly according to the character and experiences of
the user. Thus, to the saint, words like "love/* "charity," "compas-

192 The Techniques

sion" mean something quite different from what they mean to the
ordinary man. Again, to the ordinary man, Spinoza's statement that
"blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself seems
simply untrue. Being virtuous is, for him, a most tedious and dis-
tressing process. But it is clear that to some one who has trained
himself in goodness, virtue really is blessedness, while the life of
the ordinary man, with its petty vices and its long spells of animal
thoughtlessness and insentience, seems a real torture. In view of
the fact that knowing is conditioned by being and that being can be
profoundly modified by training, we are justified in ignoring most of
the arguments by which non-mystics have sought to discredit the
experience of mystics. The being of a colour-blind man is such that
he is not competent to pass judgment on a painting. The colour-
blind man cannot be educated into seeing colours, and in this respect
he is different from the Indian musician, who begins by finding
European symphonies merely deafening and bewildering, but can
be trained, if he so desires, to perceive the beauties of this kind of
music. Similarly, the being of a non-mystical person is such that he
cannot understand the nature of the mystic's intuitions. Like the
Indian musician, however, he is at liberty, if he so chooses, to have
some kind of direct experience of what at present he does not under-
stand. This training is one which he will certainly find extremely
tedious; for it involves, first, the leading of a life of constant aware-
ness and unremitting moral effort, second, steady practice in the
technique of meditation, which is probably about as difficult as the
technique of violin-playing. But, however tedious, the training can
be undertaken by anyone who wishes to do so. Those who have not
undertaken the training can have no knowledge of the kind of
experiences open to those who have undertaken it and are as little
justified in denying the validity of those direct intuitions of an
ultimate spiritual reality, at once transcendent and immanent, as
were the Pisan professors who denied, on a priori grounds, the
validity of Galileo's direct intuition (made possible by the telescope)
of the fact that Jupiter has several moons.*

Aldous Leonard Huxley, 1894-. English writer, literary critic.

Ends and Means.

Prayer and Meditation 193

AS An Aid to Clinical Hygiene

I affirm that worship is essential to clinical hygiene. I doubt that
one single type or kind of worship is likely to be suitable for all
ages, all conditions, and all races of mankind, but that is a problem
for religion, not for medicine.

Worship does not guarantee freedom from disease; but this
much at least it will accomplish: it will remove most of the intrinsic
causes of mental strain and stress. Negatively, to escape from fear,
dread, loneliness, anxiety and despair is surely good for health;
positively, to experience faith, hope, fellowship, peace and to possess
the mind in quietness is still more valuable. To "live in the light
of His countenance" is, positively, to be healed by God.

Thousands of years ago the sick were treated in the Temple of
Aesculapius. They were treated by drugs, diet, massage, warmth
and exercise according to the physical science of that day. Their
dreams were interpreted for them or, if they did not dream, means
were used to make them dream, and suggestion and persuasion were
also used according to the mental science of that day. Furthermore,
they were treated in the Temple, within the Sacred Confines and in
the presence of the God of Healing.

Perhaps the wheel of life has turned a full circle once again.
Perhaps the time has come when religion and a living faith and
worship can again be used to complete what modern Medical
Science so often seems to leave unfinished.*

Howard E. Collier, M.D., contemporary English physician.
The Place of Worship in Modern Medicine.

Anatomical and Functional Modifications

Certain spiritual activities may cause anatomical as well as
functional modifications of the tissues and the organs. These organic
phenomena are observed in various circumstances, among them
being the state of prayer. Prayer should be understood, not as a
mere mechanical recitation of formulas, but as a mystical elevation,
an absorption of consciousness in the contemplation of a principle
both permeating and transcending our world. Such a psychological
state is not intellectual. It is incomprehensible to philosophers and

lhc Lechmques

scientists, and inaccessible to them. But the simple seem to feel God
as easily as the heat of the sun or the kindness of a friend. The
prayer which is followed by organic effects is of a special nature.
First, it is entirely disinterested. Man offers himself to God. He stands
before Him like the canvas before the painter or the marble before
the sculptor. At the same time, he asks for His grace, exposes his
needs and those of his brothers in suffering. Generally, the patient
who is cured is not praying for himself. But for another. Such a
type of prayer demands complete renunciation — that is, a higher
form of asceticism. The modest, the ignorant, and the poor are more
capable of this self-denial than the rich and the intellectual. When
it possesses such characteristics, prayer may set in motion a strange
phenomenon, the miracle.

In all countries, at all times, people have believed in the existence
of miracles, in the more or less rapid healing of the sick at places of
pilgrimage, at certain sanctuaries. But after the great impetus of
science during the nineteenth century, such belief completely dis-
appeared. It was generally admitted not only that miracles did
not exist, but that they could not exist. As the laws of thermo-
dynamics make perpetual motion impossible, physiological laws
oppose miracles. Such is still the attitude of most physiologists and
physicians. However, in view of the facts observed during the last
fifty years this attitude cannot be sustained. The most important
cases of miraculous healing have been recorded by the Medical
Bureau of Lourdes. Our present conception of the influence of prayer
upon pathological lesions is based upon the observation of patients
who have been cured almost instantaneously of various affections,
such as peritoneal tuberculosis, cold abscesses, osteitis, suppurating
wounds, lupus, cancer, etc. The process of healing changes little from
one individual to another. Often, an acute pain. Then a sudden
sensation of being cured. In a few seconds, a few minutes, at the
most a few hours, wounds are cicatrized, pathological symptoms
disappear, appetite returns. Sometimes functional disorders vanish
before the anatomical lesions are repaired. The skeletal deformations
of Pott's disease, the cancerous glands, may still persist two or three
days after the healing of the main lesions. The miracle is chiefly

Prayer and Meditation 195

characterized by an extreme acceleration of the processes of organic
repair. There is no doubt that the rate of cicatrization of the
anatomical defects is much greater than the normal one. The only
condition indispensable to the occurrence of the phenomenon is
prayer. But there is no need for the patient himself to pray, or even
to have any religious faith. It is sufficient that some one around him
be in a state of prayer. Such facts are of profound significance. They
show the reality of certain relations, of still unknown nature, between
psychological and organic processes. They prove the objective im-
portance of the spiritual activities, which hygienists, physicians,
educators, and sociologists have almost always neglected to study.
They open to man a new world.*

Alexis Carrel, 1873-1944. French surgeon, biologist.

Man the Unknown.

KINDS AND DEGREES OF PRAYER

Although the material on kinds and degrees of prayer will be of
special interest to the student of mysticism, it will also yield valuable in-
sights to any one sincerely interested in spiritual progress.

As we have seen, the impotence of many religious people is partly
due to the widespread ignorance concerning the range of progress, the
unconscious factors involved therein, and the degrees of prayer through
which those who achieve the higher ranges in freedom of the spirit
seem to pass. Most of us are content with "a little wave of feeling" in
our practice of prayer. We have failed to realize that the remoulding of
the unconscious attitude requires persistence and time, that it bears little
relation to desultory "feeling."

Brother Lawrence who underwent twelve years of training before he
achieved an habitual sense of the presence of God, spoke eloquently of the
blindness of mankind regarding the range of spiritual progress. From the
book The Practice of the Presence of God we find concerning him:

"He (Brother Lawrence) complains much of our blindness and ex-
claims often that we are to be pitied, who content ourselves with so little.
God's treasure, he says, is like an infinite ocean; yet a little wave of feel-
ing, passing with the moment, contents us. Blind as we are, we hinder
God, and stop the current of His graces. But when He finds a soul

196 The Techniques

permeated with a living faith, He pours into it His graces and His favours
plenteously; into the soul they flow like a torrent, which, after being
forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage,
spreads with impetuosity its pent-up flood.

"Yes, often we stop this torrent, by the little value we set upon it.
But let us stop it no longer; let us enter into ourselves and break down
the barrier which holds it back. Let us make the most of the day of grace,
let us redeem the time that is lost."

Mystic terminology abounds in this material on degrees of prayer and
may prove difficult and even disturbing for some readers. For whomever
this is the case it is suggested that he read only as much as will give a
general idea of the several degrees — that he pass over the detailed descrip-
tion of the higher degrees until some later time when his experience may
make them more understandable.

It is hoped that the future will see a truly religious psychology which
will have penetrated far enough into an understanding of the processes
of prayer to have developed a terminology that will render its progress
more understandable. Of course ideational knowledge in this area will of
necessity always be limited since it extends beyond intellect to intuition,
and since it is so much a matter of the "Grace of God." Even so, much
remains to be done in clarification concerning those elements of the "in-
dividuation" process which can be classified and described. A start on
such clarification has already been made by Carl G, Jung and, more re-
cently, by Fritz Kunkel. Some important work on it is also being accom-
plished by such groups as The Guild of Pastoral Psychology in England.
The catharsis emphasis of the self-education techniques suggested by
psychotherapy may come to be a requisite supplement to the more positive
practices of the usual discursive prayer procedure. All tested aids to inner
catharsis whether of religious or psychotherapeutic origin are of tre-
mendous importance to the beginner.

DEGREES OF PRAYER

A careful study and analysis of the various states or degrees of
prayer as given by spiritual writers enable us, avoiding subtle and,
for practical purposes, unnecessary distinctions, to define three main
steps by which the soul progresses toward a more perfect prayer.

Prayer and Meditation 197

1. Mental or Discursive Prayer.3

2. Affective Prayer, or the Prayer of Simplicity.

3. Active or Acquired Contemplation.

The essential note of progress in prayer is simplification. Begin-
ning with mental prayer, in which there is a large use of the under-
standing, having as its end the motivating of the will, the soul, more
or less unconsciously and by virtue of its fidelity, passes to a prayer
in which the understanding moves the will much more rapidly— one
thought, and that more and more single and simple, actuating to
the acts of prayer. This, in turn, leads to a state in which recollection
is almost constant, and the soul's prayer is but a more deliberate and
direct centering of itself upon God at special times. Whereas, in
mental prayer careful and deliberate attention had, as it were, to be
forced upon Divine realities, and the will moved to act by definite
and prolonged reasoning, in the prayer of simplicity, acts follow
thought without any appreciable interval, until in acquired con-
templation the multiplicity of acts give way to a single direction of
the soul toward God in which acts of prayer, as hitherto practised,
are merged in an intuitive sight in which the soul no longer
meditates upon God, nor addresses Him in varied acts, but simply,
adoringly, and lovingly contemplates Him as its Supreme Good.

Those who will apply themselves faithfully to the practice of the
interior life, who set their prayer in its rightful place and are
prudently zealous in the matter of mortification, especially of self-
will, ought to arrive in a comparatively short time at affective prayer.

I have already emphasised the fact that all souls are called to
perfection, and this implies a more or less steady progress in the life
of prayer, which, without any forcing, tends to seek that acquired
contemplation which is the highest state possible to the soul's efforts
aided by Divine grace. "Contemplation," says St. Thomas, "is for
man the end of human life."

"It is the very aim of the teaching of Fr. Baker and his school
that extraordinary prayer, contemplation, should be an ordinary
state for Christian souls," said Bishop Hedley; also the Abbot of

3 See also Confessional Meditation.

198 The Techniques

Pershore, "In point of fact, some of the best mystics and contem-
platives are to be found in the world."

That this truth is so little recognised is largely due not only to
the prevailing ignorance about any prayer except vocal prayer,
intercessions and the like, but also because any mention of the higher
states usually connotes to the mind such extraordinary phenomena
as visions, locutions, raptures, ecstasy, which are comparatively rare
and are not to be sought for or expected by any soul.

Further, many are held back by the thought that any advance
would be only a mark of presumption in one so imperfect and full
of failure. They are obsessed by the common error which seeks a
self-made goodness as a condition for receiving the gifts of God, and
give all their attention to efforts of their own when they should be
simply abandoning themselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Another difficulty often arising in the minds of those who find
themselves giving much more time to affective acts of the will, to
the reiteration of a few acts or even one act of adoration, etc., than
to actual meditation, or who remain motionless before God con-
templating the Divine Majesty and Beauty, is the fear that they are
"doing nothing." There is, of course, a danger of the soul drifting
into a mere dreamy reverie in which nothing is done, and this must
be checked at once by a return to considerations, acts 4 or resolutions,
but when the eye of faith is riveted on God, the memory, imagination
and will possessed by and drawn to Him, there is nothing to fear,
for this is a state of prayer commended by all the Saints.

Pere Surin says that there are three signs by which we may
know that this kind of prayer is good and should be adhered to.
First, that during the prayer the soul is in peace without any sense
of weariness or ennui; second, that it goes forth from prayer with a
great resolution to persevere in good; third, that during the day it
sees clearly how to conduct itself and has much strength in the
practice of virtue.*

Bede Frost, 1877-. English priest, Church o£ England.
The Art of Mental Prayer.

4 "Acts" as used here and "Acts of the Will" as used frequently elsewhere, refer to the
movement of the will toward God in adoration, humiliation, renunciation, contrition, com-
mitment, etc. It is the use of the understanding in discursive prayer that stirs these acts of the
will. (Editors)

Prayer and Meditation 199

In ordinary 5 prayer there are four degrees: i, vocal prayer, which
is a recitation; 2, meditation, also called methodical or discursive
prayer. This last term indicates a chain of quite distinct reflections or
arguments. We can include in this degree meditated readings and the
slow recitation of a vocal prayer, accompanied by some reflections
which help us to penetrate its meaning; 3, affective prayer; 4, the
prayer of simple regard or of simplicity.

We call affective prayer that mental prayer in which the affections
are numerous or occupy much more space than the considerations
and the arguments. Not that the considerations are absent (we must
necessarily go on thinking), but they are less varied, less prolonged.
In this degree we generally find as a foundation some dominant idea
which does not, however, exclude a host of other secondary and less
perceptible ideas.

This degree differs from meditation, therefore, merely as from
the greater to the less. It is a discourse, only less varied and less
apparent and leaving more room for sentiments of love, praise, grati-
tude, respect, submission, contrition, etc., and also for practical
resolutions. The deduction of truths is partly replaced by intuition.
From the intellectual point of view the soul becomes simplified.

But the simplification can be carried farther still, and may extend,
in a certain measure, to the will, which then becomes satisfied with
very little variety in the affections. There is nothing to prevent them
from being very ardent at times, but they are usually produced with-
out many words. This is what we call the prayer of simplicity or of
simple regard.

It can be defined thus: a mental prayer where (i) intuition in a
great measure replaces reasoning; (2) the affections and resolutions
show little variety and are expressed in few words.

When this state has reached its full development, not only do
certain acts, of which I have just spoken, become rare, but the attempt
to produce them results in a feeling of impotence and distaste. And it
is then the same also with those representations of the imagination
which would aid other persons in their prayer.

5 All exercises beyond the "prayer of simple regard" Poulain considers in a category
of extraordinary or mystical prayer. The most of The Graces of Interior Prayer is con-
cerned with the various forms of this latter higher type of spiritual exercise.

200 The Techniques

The preceding definition is primarily negative, because it consists
in saying what it is that has in part disappeared: the discursive act
and the variety of words. It will be well to complete it by describing
its positive side thus: in the prayer of simplicity there is a thought or
a sentiment that returns incessantly and easily (although with little or
no development) amongst many other thoughts, whether useful
or no.

This dominant thought does not go as far as to be continuous. It
merely returns frequently and of its own accord. We may compare
it to the strands which thread the pearls of a necklace, or the beads
of a Rosary, and which are only visible here and there. Or, again, it is
like the fragment of cork, that, carried away by the torrent, plunges
ceaselessly, appears and disappears. The prayer of simple regard is
really only a slow sequence of single glances cast upon one and the
same object.

This degree only differs from the preceding degrees as the greater
differs from the less. The persistence of one principal idea, however,
and the vivid impression that it produces, point as a rule to an
increased action on God's part.

Many writers include the prayer of simplicity in affective prayer,
which they thus regard as exhibiting two degrees of elevation. And
in this case, between them and us, it is a mere question of words.

Before these two states could really constitute separate degrees of
prayer, they must be capable of being prolonged for more than a few
minutes at a time; they should continue, for instance, for an hour or
more. For a very brief space, nothing is easier than for the mind to
formulate ardent affections or to operate in a simple manner. Every-
body can do it.

It is on this account that these states, although requiring the
cooperation of grace, are not called mystic.

Ordinary prayer cannot comprise any general degrees other than
those enumerated. There are two cases only. Either we reason, and
then it is meditation, or we do not reason, and then it is affective
prayer or the prayer of simplicity. All must necessarily enter one or
other of these categories,*

A. Poulain, S.J., 1740-1801. French Jesuit Father.
The Graces of Interior Prayer, Trans. L. Y. Smith.

Prayer and Meditation 201

The education of the self in the successive degrees of orison has
been compared by St. Theresa, in a celebrated passage in her life, to
four ways of watering the garden of the soul so that it may bring
forth its flowers and fruits. The first and most primitive of these
ways is meditation.6 This, she says, is like drawing water by hand
from a deep well: the slowest and most laborious of all means of
irrigation. Next to this is the orison of quiet,7 which is a little better
and easier: for here soul seems to receive some help, i.e., with the
stilling of the senses the subliminal faculties are brought into play.
The well has now been fitted with a windlass — that little Moorish
water-wheel possessed by every Castilian farm. Hence we get more
water for the energy we expend — more sense of reality in exchange
for our abstraction from the unreal. Also "the water is higher, and
accordingly the labour is much less than it was when the water had
to be drawn out of the depths of the well. I mean that the water is
nearer to it, for grace now reveals itself more distinctly to the soul."
In the third stage, or orison of union, we leave all voluntary activities
of the mind — the gardener no longer depends on his own exertions,
contact between subject and object is established, there is no
more stress and strain. It is as if a little river now ran through our
garden and watered it. We have but to direct the stream. In the
fourth and highest stage, God Himself waters our garden with rain
from heaven "drop by drop." The attitude of the self is now that of
perfect receptivity, "passive contemplation," loving trust. Individual
activity is sunk in the "great life of the All."

Evelyn Underbill, 1875-1944. English writer, mystic.

Mysticism.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EACH STAGE

Recollection ("Discursive Prayer")

All the scattered interests of the self have here to be collected;
there must be a deliberate and unnatural act of attention, a deliberate
expelling of all discordant images from the consciousness — a hard
and ungrateful task.

6 This first degree of Prayer is termed variously by different writers as Meditation,
Recollection, Discursive Prayer, Mental Prayer, etc.

7 Prayer of Simplicity.

202 The Techniques

The unfortunate word Recollection, which the hasty reader is
apt to connect with remembrance, is the traditional term by which
mystical writers define just such a voluntary concentration, such a
gathering in of the attention of the self to its "most hidden cell."
That self is as yet unacquainted with the strange plane of silence
which so soon becomes familiar to those who attempt even the
lowest activities of the contemplative life. It stands here between the
two planes of its being; the Eye of Time is still awake. It knows that
it wants to enter the inner world, but it must find some device to
help it over the threshold— rather, in the language of psychology, to
shift that threshold and permit its subliminal intuition of the
Absolute to emerge.

This device is as a rule the practice of meditation, in which the
state of Recollection usually begins: that is to say, the deliberate con-
sideration of and dwelling upon some one aspect of Reality — an
aspect most usually chosen from amongst the religious beliefs of the
self. Thus Hindu mystics will brood upon a sacred word, whilst
Christian contemplatives set before their minds one of the names or
attributes of God, a fragment of Scripture, an incident of the life of
Christ; and allow— indeed encourage— this consideration, and the
ideas and feelings which flow from it, to occupy the whole mental
field. This powerful suggestion, kept before the consciousness by an
act of will, overpowers the stream of small suggestions which the
outer world pours incessantly upon the mind. The self, concentrated
upon this image or idea, dwelling on it more than thinking about
it—as one may gaze upon a picture that one loves— sinks into itself,
and becomes in the language of asceticism "recollected" or gathered
together.

To one in whom this state is established, consciousness seems like
a blank field, save for the "one point" in its centre, the subject of the
meditation. Towards this focus the introversive self seems to press
inwards from every side; still faintly conscious of the buzz of the
external world outside its ramparts, but refusing to respond to its
appeals. Presently the subject of meditation begins to take on a new
significance; to glow with life and light. The contemplative suddenly

Prayer and Meditation 203

feels that he knows it. ... More, through it, hints are coming to
him of mightier, nameless things. . . .

In these meditative and recollective states, the self still feels
very clearly the edge of its own personality; its separateness from
the Somewhat Other, the divine reality set over against the soul.
It is aware of that reality: the subject of its meditation becomes a
symbol through which it receives a distinct message from the
transcendental world. There is yet no conscious fusion with a greater
Life; no resting in the divine atmosphere, as in the "Quiet"; no in-
voluntary and ecstatic lifting up of the soul to direct apprehension
of truth, as in contemplation. . . .

This description makes it clear that "recollection" is a form of
spiritual gymnastics; less valuable for itself than for the training
which it gives, the powers which it develops.*

Evelyn Underbill, 1875-1944. English writer, mystic*

Mysticism.

Prayer of Quiet

More important is the next great stage of orison; that curious and
extremely definite mental state which mystics call the Prayer of
Quiet or Simplicity, or sometimes the Interior Silence. This repre-
sents the result for consciousness of a further degree of that inward
retreat which Recollection began.

Out of the deep, slow brooding and pondering on some mystery,
some incomprehensible link between himself and the Real, or the
deliberate practice of loving attention to God, the contemplative—
perhaps by way of a series of moods and acts which his analytic
powers may cause him "nicely to distinguish" — glides, almost in-
sensibly, on to a plane of perception for which human speech has
few equivalents. . . . Here the self passes beyond the stage at which
its perceptions are capable of being dealt with by thought. It can no
longer "take notes": can only surrender itself to the stream of an
inflowing life, and to the direction of a larger will. Discursive
thought would only interfere with this process; as it interferes with
the vital processes of the body if it once gets them under its control.

With this surrender to something bigger, as with the surrender

204 The Techniques

of conversion, comes an immense relief of strain. The giving up of
I-hood, the process of self-stripping, which we have seen to be the
essence of the purification of the self, finds its parallel in this phase
of the contemplative experience.

To one who is entering this state, so startling, very often, is the
deprivation of all his accustomed mental furniture, that the negative
aspect of his condition dominates consciousness; and he can but
describe it as a nothingness, a pure passivity, an emptiness, a "naked"
orison. He is conscious that all, even in this utter emptiness, is well.
Presently, however, he becomes aware that Something fills this
emptiness. Ceasing to attend to the messages from without, he
begins to notice That which has always been within. His whole
being is thrown open to its influence: it permeates his consciousness.

There are, then, two aspects of the Orison of Quiet: the aspect
of deprivation, of emptiness which begins it, and the aspect of
acquisition, of something found, in which it is complete. In its
description, all mystics will be found to lean to one side or the other,
to the affirmative or negative element which it contains. The austere
mysticism of Eckhart and his followers, their temperamental sym-
pathy with the Neoplatonic language of Dionysius the Areopagite,
caused them to describe it — and also very often the higher state of
contemplation to which it leads— as above all things an emptiness, a
divine dark, an ecstatic deprivation. They will not profane its deep
satisfactions by the inadequate terms proper to earthly peace and joy.
To St. Theresa, and mystics of her type, on the other hand, even
a little and inadequate image of its joy seems better than none. To
them it is a sweet calm, a gentle silence, in which the lover appre-
hends the presence of the Beloved: a God-given state, over which
the self has little control.

The emptying of the field of consciousness, its cleansing of all
images— even of those symbols of Reality which are the objects of
meditation — is the necessary condition under which alone this en-
counter can take place.

"Quiet" of all forms of mystical activity has been the most abused,
the least understood. Its theory, seized upon, divorced from its con-
text, and developed to excess, produced the foolish and dangerous

Prayer and Meditation 205

exaggerations of Quietism. The accusation of Quietism has been
hurled at mystics whose only fault was a looseness of language which
laid them open to misapprehension. Others, however, have certainly
contrived, by a perversion and isolation of the teachings of great
contemplatives on this point, to justify the deliberate production of
a half-hypnotic state of passivity. With this meaningless state of
"absorption in nothing at all" they were content; claiming that in
it they were in touch with the divine life, and therefore exempt
from the usual duties and limitations of human existence.

There can be no doubt that for selves of a certain psychical con-
stitution, such a "false idleness" is only too easy of attainment. They
can by wilful self-suggestion deliberately produce this emptiness . . .
To do this from self-regarding motives, or to do it to excess ... is a
mystical vice. It leads to the absurdities of "holy indifference" and
ends in the stultification of mental and moral life. The true mystic
never tries deliberately to enter the orison of quiet. Where it exists
in a healthy form, it appears spontaneously, as a phase in normal
development; not as a self-induced condition, a psychic trick.8

The true condition of quiet, according to the great mystics, is at
once active and passive . . . The departmental intellect is silenced,
but the totality of character is flung open to the influence of the Real.
Personality is not lost: only its hard edge is gone. A "rest most busy,"
says Hilton.

But though the psychological state which contemplatives call the
prayer of quiet is a common condition of mystical attainment, it is
not by itself mystical at all. It is a state of preparation: a way of
opening the door. That which comes in when the door is opened
will be that which we truly and passionately desire.*-**

Evelyn Underbill, 1875-1944. English writer, mystic.

Mysticism.

Contemplation

We must consider under the general name of contemplation
those developed states of introversion in which the mystic attains

8 "Much of the teaching o£ modern 'mystical' cults is thus crudely quietistic. It insists
on the necessity of 'going into the silence,' and even, with a strange temerity, gives prepara-
tory lessons in subconscious meditation: a proceeding which might well provoke the laughter
of the saints."

2o6 The Techniques

somewhat: the results and rewards of the discipline of Recollection
and Quiet. If this course of spiritual athletics has done its work, he
has now brought to the surface, trained and made efficient for life,
a form of consciousness— a medium of communication with reality—
which remains undeveloped in ordinary men. In Contemplation, the
self transcends alike the stages of symbol and of silence; and
"energizes enthusiastically" on those high levels which are dark to
the intellect but radiant to the heart. We must expect this contempla-
tive activity to show itself in many different ways and take many
different names, since its character will be largely governed by in-
dividual temperament. It appears under the forms which ascetic
writers call "ordinary" and "extraordinary," "infused" or "passive"
Contemplation; and as that "orison of union" wrhich we have already
discussed.

First, then, as to Contemplation proper: what is it? It is supreme
manifestation of that indivisible "power of knowing" which lies at
the root of all our artistic and spiritual satisfaction. ... It is an act,
not of the Reason, but of the whole personality working under the
stimulus of mystic love. Hence, its results feed every aspect of that
personality: minister to its instinct for the Good, the Beautiful, and
the True. Psychologically it is an induced state, in which the field of
consciousness is greatly contracted: the whole of the self, its conative
powers, being sharply focused, concentrated upon one thing. We
pour ourselves out or, as it sometimes seems to us, in towards this
overpowering interest: seem to ourselves to reach it and be merged
with it. Whatever the thing may be, in this act it is given to us and
we J(now it, as we cannot know it by the ordinary devices of thought.

The turning of our attention from that crisp and definite world
of multiplicity, that cinematograph-show, with which intelligence is
accustomed and able to deal, has loosed new powers of perception
which we never knew that we possessed. Instead of sharply per-
ceiving the fragment, we apprehend, yet how we know not, the
solemn presence of the whole. Deeper levels of personality are opened
up, and go gladly to the encounter of the universe. That universe, or
some Reality hid between it and ourselves, responds to "the true
lovely will of our heart." Our ingoing concentration is balanced by a

Prayer and Meditation 207

great outgoing sense of expansion, of new worlds made ours, as we
receive the inflow of its life. So complete is the self s absorption that
it is for the time unconscious of any acts of mind or will; in technical
language, its "faculties are suspended." This is the "ligature"
frequently mentioned by teachers of contemplative prayer, and
often regarded as an essential character of mystical states.

The object of the mystic's contemplation is always some aspect
of the Infinite Life: of "God, the one Reality." Hence, that enhance-
ment of vitality which artists or other unself -conscious observers may
receive from their communion with scattered manifestations of
Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, is in him infinitely increased ... In
the contemplative act, his whole personality, directed by love and
will, transcends the sense-world, casts off its fetters, and rises to
freedom . . . There it apprehends the supra-sensible by immediate
contact, and knows itself to be in the presence of the "Supplier of
true Life." Such Contemplation — such positive attainment of the
Absolute — is the whole act of which the visions of poets, the
intuition of philosophers, give us hints.

It is a brief act. The greatest of the contemplatives have been un-
able to sustain the brilliance of this awful vision for more than
a little while . . . "My mind," says St. Augustine, in his account of
his first purely contemplative glimpse of the One Reality . . . "with
the flash of one hurried glance, attained to the vision of That Which
Is . . . but I could not sustain my gaze: my weakness was dashed
back, and I was relegated to my ordinary experience, bearing with
me only a loving memory, and as it were the fragrance of those
desirable meats on the which as yet I was not able to feed." This
fragrance, as St. Augustine calls it, remains forever with those who
have thus been initiated. They can never tell us in exact and human
language what it was that they attained . . . though by their oblique
utterances, they give us the assurance that the Object of their dis-
covery is one with the object of our quest . . .

Contemplation is not, like meditation, one simple state, governed
by one set of psychic conditions. It is a general name for a large
group of states, partly governed — like all other forms of mystical
activity— by the temperament of the subject, and accompanied by

208 The Techniques

feeling-states which vary from the extreme of quietude or "peace in
life naughted" to the rapturous and active love in which "thought
into song is turned." Some kinds of Contemplation are inextricably
entwined with the phenomena of "intellectual vision" and "inward
voices." In others we find what seems to be a development of the
"Quiet": a state which the subject describes as a blank absorption,
a darkness, or "contemplation in caligine." *-**

Evelyn Underbill, 1875-1944. English writer, mystic.

Mysticism?

Indications of Progress

What are the normal signs which mark the transition from one
stage to another? Actually, two movements have to be considered:
first, the passage from the ordinary mental prayer of beginners to
affective prayer, and second, that from affective prayer to ordinary,
acquired contemplation. In the first case there is a gradual but in-
creasing ability to pass more rapidly from considerations and the use
of the imagination to acts of prayer. The soul finds in a single
thought, or even in the act of placing herself in the presence of God,
a desire and a facility to pour herself out in affective acts of prayer —
catches fire, as it were, at once, without the labour of reflection hitherto
necessary. It is not so much that meditation becomes more difficult as
that it becomes less necessary. In this stage the acts of prayer may be
spontaneous, or use may be made, especially where a certain aridity
is experienced, of such acts and aspirations as those given by Father
Baker at the end of his Holy Wisdom, or in Dom Rutherford's Acts
of Mental Prayer. The test which determines the need and the time
of making this advance in the prayer-life is the attraction the soul
feels toward a more actual prayer, as contrasted with the exercise of
the mind, etc., which leads to prayer, and the fact that it moves the
will to at least as great a desire and endeavour after the solid and
common virtues as did the previous prayer. The latter may, and
probably will, be slow in appearance; indeed, as all real progress in
prayer must bring increased light and purity of heart, the soul will
see its defects and imperfections more clearly, and may be tempted

9 See Mysticism pages 298-379 for a full and illuminating description of the degrees
of prayer. The selections included here necessarily present them in an abridged form.

Prayer and Meditation 209

to think that she is going back. It is the best of signs that the soul is
walking in the path marked out by God for her, and that real, if little,
seen progress is being made, if she goes out of prayer not only
possessed with an interior peace in "the fine point of the soul," but
also with a greater desire to exercise those virtues which concern her
relation to others.

The signs which mark the transition between affective prayer
and ordinary or acquired contemplation are three in number: (i) An
inability to make reflections or to exercise the imagination upon
Divine truths, coupled with an aridity resulting from the endeavour
to make such acts wherein previously light and consolation were
present. So long as meditation is fruitful, it should be persevered in;
nor must it be supposed that the entry upon contemplation precludes
any return to formal meditation, for, as the Saint says, until the new
state has become habitual, "sometimes one, sometimes the other,"
occurs in this time of proficiency in such a way that very often the
soul finds itself in this loving or peaceful attendance upon God,
with all its faculties in repose, and very often also will find it neces-
sary, for that end, to have recourse to meditation, calmly and with
moderation. (2) Secondly, the will is more firmly rooted in God. It
sees more clearly that thoughts about God and the means by which
He is apprehended and approached are not God; that they are to be
used, not rested in or enjoyed in themselves. (3) The third sign,
"which is the most certain of the three," consists in the fact that the
soul finds itself at peace in this prayer, delighting to be alone, occu-
pied in a general knowledge and loving attention to God, undisturbed
by any scruples that it is doing nothing, or that it is losing ground.

It is important to note that all three signs must be present before
the soul may safely give up the practice of ordinary mental prayer.
For the inability to meditate alone may be due to one's own fault,
to lack of preparation, dryness or to conditions of physical health.
Added to this inability there must be a positive lack of desire to
occupy oneself with other things, and a more pronounced detach-
ment from creatures. Yet even these two signs are insufficient in them-
selves, for both may be the effect of some morbid disinclination for
things in general. But the third sign sets its seal upon the others, pro-

210 The Techniques

viding the soul with an assurance that, despite the subtlety and deli-
cacy of this new state, it has begun to find the fruit sought in the
labour of mental prayer.

This state of ordinary, acquired contemplation marks a real
advance from the way of sense to the way of spirit, an intense deepen-
ing of the soul's union with God. It is the end— itself unending (for
there can be no end in the sense of a full stop to the soul's growth in
the loving knowledge of God) — of the journey of those whom God
does not raise to the highest stages of the spiritual life.*-**

Bedc Frost, 1877-. English priest, Church of England.
The Art of Mental Prayer.

ROLE OF THE SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR

A re-evaluation of the assistance that should be available to the sincere
seeker especially in the beginning of the spiritual life is greatly needed.
The combinadon of Protestant rationalism and individualism has made
us think that each person could progress on the Way without help.

Modern psychology adds its testimony to the ancient wisdom that man
is a poor judge of his own cause. A person can go far astray in self-
analysis. He is usually a poor judge of his own spiritual state. It is en-
couraging to note that more persons are beginning to glimpse the enor-
mity of the task of self-change, and to sense the need for spiritual and
psychological help which the deep schism between conscious-intent and
unconscious-motive factors makes necessary.

It is hoped and believed that as the demand for such guidance in-
creases more persons qualified 10 to provide the necessary help will appear.
Indeed Hindu scriptures point out that whenever a person arrives at the
stage where he sincerely u seeks instruction a teacher will always be found
to be available.

Fortunately there is little difficulty today, contrasted to even ten years
ago, in recognizing the close relationship which exists between the func-
tions of the psychotherapist and the religious director. It becomes more
and more evident that they contribute to the actuation of the same
process. In time these two functions may well be combined into a single
office.

10 These qualifications are rigorous inasmuch as they have first to do with the stage of
inner spiritual development and then with certain knowledge and skill.

11 That is, when he is actually prepared to take the necessary steps required by the Way*

Prayer and Meditation 211

One person who has mastered life is better than a thousand
persons who have mastered only the contents of books, but no one
can get anything out of life without God. If I were looking for a
master of learning, I should go to Paris to the colleges where the
higher studies are pursued, but if I wanted to know about the per-
fection of life, they could not tell me there.

Where, then, should I go? To (someone who has) a nature that
is pure and free and nowhere else: there I should find the answer for
which I so anxiously inquire.

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, philosopher and mystic.

The young Tobias, when commanded to go to Rages, said: "I
have no knowledge of the way." "Go then," replied his father, "and
seek out some man to guide thee." "I say the same to you, my
Philothea. Do you wish in good earnest to set out on the way to
devotion? Seek out some good man to guide and conduct you; it is
the admonition of admonitions," "Although you may search," says
the devout Avila, "you will never find out the will of God so
assuredly, as by the way of this humble obedience, so much recom-
mended and practised by all the devout men of old."

St. Francis dc Sales, 1567-1622. French Bishop of Geneva.
Introduction to the Devout Life, Trans. Allan Ross,

A soul that comes out of the world to a religious contemplative
life, or that living yet in the world is abstracted from the world and
aspires to a state of perfection, at the first ordinarily will stand in
need of an external instructor and guide for most matters that con-
cern her in that way. The reason is because that such souls, although
being supposed to be in the state of grace, have sufficient internal
light to direct them in the ordinary duties of a Christian life, for
the avoiding of sin and performing the necessary acts of virtues
requisite; yet, as to the proper practices of internal ways, and to
the ordering of common actions to the advancing of themselves
towards contemplation, they are indeed fenitus animates, governed
by obscure light of natural reason, scarce knowing what an internal
inspiration (with regard to such matters) is, and however very much

212 The Techniques

disabled are they to discern or correspond to such an inspiration. And
for this reason their natural light and general knowledge that they
have of their own insufficiency to be their own directors in a new
unknown state, will tell them that they must have recourse to other
guides skilled in those things of which themselves have no ex-
perience. Yet even this seeking and submitting themselves unto
external directors is not to be esteemed merely an act of nature, or
guided only by a natural light; but of such inspirations and super-
natural light which attends the actions of all good Christians, by
which they are taught and moved to distrust themselves, and not
knowing as yet how to dispose themselves for the receiving super-
natural lights from God (much less to merit them), grace directs
them to use the mediation of others, and to hear and obey God,
speaking and ordaining by them.*

Augustin F. Baker, 1575-1641. English Benedictine Father,

Holy Wisdom,

The real purpose of direction, he (Dom Chapman) insisted,
was to keep the soul humble, and prevent it from trusting to its
unaided judgment, or putting too much confidence in its own lights.
He was fully alive to the dangers to which an imprudent Director
could expose his penitents, realising how disastrous it was if — as
sometimes happened — direction should degenerate into an orgy of
self-analysis or over-introspection. A good Director, he held, must
be a nurse, no more. He should confine himself to the task of teach-
ing his penitent how to walk alone and unaided. That done, he
should be ready to retire into the background; only emerging on
rare occasions when unusual circumstances or some particular crisis
called for his assistance. Directors of this kind would be no danger to
simplicity or humility, while an over-dogmatic or too eager Director,
giving unsuitable or unnecessary advice with relish and impressive-
ness, would harm both his penitent and himself.

The spiritual life is nourished — to speak of natural means only —
chiefly by prayer and by reading. With regard to books, he insisted
on two definite principles; first, that one should read only what

Prayer and Meditation 213

appealed to one, and secondly, that different books were necessary
at different times in the soul's progress.

Dom John Chapman, O.S.B,, 1865-1933. English, Biblical and Patristic scholar.

Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman.

Qualifications and Functions of the "Director"

The director of souls in the spiritual life must have a very clear,
definite and convinced knowledge (i) of the scope and limitations
of his office; (2) the end which is to be sought; (3) the means to be
used; (4) the manner of applying those means to various classes of

SOUls. (See author's text for long discussion of 4th point.)

(i) The office of a director is a subordinate, dependent one.
His sole work is to wait upon God, to seek to discern the Divine will
for each soul, to co-operate with the Divine leading by aiding the
soul to see, understand and follow it. "It is necessary that the con-
fessor should be an interior man, a man of prayer, a man well versed
in spiritual things, as much by his own experience as by study and
reading; that he should have no purely natural designs, either of
vanity or self-interest, but that he should only consider the glory
of God and the good of souls; that he should never act according to
the leadings of his own spirit, but that he should judge of the
things of God by the spirit of God" (Grou, Manual for Interior
Souls, p. 128).

The director, then, must have a high regard and deep reverence for
souls, and for the designs of God for each soul. "To direct a soul
is to direct a world which has more secrets and diversities, more
perfections and rarities than the material universe, and a more
perfect relation to Him Who is both the Creator and the Idea of all
that which exists outside the Divine Essence." Directors too often
fall into the temptation of forcing souls according to their own
predilections, of domineering and dictating, assuming a personal
authority which is quite unjustifiable. "Their aim should be, then,
not to guide souls by a way of their own suitable to themselves, but
to ascertain, if they can, the way by which God Himself is guiding
them. If they cannot ascertain it, let them leave these souls alone and
not disquiet them" (St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame, Stanza

214 The Techniques

iii.). Mgr. Gay, whom Mgr. d'Hulst called "the master of spiritual
direction in the nineteenth century," writes to a penitent who desired
to follow his direction with the exact obedience of a servant to a
master: "I shall not employ, at least habitually, in spite of your desire,
the imperative formulas of which you speak. It seems to you that
so you would find peace. Yes, but a natural peace which is not what
I wish. Such commands would relieve you of the burdens of life,
but it is good that you should feel the weight of them. I will be to
you as the Cyrenian, nothing more, I would help you, not substitute
myself for you. Strong natures have need of obedience; weak ones,
such as yours, have a gentleness which inclines to idleness. It is
necessary to give to each according to their needs. I do not want you
to be a slave — the word is your own — a word excessive and reprehen-
sible. I wish you to be a son, and a son reasonable, enlightened by the
counsels of his father . . . but walking as a man, not as a child"
(Lettres, iv. 10).

It necessarily follows that a soul cannot be directed until it is
known, and that what is principally to be known is the particular
will of God for it. "In the direction of a soul it is necessary to begin,
and this is all-important, with an understanding of its interior state.
If you know well the state of a soul, the operation of God and the
action of grace within it, you have gained a very clear knowledge
of the designs of God for it. But that is not all; the obstacles which
grace finds there must also be seen, the action of the soul and its
character, the vices and faults which exist. Further, to cause a soul
to advance it must be brought back to the principle of sanctity within
it, to Divine grace. I regard it as essential in direction that one shall
allow grace to act with a great freedom, seek to distinguish false
attraits from the true, and prevent souls from wandering from, or
going beyond, the limits of such attraits."

(2) The end to be sought. This is nothing less than the end for
which man was created, to seek, find, know, praise, reverence and
serve God. The director's whole efforts are to be aimed at bringing
souls to see this, at creating in them a desire for and an intention to
seek this end, and of aiding them by all the means in their power.

Now this emphatically does not mean that we set before our eyes

Prayer and Meditation 215

a certain ideal of sanctity and endeavour to force all souls into the
paths by which that ideal was attained, for, although the end is one,
it has to be reached in the particular way desired by our Lord. The
way of St. Augustine is not the way of St. Dominic; St. Teresa is
very unlike St. Margaret Mary; St. Philip Neri treads another path
from St. Paul of the Cross. The whole setting of a soul has to be
considered, and what needs far more insistence upon than it com-
monly gets is the truth that the sanctification of a soul depends upon
its fulfilling the duties of its state as perfectly as possible with the
aid of grace.

(3) The means to be used. . . . Too much direction is moral
rather than spiritual, more concerned with sin than with God, with
self-examination and self -improvement rather than with the search
for God. "It is a great grace from God to practise self-examination,
but too much is as bad as too little, as they say, believe me, by God's
help, we shall advance more by contemplating His divinity than by
keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves" (St. Teresa, Interior Castle,
M. L, chap. ii. 9).

A director should always adopt a certain attitude of reserve
toward those whom he directs. Frequent intercourse is undesirable;
long visits, conversations and profuse correspondence to be avoided;
the relation between director and directed should always be in
Christo.

Far from attaching souls to himself, the director must do all that
lies in his power to enable them to walk in entire dependence upon
the guidance and in the power of the Holy Spirit. People will ask,
for instance, what particular mortification they should undertake,
and it is often better to answer by pointing out that, the end of all
mortification being the bringing of our will into union with the
Divine Will, they can probably think of something which they have
not yet done, and which they need to do, to effect this more com-
pletely. Such mortification will nearly always be allied to the subject
of their particular examen. This throwing them back upon them-
selves, as it were, not only strengthens the will, but will often reveal
to them the fact that, in asking advice, they were, in reality,
endeavouring to evade what our Lord had already demanded of

2i6 The Techniques

them. Behind the question there lay, perhaps unconsciously, the
hope that something more pleasing to self would be imposed. "It is
necessary that the director should know the soul perfectly, and
this once done, he ought to indicate the way to be followed and
then leave her to the Holy Spirit." (Dom. R. Thibaut),

In order that a soul should not only begin well, but also advance
in the way of perfection, there are certain essential points which
directors should keep in mind. The first is the need of establishing
the soul in a true peace. To this end not only is a general confession
advisable, but also a full and frank account of one's life, circum-
stances, difficulties, graces received, etc. A soul cannot be directed,
as I have said, unless it is known, and many go on making routine
confessions for years without ever knowing themselves or making
themselves known in such a way that any adequate direction can
be given. There is always an unknown region in which, consciously
or unconsciously, lie the roots of sins confessed again and again, and
this suffices to prevent that peace without which no progress can
be made.

Writes Pere Ginhac to Mother Mary of St. Francis Borgia, "Peace
is the possession of the soul which endeavours in all things to do
the will of God, giving itself without reserve. . ." "It is no doubt
necessary to do things as well as we can, but without torturing one-
self or being in a perpetual qui vwe> we must put away all vain
fears as to our state, for these never come from God, but only from
our imagination; God never troubles a soul which is sincere. He may
reprove or warn it, and that severely, but all agitated or troubled
thoughts come of the imagination or the Devil (cf. Rules for the
Discernment of Spirits, Ignatian Exercises); that when troubled
in mind we must never change our conduct."

Second, the director's work being to further the will of God in
souls, he must make them see the personal nature of religion, personal
love, devotion and service for God in Jesus Christ; not a mere tame
acquiescence in a moral code, but a burning enthusiasm for a Master,
a passion of the lover for the beloved. For— strange as it may sound
the Christian religion is this, the joyous, heroic, magnificent thing
the Saints have seen and lived; not the dull, cold, safe, respectable

Prayer and Meditation 217

and comfortable travesty to which the English eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries reduced it.

The director should never tend to rigorism. The Saints, ever hard
upon themselves, were ever tender towards others. St. Francis of
AssisL, St. Dominic, St. Alphonsus, St. Paul of the Cross, noted for the
severity of their austerities, had the greatest compassion for sinners,
using all their efforts to comfort and encourage their penitents. "It is
necessary to hearten and encourage souls and to make them walk
with confidence in God; without this they will never advance in the
way of perfection*"

A later director, noted for his life of severe mortification and
penance, Pere Ginhac, S.J., says, "Severe directors teach virtue rather
than perfection. To acquire virtue, fear is useful, but to progress
toward perfection, love is necessary. Fear makes servants; love, the
children of God" (Cagnac, Lettres Spiritudles en France, II, 262).

The common desire, too, to immerse themselves in active works
should be closely watched, for their chief concern at first must be
with their own souls, their most necessary practices, prayer and
mortification. If some active work seems to be desirable, it should
be of as hard and as hidden a nature as possible. There are already
too many unspiritual amateurs doing "parochial work"; priests will
be well advised to see that any work done for God and for souls can
only be done by humble, obedient, loving, practising Christians, and
to spend some of the time in producing such, being content to wait,
seeing many things left undone, until he has trained souls who are
in some degree capable of being the instruments of Divine grace.
Third, to establish a true peace in souls and to nourish their good
desires means that their prayer-life must be the director's first and
continuous concern. Unless such are taught to pray, they are taught
nothing. To inspire a soul with the true idea of prayer, to get it
interested in its prayer, is the greatest thing we can do for it. The
director, then, must inquire as to the knowledge of the end, value
and practice of prayer possessed, the kind of prayer made, the
particular difficulties encountered, the attraits and special devotions
to which the soul is led, and, where necessary, he must choose for
and direct the soul in such methods of prayer as seem most suitable.

2i 8 The Techniques

Now nothing of this can be done unless the director is himself
convinced of the necessity and value of prayer, and this will be in
proportion to his own practice and experience of prayer. Study of
the science of prayer is most necessary, as necessary as it is wanting,
but no degree of study alone will give that sense of conviction which
is needed in order to be convincing. "Without prayer, our work will
be sterile, our words dry, our direction altogether unfruitful. . . .
All the faults which arise in the direction of souls come from the fact
that directors do not apply themselves to the holy exercise of prayer"
(M. Olier,op.cit.,Art,i.)*-**

Bede Frost, 1877-, English priest, Church of England.
The Art of Mental Prayer.

IMPORTANT AIDS TO PRAYER

The Practice of Mortification 12

Mortification or deliberate dying to self is inculcated with an un-
compromising firmness in the canonical writings of Christianity,
Hinduism, Buddhism and most of the other major and minor
religions of the world, and by every theocentric saint and spiritual
reformer who has ever lived out and expounded the principles of
the Perennial Philosophy. But this "self-naughting" is never (at least
by anyone who knows what he is talking about) regarded as an
end in itself. It possesses merely an instrumental value, as the indis-
pensable means to something else.

That mortification is the best which results in the elimination of
self-will, self-interest, self-centered thinking, wishing and imagin-
ing. Extreme physical austerities are not likely to achieve this kind
of mortification. But the acceptance of what happens to us (apart,
of course, from our own sins) in the course of daily living is likely
to produce this result. If specific exercises in self-denial are under-
taken, they should be inconspicuous, non-competitive and un-
injurious to health. Thus, in the matter of diet, most people will find
it sufficiently mortifying to refrain from eating all the things which

12 The full discussion of mortification in chapter VI of The Perennial Philosophy will
richly reward the careful reader.

Prayer and Meditation 219

the experts in nutrition condemn as unwholesome. And where social
relations are concerned, self-denial should take the form, not of
showy acts of would-be humility, but of control of the tongue and
the moods— in refraining from saying anything uncharitable or
merely frivolous (which means, in practice, refraining from about
fifty per cent of ordinary conversation), and in behaving calmly
and with quiet cheerfulness when external circumstances or the
state of our bodies predisposes us to anxiety, gloom or an excessive
elation.

Perhaps the most difficult of all mortifications is to achieve a "holy
indifference" to the temporal success or failure of the cause to which
one has devoted one's best energies. If it triumphs, well and good;
and if it meets defeat, that also is well and good, if only in ways that,
to a limited and time-bound mind, are here and now entirely in-
comprehensible.

Sufficient not only unto the day, but also unto the place, is the evil
thereof. Agitation over happenings which we are powerless to
modify, either because they have not yet occurred, or else are
occurring at an inaccessible distance from us, achieves nothing beyond
the inoculation of here and now with the remote or anticipated evil
that is the object of our distress. Listening four or five times a day
to newscasters and commentators, reading the morning papers and
all the weeklies and monthlies — nowadays, this is described as
"taking an intelligent interest in politics." St. John of the Cross
would have called it indulgence in idle curiosity and the cultivation
of disquietude for disquietude's sake.

In the practice of mortification as in most other fields, advance
is along a knife-edge. On one side lurks the Scylla of egocentric
austerity, on the other the Charybdis of an uncaring quietism. The
holy indifference inculcated by the exponents of the Perennial
Philosophy is neither stoicism nor mere passivity. It is rather an
active resignation. Self-will is renounced, not that they may be a
total holiday from willing, but that the divine will may use the
mortified mind and body as its instrument for good.*-**

Aldous Huxley, 1894-. English author, literary critic.
The Perennial Philosophy.

220 The Techniques

The Practice of Daily Reading

If we look into the daily regimen of the men and women who
seem to us to be growing in the religious life, we shall seldom find
them neglecting to read nor failing to acknowledge that what they
have read has profoundly influenced what they have done.

Not all lawyers emulate Sir Thomas More. Yet I happen to know
two of the ablest legal minds in Philadelphia who are the most eager
readers of devotional works and who find this nurture an imperative
in keeping inwardly fresh and sensitive. These men are hungry.
They are conscious of need and they are not too proud to ask for
help. Close friends of mine ask one another. "What do you feed on?"
"Where are you finding light?" "Who has pointed you most directly
to what is real?" They want bread, not a diet of hors d'oeuvres. They
want to be directed, not diverted. They are becoming less interested
in reading about religion and religious controversy than in reading
works that have sprung out of the religious response to life and hence
that minister to it in themselves. In short, they are in search of books
that will strengthen, increase, and intensify devotion. And devotion,
we recall, means the "promptitude, fervor, affection, and agility"
in our response to the burning ray of love that attends us. Here there
is a longing for voices that speak of discovery, of its way, and of its
object.

People do not read this sacred literature today: they are too
"emancipated." They will read Dostoevsky with avidity— chiefly
because he lived a large part of his time in Hell, with the topography
of which they are themselves perfectly familiar. But they forget that
Dostoevsky himself was a passionate student of the New Testament.
They are sensationalists; they want strong, rich meat, and find the
dry bread of true spiritual teaching unassimilable. Yet I am bold to
suggest that they will discover in the end that they cannot afford

to dispense with it "It is not going too far to suggest that every

individual who pursues his search for spiritual illumination with
sufficient persistence finally finds himself obliged to leave secular
literature behind him. He must sit at the feet of those who, even if
they are less sympathetic figures, owe their authority to the fact

Prayer and Meditation 221

that they are standing on more elevated ground. He must study
scripture." 13

How many times one has laid the Bible aside in favor of what
seemed more real and compelling or more attractive and readable
witnesses to the religious life, only to be driven back to it again by
the great hunger to let the measured dignity and beauty of its
language stir in him an emotion like that which comes in listening
to classical music or in seeing a finely proportioned building.

Revealing writing shares its treasures progressively and only at a
price. It exacts a willingness on the reader's part to let go his tense,
tightly-clenched efforts at inner security, and a willingness to let the
angel freely trouble the waters of his life to his healing, But for one
who is in growth, and is seeking to yield, the Bible becomes an in-
dispensable companion because it does reveal the way and because
it seems to point beyond to infinitely more of the same source of
light which he has already experienced.

The cloud of witnesses and teachers, however, did not end at
the close of the first century. And those who seek for nurture in the
religious life are acutely conscious of the fact that revelation is
continuous. It has never stopped. In the eighteen intervening
centuries a whole row of rich classics has appeared. They will not
all speak to the needs of each person who reads them. We often find
real companions who are to be cultivated by long intimacy, only
at the end of a considerable search, a search that we must make for
ourselves.

Take the Confessions of Augustine. There are some who will
never respond to the Augustinian type, but who seek a gentler guide
whose twice-born character is not so sharply to the fore. Only the
patient reader can follow the slow emancipation of this strong, proud,
self-willed man from the slavery of an inner paralysis, induced by
conflicting desires, to a freedom that he called the libertas major:
where you love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and are
free to do as you then please. Only such a reader will learn of the
way in which one by one Augustine was stripped of the evasions by

13 Prospects of Humanism, pp. 161-163 (Scribner).

222 The Techniques

which he illustrates his theme of the fugitive from God. However
there are few readers for whom this specimen of the death struggle
between the Christian "obsession" and the restless mind and spirit
of decadent fourth-century Roman culture will not yield insights
into the faithfulness of the divine companion, the responsibilities
and privileges of parenthood and friendship, the influences of
thought systems,, and the blessedness of decision and commitment.

"Sacred Literature/' to use Lawrence Hyde's term, does not, how-
ever, exhaust the materials that may be used in devotional reading.
Well-chosen biography is another source of reading that quickens
devotion.

In reading devotional literature, the limitations of time and the
wisdom of those who have used it most profitably agree in urging
the wise use of the veto. We cannot read all. We must select. Find
a few spiritual "staples" and feed on them until you know them.
Be proud to be ignorant of vast areas of the "religious book" field.
Nowhere does novelty count so little as in devotional reading. Few
young people today and too few of those in my generation have
ever carefully read the same book through five times or even three.
A real devotional book is one that you can live with year after year
and that never stales or never fails to speak to some needs in your
-**

Douglas V. Steere, 1901-. American author, Professor of Philosophy.

Prayer and Worship.

Oh, how perplexed is the spirit of the man who does not under-
stand the true sense of the words of Scripture, though every day
their meaning is uttered with a sweet voice. This thing may be com-
pared to a beautiful maiden imprisoned in a palace. This maiden has
a lover, but no one knows of his love except the maiden herself.
And as the lover, urged on by the desire to see his beloved, passes
often by the palace, throwing his glances in all directions, to obtain
sight of her, the maiden resolves to make a small opening in the wall
that imprisons her; and as her lover passes, she hastily looks out of
the opening, and then draws back again. But of all those persons
who were passing by the palace at the same time as the lover, no one

Prayer and Meditation 223

saw tne face of the lovely maiden. Only the lover saw, because he was
the only one whose eyes and heart and soul were drawn toward her.
It is even thus with the Scripture, which does not reveal its mystery
except to its lovers. But to the initiate, whose eyes and heart and soul
are drawn toward the beloved, she will for a brief moment deign
to show herself. The Holy Scripture proceeds thus with a man : first
she signals him to approach. If the man does not understand, she
calls him "fool," as it is written: "Whosoever is a fool, let him come
to me." When the man comes near, she speaks to him through the
veil which still separates them. The man begins to understand little
by little. He is then at the stage of syllogistic interpretation. She
then begins to speak to him through a transparent veil. The man is
then at the stage of symbolic interpretation. And finally, when habit
has made him familiar with Scripture, she shows herself and speaks
with him face to face, revealing the mysteries which she has hidden
from the beginning of time. Then Scripture says to the man: "Thou
seest now that in the same words which before contained a literal
meaning, there is now a mystic meaning"; and just as, for the literal
meaning, all the words must be there, without addition or curtail-
ment, in the same way, for the mystical meaning, all the words
must be there, without the addition of a single letter. And for this
reason it is proper for men to give themselves zealously to the study
of the Scripture, and to become its lovers.* (Zohar, n, ppa.)

Edmond Fleg, 1874-. French author.
The ]ewish Anthology, Trans. M. Samuel.

Psycho-Physical Aids

What the body does during prayer and meditation is almost as
important as what the mind and spirit do. Indeed, if the body does
not have the power to determine what the mind and spirit will do,
it does seem to have almost absolute veto power as to what they shall
not do. It therefore behooves anyone who wants to go beyond the
rudiments of prayer to pay some intelligent attention to the im-
mutable laws of God concerning his marvelous body-instrument.

Relaxation — One major problem involved in meditation especially
is to learn to channel the mind and relax the body at the same time.

224 The Techniques

This sounds simple, but in reality it is contrary to most of our
every-day psycho-physical habits. Most of us are totally incapable of
keeping our minds focused on a given subject without tensing at
least our necks or our eyes, and probably many other parts of the
body. No wonder then that we get into trouble in meditation when
we begin with the difficult art of directing our minds for moments
at a time toward subjects which are wholly different from our usual
surface occupations.

It is, of course, impossible for any person to be completely re-
laxed during these special periods of prayer if for all the rest of his
hours his body is off-balance and therefore needing to be tense in
order to stay in an upright position. This being true, we are in reality
thinking an impossibility when we talk about relaxing the average
un-coordinated mind-body organism during prayer, until we have
tackled the root-problem of coordination during all one's hours,
whether one be lying, sitting, standing or walking. But under exist-
ing conditions this seems to be impossible for many who are sincerely
in earnest about learning to pray. So, temporarily at least, in lieu
of solving the major problem of body-mind coordination, here are
a few suggestions which have proved their usefulness.

The place to begin to relax is in the neck, which is not only the
bridge between the body and the head but is also the key which
locks or unlocks most of the body's tensions. The trouble is that
most beginners who try to relax try too hard. The best way is to try
less — or rather not to try at all, but simply to sit quietly and wait,
mentally stepping aside and allowing the neck to relax itself in its
own skillful way. Other parts of the body may be treated in the
same way: hands, feet, shoulders, chin, eyes, throat, abdomen. But
after one has learned the simple trick of letting go with the neck,
the rest of the body should automatically lose much of its tight-
ness.

Even after the neck is relaxed, the eyes may need special con-
sideration. For most eyes have from childhood built up a habit of
strain which it sometimes takes patience to overcome. The danger
of tension is greatest when the brain is active and the eyes are open
without being given anything to do. Then all too often they park

Prayer and Meditation 225

themselves at some point in space and stay there staring, straining
not only themselves but the mind as well. The result is worse because
usually they form a habit of returning again and again to the same
side, left or right, thus adding muscle imbalance to the inevitable
brain-fatigue.

Dr. William Bates and his followers have done a highly useful
work in making people realize that the fovea or central seeing part
of the eye was never meant to stop moving. Even when the eyes
are closed, these should keep shifting, asleep or awake, automatically
following the images of thought. The age-old practice of closing the
eyes in prayer has therefore more reason than simply avoiding dis-
traction. But if one is too tense, is trying with too much effort to
concentrate, the eyes will tense also and may stay fixed, even if
closed. One may need to stop a moment and remind the eyes to let
go. Or one may cover the closed eyes with the crossed hands in that
other ancient attitude of prayer, which has to its advantage not
only the value of association but also a physiological result from the
warmth and contact of the hands.

Breathing — Slow, rhythmic breathing is a great means to body-
mind relaxation and has always been considered one of the chief steps
in acquiring that serenity and poise which must precede and ac-
company fruitful meditation. ... To re-learn rightly the natural
skill of breathing may take serious instruction and practice. Never-
theless, there is much that anyone who really desires it can do for
himself. A good deal has been written about the dangers of chang-
ing breathing habits except under skillful supervision. Probably these
warnings are necessary, especially for those whose ardor leads them
to long periods of consciously controlled breathing. But most people
are in greater danger of doing too little rather than too much, . . .

The first thing to remember is to begin slowly. Thinking about
breathing for only very short periods at first, then gradually increase
the time. The second thing to remember is that nobody has to strain
to take in air, or to suck it in by effort. Our world of atmospheric
pressure gives us freely each breath of air in good measure, provid-
ing only that we expand and contract the thoracic air-box and re-
ceive the breath that is poured into it. Much harm can be done by

226 The Techniques

forgetting to open the receiver-box or, on the other hand, by for-
getting to be receivers only and trying to be grabbers.

Another point to remember is that the air as it comes in should
go as far back in the body as possible. One can test himself by laying
a hand on the chest and watching to see whether it moves as he
breathes. If it does, inhibit this rising and falling of the chest-wall
and think of the air as going down the bac\ of the body-cavity. Of
course, it actually fills the whole lung-space, but this device of think-
ing it down — and up — the inside of the backbone, as Jeanette Lee 14
has pointed out, helps to involve the back-muscles, without the
danger of unnatural effort and strain. Contrary to most people's
habits, these back muscles should move rhythmically out and in with
each inhalation and expulsion of breath.

In this way one may sit or lie quietly and breath slowly in and
out, perhaps counting at first in order to establish rhythm, letting
the rhythmic swing of the diaphragm accomplish those many
physical and mental results which must be accomplished before
serenity and detachment can be expected. Such deep rhythmic
breathing, once established during a conscious period of preparation
for meditation, one may put into the sub-conscious a standing-order
to maintain this kind of rightness during the whole of the meditation
period — and after. This is a very different thing from trying to
control the function by conscious and continuous attention. The
hint is soon taken, providing: that we don't strain or try to take in
too much air, that at first the reminders are short enough and
frequent enough, and that they are in line with the wonderfully
coordinated mechanism with which we were originally endowed. ,

Posture— It is unwise to talk about breathing without at the same
time thinking of physical posture. Alexander and the Lees, and
probably many other conscientious teachers, refuse to teach breath-
ing at all until the body has been trained to maintain that balance
between parts which is necessary for coordinated functioning. But
apart from this posture-breathing relationship, the position of the
body during prayer is a highly important matter. Probably, however,

14 "Gerald Stanley Lee and his wife Jeanette Lee of this country have gone far in
developing the system of mind-body coordination started in England by F. M. Alexander."

Prayer and Meditation 227

the only positive things that can be said about it are that it should
be a relaxed and balanced position, that it should always be the same
position and that it should be quietly maintained without change or
movement during the whole of the meditation period.15 Of course the
traditional Christian position for prayer is down on the knees. This
posture seems to express with the body the spirit's adoration and
humility. Besides, it is a position in which one naturally puts the
hands over the eyes, a practice which, as has been said, is phy-
siologically sound. It is, however, a difficult position to maintain for
many moments at a time and is therefore not usually best for those
who believe that time and a sense of leisureliness are needed for
prayer.

The other great traditional position is that used by many Eastern
and some Western meditators — sometimes called the meditation
position — in which one sits cross-legged on the floor, arms crossed
or a hand on each thigh. This position is difficult at first for Western
muscles, accustomed only to sitting on chairs, but if one begins with
a five minute period and gradually increases the time, it soon
becomes comfortable— perhaps even more conducive to wholeness
and recollection than any other position. If this be true, there must
be a physiological cause. One obvious reason is that it is almost
fool-proof. It would take a negatively skillful person to sit thus and
still maintain the sway-back and the forward-tilted pelvis which are
usual in our ordinary sitting or standing — and which in themselves
prohibit correct breathing and probably every other normal func-
tioning. As any position which stretches the spine naturally frees the
circulation and the breathing and helps the body to be "whole,"
there seems to be good reason why the greatest meditating peoples
of the world have naturally assumed this posture when they have
wanted the body to cooperate with the spirit. . . .

All these matters of breathing, posture and physical relaxation
may seem entirely too physiological to be important to anyone whose
chief concern is with his spirit. They may, however, make the

15 "Even this statement cannot be too rigidly insisted upon. There is something- to be
said for the practice of Catholic monks who maintain a slow rhythmic walk during the
telling of their beads , , ,"

228 The Techniques

difference between a blocked channel and one that is open for the
waters of God to flow through. In a matter of such supreme import
no detail is unworthy of our serious attention and action.*-**

Helen Molyneux Salisbury. American poet, teacher of Body-Mind Coordination.

Written for this compilation.

The Element of Time

We have to make access to our subconscious and we know that
it is difficult for us individualized, materialized Westerners. We must
then approach that threshold when the diurnal tide favours, when
the body-mind is passing from its rest on the sleep-facet to its rest
on its waking-facet. It is no use attempting to cross a bar when the
tide is out. Evening and morning are therefore probably the best
times. When the mind is recovering from sleep it has now been
established that it takes a full hour to close one aperture and open
fully the other. Dreams, most people know, last often for an hour
or two in the memory and then like hoar-frost are gone. When the
mind is approaching sleep, it again passes across the threshold.
Hypnotic and all subconscious suggestion-therapy has shown that
there is a belt of accessibility to the deeper mind, or, perhaps a better,
more exact simile, a stage of compromise when the two apertures of
apprehension (that of the conscious and that of the subconscious
mind) partly overlap. Then exchange can take place and the con-
sciousness which has insight can inform the normal consciousness
which, because it looks out exclusively on the world of physical
action, has possession of material means.

For an hour after sleep, while dreams can still be recalled and
an hour before, when the mind is preparing for sleep, intercom-
munication is possible. It is wise to reserve a considerable portion
of these periods for spiritual exercises.*

Anonymous

The Use of the Symbol

In trying to find methods of attaining union with God, religious
people have long made use of symbols and images. The Reality to
be perceived is beyond sign and symbol and yet for many people

Prayer and Meditation 229

certain symbols have usefulness, especially during the period of
purgation. Many mystics have found meditation possible only when
they held in their thought such pictures as the figure of Jesus in his
sorrows, the Blessed Mary, the Cross. In the Vedanta tradition the
Lotus is widely used for meditating on the Self— the effulgent Light.
Rosaries, pictures, a flower, a tree, a cloud, or a mountain often
elevate the consciousness to the Divine.

Symbols can, of course, become fetish. Unless one remains clear,
the symbol can come to take the place of that rapport with the
Reality behind it and beyond it, for which it stands. Symbols, there-
fore, should only serve as a "springboard" toward recollection of
God and to remind one of what one is in relationship to Him.

Anonymous
Written for this collection.

Our epoch is scientifically and technically minded. We want
first of all to understand and to know and we believe in reason.
And so we try to do the same in understanding religious ideas. But
religious ideas are always and everywhere symbolic truths. They
can never be understood in a rational way alone. They are, as
symbols, both rational and irrational; they are paradoxical They
unite psychical facts of the conscious and unconscious mind. Though
they appeal to our reason and knowledge, they have contents which
we cannot yet know because they are only in the making. Religion
is in its essence symbolic and every religious symbol, when it
originated, was an experience surpassing conscious knowledge.
When a religion becomes established, symbols are worked into
dogmas. The Roman Catholic Church understands even the dogma
to be a symbolic truth. "The dogma unites knowing and not know-
ing, something which is intelligible and something which is un-
intelligible, a clarity and at the same time a mystery." 16

One of the most valuable achievements of Professor Jung is to
have re-opened the way to symbolic thinking. By this he has led us
to understand religious ideas of every race and time. He also helps
the modern individual either to understand his own religion in a

16 Die Gnosis des Christcnttims. Salzburg, 1939.

230 The Techniques

deeper and more vital way or to find and to experience symbols
which come to him from the depths of the unconscious, from that
creative psyche which has always been the mother of all the things
and ideas which move humanity. The symbols which are born in
someone with the help of psychology are individual, but are at the
same time universal, because they derive from that layer in man
which is common to all. Thus the individual is enriched by an inner
creative life which is full of meaning, and at the same time he is
connected with mankind in a more vital way than merely rational
and conscious efforts could achieve. He may not adhere to a given
church or creed, but the Christian spirit which should unite all
mankind cannot be denied to him.*

Toni Wolff, contemporary Swiss analytical psychologist.

Christianity Within.

CHAPTER FIVE

Prayer and Meditation

(continued)

If worship is the highest activity of man's spirit we shall expect
to find it difficult. But we shall also expect to find that there are
avenues leading to worship for all sorts and conditions of men.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Look that, leaving all curious seeking, thou do wholly worship
thy Lord God with thy substance, offering up unto Him plainly
and wholly thine own self, all that thou art and such as thou art.

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

Such practise of inward orientation is no mere counsel for
monks retired in cloisters. This practise is the heart of religion. It
is the secret, I am persuaded, of the inner life of the Master of
Galilee. He expected this secret to be freshly discovered in every-
one who would be his follower.*

THOMAS R. ICELLY

CHAPTER FIVE

Prayer and Meditation

(CONTINUED)
PROCEDURES AND PATTERNS FOR MEDITATION

Most of the procedures and patterns included here are for beginners.
They are suggestions only — stimuli to original meditation plans. If
classified they would fall largely under the discursive -1 type of mental
prayer. Continued practice should bring a progression toward the more
simplified forms — i.e.t affective prayer and the prayer of simplicity.

Since the major purpose of discursive prayer is to convince2 the con-
scious as well as to influence the unconscious mind concerning the existence
of an Ultimate Reality,3 the choice of material should be guided by the
background and experience of each individual. It may take initiative,
patience and expert advice for some persons to discover the approach
which is meaningful to them, and to find material which presents few
semantic barriers.

It is good to remind oneself that after prayer practice has been estab-
lished experience will open the way so that prejudices will yield, the problem
of terminology will gradually disappear, and the particular approach to
ultimate truths will loom less and less important.

Sometimes after experimenting with several different procedures one
may discover a single pattern which is so well adapted to one's needs, and
which allows for such infinite expansion in meaning that it can be used
for many months, even years, with great value.

Most of the discursive patterns included here embody five common
elements. They are (i) realization of need — the consideration of personal

1 See page 197.

2 We have seen how this state of co-nvinccment differs from mere verbal or intellectual
affirmation. It implies that one becomes convinced to the point where a total change in
perspective occurs affecting one's habit of living — bringing- a complete renovation in attitude
and action.

3 See Appendix.

232

Prayer and Meditation 233

and social "Darkness" (their interrelatedness and cause, with emphasis on
the individual's own inner "Darkness" 4), (2) affirmation of man's essential
nature as a part o£ God, (3) affirmation of the power of God within and
without, (4) concentration on God within, (5) commitment to God.

It will be noted that two aspects of the Life-Process are represented in
these elements— the emptying and the filling, the purgative and the
illuminative. It is important to achieve a balance of these two emphases.

This chapter is arranged as follows: First are the advices and the pro-
cedure suggestions for discursive prayer, then the suggested patterns for
discursive prayer, followed by the advices on procedure for affective prayer,
and concluding with two brief patterns for affective prayer. Much of
the material on procedures was chosen from early Christian mystic sources,
while the patterns are largely contemporary. If the reader will remember
the theology of the centuries in which these ancient advices were written,
he will be fortified against being discouraged or repelled by the language
employed. In each case where terms are used that seem meaningless, the
reader is urged to replace such terms with vivid modern counterparts.
For example the terms "hell" and "final judgment" can be replaced by
those terrifying results of greed and fear (arising from unconscious con-
flicts)— as experienced or observed both personally and on a world scale.

Further, if the reader finds the mystic emphasis on the life and
"mysteries'* of Jesus of Nazareth difficult he only needs to recall the
several other approaches to the needed conviction of Reality and choose
subject matter for his prayer practice from one of them. (The discursive
meditation patterns included are based on a variety of such subject matter.
Also see Appendix.) We need to evaluate the classic procedure sug-
gestions mainly from the standpoint of the general movement within the
meditation and the elucidation of the "points" which they found effec-
tive. Also it is wise to pause before the significant evidence their writings
offer concerning the effectiveness of meditation on the life and spirit of
Jesus as the supreme manifestation of God. They recommend the visual-
izing of incidents in the life of Christ, the using of the understanding in
focusing on the significance of each incident. This approach undoubtedly
has been, and still is, the most inspiring and transforming of all approaches
for vast numbers of people. One should not let the accumulation of dogma

4 See Chapter II (Self-knowledge), Chapter III (Obstacles to Progression); also see
Chapter VI (Psychotherapy) for the methods that aid in reaching the deeper levels of con-
sciousness. A combination of both psychological and religious subject matter can be used in
discursive prayer.

234 The Techniques

and creed obscure this vital approach to God. The records of Jesus' life are
open to all— a fresh study 5 of them can yield richly in subject matter for
meditation as well as for a general heightening of vision and purpose.

We hope the variety of suggested patterns will not prove confusing.
They are included with the hope of meeting the needs of people with
different backgrounds.6 The important step of course is to start the prac-
tice even if one has not located a "director" and therefore has to experi-
ment with several procedures. Just the attempt to practice will in itself be
clarifying and steadying though it may take some time before orientation
to the new undertaking is achieved. The habit of mental concentration
has first to be established. When one considers how unpracticed most
people are in controlling the focus of attention— in consciously directing
and holding it on any chosen object or idea, one will not become easily
discouraged if distractions abound and if progress comes slowly.

Some directors advise simple concentration exercise as the preliminary
to actual meditation practice. One chooses a single object or a simple
short phrase around which to bind the attention for a space of several
minutes. Simple concentration does not employ the Reason, but attempts
to effect an opening of consciousness toward the perception of what is
placed before it. Thus does an artist "perceive" — by becoming quietly
absorbed in what he has chosen to observe, letting it speak to him. The
habit of accurate perception, even on the material plane is a matter of
high skill. Facility in short-term concentration will greatly assist the more
prolonged practice of meditation wherein there is need for an undistracted
use of the understanding. The habit of concentration in all daily affairs
likewise helps in making for facility when one comes to focus on spiritual
realities.

5 See Jesus as Teacher and Studies in Jesus as Teacher by Henry Burton Sharman,
Harper & Bros. Also see the rather free (historically) but valuable psychological Interpreta-
tion, Creation Continues by Fritz Kunkel, Charles Scribner's Sons.

6 To some readers the inclusion here and elsewhere in this anthology of material from
the Buddhist and Vedanta tradition may come as a shock, either because of prejudice against
everything from the "dreamy" East, or because of having been taught that only from
Christian tradition can religious insight be legitimately and profitably taken. To others not
conventionally biased the material may seem unnecessary and inappropriate because the rest
of the book is predominately Christian.

The answer is that no treatment of religious exercises seemed adequate without having
some representation from these two religions which have contributed so much to the develop-
ment of spiritual techniques. It is true that many of the Eastern methods are not applicable
to the Westerner but there remains a rich portion which can and has proved congenial to
Western minds. We regret that limitation of space prevents the inclusion of more of the
material selected from these sources. If the reader wishes to seek out further information,
the bibliography will be helpful.

Prayer and Meditation 235

In starting the practice of discursive prayer one is advised to allow at
least an hour a day for preparation and actual exercise. The preparation
provided by reading can best be of two kinds, instructive and inspirational.
If the hour is divided into half-hour periods, the first fifteen minutes of
the first half hour can be profitably used by the beginner in the slow
Beading of inspirational material, to be followed by a like period of
meditation upon whatever idea or "opening" of insight has been stimulated
by the reading. The second half hour could well be started by meditation,
based on a chosen subject or pattern and followed by instructional reading.
The time spent in meditation however should be gradually increased until
the whole of each half hour is employed thus. Most people find that only
when meditation reaches an hour or more does the experience begin to
become of deep import — a necessary and sought-after daily exercise.

INSTRUCTION ON DISCURSIVE MEDITATION

Discursive Prayer for the Beginner

Let a soul that begins mental prayer with the exercise of medita-
tion make choice of some good books of that subject,7 as Fulvius
Androtius, Granada, or the abridgment of De Ponte's Meditations
(which I would especially recommend).

Let her begin with the matter of the purgative way, as concerning
sin,8 death, the final judgment/ hell,8 or the like, and let her abide
in the exercises of that way till she finds in herself an aversion from
sin, and that much of the fear and remorse that were formerly in
her are deposed, so that she is come to have some good measure of
confidence in God. When she finds these effects in her, let her pass
to the exercise of meditation which respects the illuminative way
(as they call it), that is, to such whose matter or argument is some
mystery of faith touching our Lord's Life, Passion, etc., and which
are apt to beget and increase humility, patience, and other virtues
in her.

Being entered into the illuminative way, let her in like manner
abide in the exercises thereof till she find herself apt for resignation,

7 See Bibliography.

8 "Personal and Social Darkness/' see page 59; see "Pattern" page 281; see "Self-
Knowledge" and "Obstacles to Progression" Part I, and see "Confessional Meditation";
see page 86 for modern counterparts of these terms.

236 The Techniques

love, and other affections of the unitive way, to the exercise of which
let her thereupon apply herself.

For some short space before a soul begins her exercise of
meditation let her look upon the book, and therein peruse the points
that she intends to meditate on; or rather, indeed, those points are to
be thought upon and provided beforehand, that is, over-night for
the morning meditation, and after dinner for the evening. So doing,
she will be less to seek about them, and better employ the time
appointed for her exercise.

Let her not trust her memory for the points that she is to meditate
on, but have the book ready that she may look on it as she shall have
need, and let her take one point after another as they lie in the book,
or as she shall have determined before, when she prepared for the
succeeding recollection.

In her meditating on each point let her behave herself after this
manner: i. With her memory and understanding let her think on
the matter of that point; 2. out of which let her draw a reason or
motive, by which the will may be inclined some way or other toward
God; 3. and thereupon let her produce an act of the will (as of
humiliation, adoration, resignation, contrition, etc.), abiding in
such application of the soul to God as long as the will hath life and
activity for it, or as long as she shall be able to do it; 4. the which
failing and growing to be disgustful, let her proceed to the next
point, therein behaving herself likewise after the same manner, so
proceeding in order to the others following till she have spent a
competent time in her recollection.

Now I conceive a competent time for one recollection spent in
meditation to be an hour, or very little less. Whereas for the exercise
of immediate acts of the will a lesser space will suffice; and the
reason of the difference is: i. because in this latter exercise more
acts of the will (wherein all good doth consist) are produced than
in meditation; 2. and, besides, the exercise of acts is more dry and
wearisome (except in some few that abound in sensible affections)
than is meditation to souls fit for it.

During meditation let the soul (neglecting the too common prac-

Prayer and Meditation 237

tice, in which meditation is made rather a study and speculation
than an exercise of the spirit) spend no more time in inventing
motives and in internal discoursings than shall be necessary to move
the will to good affections; but as for such affections, let her abide
in them as long as she can (for therein consists all the profit) ; and
if upon one consideration or motive she can produce many acts of
the will, let her not fail to do so, and to continue in each act as long
as she finds that she is enabled. It is no matter though in the mean
time the understanding should lie quiet, as it were asleep, and
without exercise.

A soul that practices meditation will find that at the first she
will, during one time of recollection, stand in need of many points to
be thought upon, and of many motives to produce affections. But
in continuance the will will become so well affected, as fewer points
will suffice to employ it in producing good affections and purposes,
which will take up almost the whole time appointed for the recollec-
tion; and a soul being come to this state, will be ready and ripe for
a more sublime exercise of immediate acts of the

Augustin F. Baker, 1575-1641. English Benedictine Father.

Holy Wisdom.

CLASSIC METHODS OF TRAINING

There are six Classic Schools of mystic training represented in the
Catholic tradition. They are: The Ignatian, The Carmelite, The Salesian,
The Liguorian, The Franciscan and The Oratorian. While each has its
unique emphasis they agree fundamentally on method. Brief advices and
procedures for the beginner from only three are represented here. See The
Art of Mental Prayer by Bede Frost for a description of all six Schools.

The Salesian Method

But perhaps you do not know, Philothea, how to make mental
prayer; for it is a thing which unhappily few persons in this age of
ours know how to practise. For this reason, I will give you a simple
and brief method to that end, until such time as, by reading some
of the good books which have been composed on this subject, and
above all by practice you may be more fully instructed.

238 The Techniques

The Preparation

I note first the preparation, which consists in two points, the
first of which is to place yourself in the presence of God, and the
second to invoke his assistance — principal ways of placing yourself
in the presence of God.

1. The first consists in a lively and attentive apprehension of the
omnipresence of God, which means that God is in everything and
everywhere, and that there is not any place or thing in this world
where he is not most assuredly present; so that, just as the birds,
wherever they fly, always encounter the air, so, wherever we go,
or wherever we are, we find God present. Everyone knows this truth,
but everyone is not attentive to grasp it— before prayer we must
always stir up our souls to an attentive thought and consideration of
this presence of God.

The second is to think that not only is God in the place where
you are, but that he is in a very special manner in your heart and in
the depth of your spirit.

The third way consists in making use of the imagination alone,
representing to ourselves the Saviour in his sacred humanity, as
though he were near to us.

2. The invocation is made in this manner: your soul, having
realized that she is in the presence of God, prostrates herself with
profound reverence, acknowledging her unworthiness.

3. After these two ordinary points of the meditation, there is a
third which is not common to all sorts of meditations; it is that which
is called by some the composition of place. This is no other thing than
to represent to the imagination the scene of the mystery upon which
the meditation is made, as though it were actually taking place in
our presence.

By means of this imaginary scene we confine our spirit within the
mystery upon which we intend to meditate, so that it may not range
hither and thither. Yet some will tell you that, in the representation
of these mysteries, it is better to make use of the simple thought of
faith, and of a simple apprehension entirely mental and spiritual, or
else to consider that the things are done within your own spirit; but
that is too subtle for a commencement, and until such time as God

Prayer and Meditation 239

may raise you higher, I counsel you, Philothea, to remain in the low
valley which I have shown you.

The Considerations

After the action of the imagination, follows the action of the
understanding, which we call meditation, which is no other thing
than one or many considerations made in order to stir up our affec-
tions towards God and divine things: and herein meditation differs
from study and from other thoughts and considerations which are
not made to acquire virtue or the love of God, but for other ends
and intentions, as, for example, to become learned, to write, or to
argue. Having then confined your spirit, as I have said, within the
enclosure of the subject upon which you intend to meditate, you will
begin to make considerations on it; if you find sufficient relish, light
and fruit in one of these considerations, stay there without passing
on to another, proceed quite gently and simply in this matter, with-
out undue haste.

The Affections and Resolutions

Meditation produces good movements in the will or affective part
of our soul, such as the love of God and of our neighbour, imitation
of the life of our Lord, compassion, admiration, joy, confidence in
the goodness and mercy of God, confusion for our bad lives in the
past; and in these affections our spirit should expand and extend
itself as much as possible.

You must not dwell upon these general affections to such an
extent that you omit to convert them into special and particular
resolutions for your correction and amendment. For example, the
first word that our Lord spoke on the cross will doubtless stir up in
your soul a good affection of imitation— namely, the desire to pardon
your enemies and to love them. But I say now that this is of little
value, if you do not add to it a special resolution to this effect: Well
then! I will not hereafter be offended by such or such annoying
words, nor by such or such an affront which may be put upon me
by this person or by that: on the contrary, I will say and do such or
such a tiling to gain him.

240 The Techniques

Of the Conclusion and Spiritual Nosegay

Finally, the meditation must be closed by three acts which should
be made with as much humility as possible. The first is the act of
thanksgiving. The second is the act of oblation. The third is the act
of petition, by which we demand of God and implore him to com-
municate to us the graces and virtues of his Son, and to bless our
affections and resolutions, so that we may be able faithfully to put
them into practice.

To all this I have added that one should gather a little nosegay of
devotion. My meaning is as follows: Those who have been walking
in a beautiful garden do not leave it willingly without taking away
with them four or five flowers, in order to inhale their perfume and
carry them about during the day: even so, we should choose one or
two or three points in which we have found most relish, and which
are specially proper to our advancement, in order to remember them
throughout the day.*

St. Francis de Sales, 1567-1622. French Archbishop of Geneva,
Introduction to the Devout Life, Trans. Allan Ross.

Francis de Sales drew up ten meditations to help the beginner attain
the contrition necessary to rid himself of "sin" and "affection to sin" (the
first and second purgations). They concern themselves with a considera-
tion of Creation, Benefits of God, End of Creation, Sin, Death, Hell,
Paradise, etc. They all follow the method outlined in this selection.
Editors.

The Liguorian Method

i. The Preparation. Kneel quietly for a few moments, letting
your whole self sink into a state of rest, that you may realise the
presence of God. Then make the following acts slowly:

Act of Faith. 0 my God, I believe that Thou art here present, and
I adore Thee from the depths of my own nothingness.

Act of Humility. O my God, I acknowledge that for my sins I
deserve to be in Hell. I am sorry that I have offended Thee, because
Thou art so good, and I beg, by Thy grace, that I may never sin
again.

Prayer and Meditation 241

Petition for Light. O Eternal Father, for the sake of Jesus and
Mary, give me light in this prayer that I may make it to Thy glory
and the good of my soul.

Paternoster. Ave Maria. Gloria.

2. The Meditation. Fix your attention on the subject you have
chosen. Make a mental picture of it as clearly as you can, though
without effort or strain. As you reflect quietly upon what you see,
what it means, and especially to you, you will be moved to make
acts of prayer, adoration, praise, thanksgiving, humility, penitence,
love, etc.— any acts of prayer, in any words, in any order. Petitions
for spiritual gifts may be added. Go on until your time is up, con-
stantly recurring to your picture and renewing your fervour.

3, The Conclusion. Which should be short, intense and business-
like. It consists of three acts of resolution and three of prayer.

To obtain the graces of God, St. Alphonsus constantly insists
that the principal fruit of meditation is prayer. It is this insistence,
indeed, which especially distinguishes his method from others. We
do not reflect in meditation in order to reflect or to gain knowledge,
but in order to pray. "Meditation is like a needle after which comes
a thread of gold, composed of affections, prayers and resolutions"
(Veritable Epouse de ].C., chap. xv. n). Meditation is necessary,
for unless we think about God we shall have nothing to say to God.
It is not a study of God, but a looking at Him, which draws our
hearts and wills to Him.

He insists strongly that it is very necessary that the act of the
presence of God should be one of a living faith (Verit. fipouse de
J.C., chap. xvi. n). That is, it is not an act of intellectual considera-
tion or, still less, of feeling, but a firm and implicit Credo. God is
present; all we have to do is to acknowledge His Presence, placing
ourselves deliberately in that Presence by an act of pure faith. The
heart of prayer consists in the affections and resolutions awakened in
the will by reflection upon Divine truths or mysteries. These may
be as diverse as possible, covering the whole of our Godward desires
and our needs, but St. Alphonsus especially indicates four acts which

242 The Techniques

should find their place in all our prayer; of confident humility, of
contrition, of love and of perseverance. (Preparation a la Mort —
Preface.)*

Bedc Frost, 1877-. English priest, Church of England.
The Art of Mental Prayer.

The Franciscan Method

M. Bremond describes the method of Pere Joseph du Tremblay
as "one of the most stimulating, most attractive and simplest that
I know of."

The method consists of three parts:

I. The Preparation, in which are four acts:

(1) Of making a right intention.

(2) Of profound humiliation.

(3) Of recalling to mind the subject chosen.

(4) Of withdrawal from distractions.

II. The Meditation. The application of the memory, imagina-
tion and intellect to the subject in four acts, by which we seek a
knowledge:

(1) Of God, the prototype of the particular perfection mani-
fested in the mystery we are considering.

(2) Of oneself.

(3) Of what our Lord does or suffers in this mystery.*

(4) Of the end for which He works or suffers.

In an hour's prayer, about twenty minutes are to be spent on
this part.

III. Affections of the Will:

(1) Of Oblation.

(2) Of Petition. :

(3) Of Imitation.

(4) Of Union.

It will be seen that this method, whilst reminiscent of the
Ignatian plan, is infused with the Franciscan spirit, and, intended
primarily, as it was, for Capuchin novices, is designed to lead them
to the higher degrees of prayer. The first act of the meditation

Prayer and Meditation 243

emphasises the preeminence of God Whose perfections and ways
should ever be the first object of our worship and our prayer.*

Bede Frost, 1877-. English priest, Church of England.
The Art of Mental Prayer.

TWO CONTEMPORARY PROCEDURES

Five Steps Outlined

In worship we are reshaping ourselves in such manner that we
as personalities with all our behavior can serve as connecting links
between disconnected parts and thus enable the integrating process
of the world to fulfill itself. We are pressed into place and so through
us the circuit is closed and the wider and richer integration which
God achieves is brought to pass. In worship we are thus finding
the way to join ourselves with God in his work of integration.

The first step in the act of worship is to relax and to become
aware of that upon which we are dependent, that which sustains
us in every breath, that which shapes the cells of our bodies and
the impulses of our hearts according as we adjust to it in this way
or that.

It is not a state in which one is thinking about anything in
particular. One is simply relaxed, waiting and endeavoring to be
filled with the consciousness of that encompassing and sustaining
and integrating reality which, if he is psychologically capable of
using the word God, he calls God.

The second step in worship is to call to mind the vast and un-
imaginable possibilities for good which are inherent in this integrat-
ing process called God. These possibilities are actualized in us and
in others and in all the world round about us in so far as we and
others find and establish the required adjustment between ourselves
and this cosmic process which is God.

No matter how we may doubt the possibilities of personal im-
provement and social transformation and reconstruction of physical
conditions, there is that noblest kind of personality, that highest
degree of health, that clearness of mind and largeness of purpose,
that measure of equality of opportunity, of cooperation and mutual
understanding and deep organic community of heart and mind

244 The Techniques

between all men, which may be attained by the best possible adapta-
tion of means to ends. It is this possibility which we now bring to
mind. By bringing it to mind we do not mean that one pictures
what it shall be or forms any definite idea of it at all. What this best
state of affairs may be we do not know and cannot know. What
these highest possibilities may be we do not need to know in order
to hold them in mind in the sense here indicated. We only need to
know that there are such possibilities, however undefined and un-
explored. In this second act of worship we become acutely aware
of the fact of such possibilities and of the fact that they can be
actualized through the working of the encompassing Reality and
our better adjustment to it.

The third step is to face the chief problem with which we are
struggling. If we are living earnestly we are always struggling with
a problem which taxes our powers. We shall frequently have the
sense of being baffled because we do not see the way to its solution.
But most of the time, unless we take opportunity for the kind of
worship we are here describing, we shall not face the problem in its
entirety and get it in its true perspective. We are too busy dealing
with some pressing detail to face it in all its fullness. But in this third
stage of worship, after we have become aware of God (called by
another name if we must) and of the total maximum of possibility
for good which inheres in God and our relations to him, we face
our problem. We survey it as comprehensively and acutely as possible
to find what most needs to be done.

Every practical problem is solved by attaining some integration
of parts through which the life-sustaining energies of the universe
can flow. But the most important and vital thing which every in-
dividual must do if this end is to be attained in any particular case
is to develop in himself the right mental attitude and consequent
behavior.

The fourth step is self-analysis 9 to find what change must be
made in our own mental attitudes and personal habits. No problem

9 We will make more effective progress in self -analysis if we will avail ourselves of the
Self Education methods of depth psychology. They can help us penetrate into the uncon-
scious where are to be found the images and motives that so frequently block the readjust-
ments which our worship reveals are necessary. Sec Chapter VI. (Editors)

Prayer and Meditation 245

was ever solved, no desired result ever attained, by worship or in
any other way, which did not require some personal readjustment
on the part of the person through whom it was attained. Worship
has practical value and is a way of doing things only because it
enables us (i) to discover what personal readjustment is required
of us and (2) to establish that readjustment in ourselves.

The fifth step in worship is to formulate in words as clearly and
comprehensively as possible the readjustment of personality and
behavior which I have discovered is required of me if I am to close
the circuit between certain disconnected factors in the world round
me. This verbal statement of the needed readjustment is very im-
portant. It should be accurate, comprehensive, concise. Above all it
must be affirmative; not negative. For in worship we are not
primarily trying to break a connection but to establish a connection.

Suppose we discover, as a consequence of our worshipful self-
analysis, that we have been too egoistic, too much concerned about
our own prestige, too envious of others and too anxious about hold-
ing a place of recognized superiority over those we consider our
inferiors. One might, then, put the needed readjustment of per-
sonality in some such words as these: "I enter into deep, organic
community of heart and mind with . . ." and then mention the
people who are concerned, if possible. Or he might say: "I am simple,
lowly, sensitive and sympathetic toward . . ." and here again mention
explicitly certain individuals, groups or classes.

This statement of the required readjustment should be repeated
many times in the spirit of worship which has been engendered by
the preceding stages. The repetition is necessary in order to establish
the readjustment and get it rooted deeply and firmly as a sub-
conscious attitude of the personality which will give the needed
character to all thoughts, feelings, words and overt behavior of the
individual in any situation that may arise without the need of giving
conscious thought to it. In fact anything which requires the guidance
of conscious thought is never so skillful and effective as that which
is so deep-rooted in the character of the individual that it is done
spontaneously without conscious thought.

Through this repetition of words you are simply establishing as

246 The Techniques

an enduring habitual attitude of the total personality that adjust-
ment to God which you have attained through worship.*-**

Henry Nelson Wieman, 1884-. American philosopher, theologian, educator.

Methods of Private Religious Living

Free Association as a Method

"Follow your longing, and it will lead you to God!9

More and more as I work with patients, I realize the need of
teaching them how to turn inwards, to discover the inward world,
to meditate and give the Divine in them a chance to grow. This
is the most urgent need for young and old, men and women, people
of all classes. It is not true that as we turn inward our outward
adaptation and success will be hindered; on the contrary I have found
even in young people, and particularly in older ones, that only in the
measure that they attended to their inner life did the outward adapta-
tion become at last possible. There is an urge in the soul for inward
life; and as modern education and the exigencies of life claim out-
going only, there is disturbance. We have no schools or training for
the inward life, and we cannot simply take up oriental systems; they
do not fit us.

Many advocate that by will power one should concentrate on one
line of thought and make every effort to exclude other invading
thoughts. I do not think that this way would have been possible for
me, and I felt very grateful to Professor Jung who, during psycho-
logical work with me, taught me another way which led to parallel
results. If my thoughts were horses, I could either be their master,
commanding them to go at my will to a certain place, or I could
take an expectant attitude, hold the reins loosely, let the horses
take the initiative and go where they please. Professor Jung found
that if we hold on to the reins (remain awake and observe our
thoughts while they take the initiative), they lead us by a logic of
their own to new discoveries. I have experienced this for many years
and have come to a source of inner knowledge which I know will
lead me always, deeper, to new treasures.

I once heard Professor Jung say: "Always follow your longing
and it will lead you to God, even if at the beginning it seems to turn

Prayer and Meditation 247

another way." I followed this principle with my patients and it has
proved sound. If I follow a person's deepest longing, although it may
seem to lead to human love, to amusement, or to other things, as
we go deeper, following the thread of that longing, we come to the
inner life, to the sanctuary of the Divine.**

Anonymous, from Inward Light.

SUGGESTED PATTERNS FOR MEDITATION

Morning and Evening Prayer

Immediately you awake set your first thought on God. Keep your
mind on him for a few seconds. Do not think of him subjectively, as
to your relation to him, your failures, your sins, or your needs, but
rather objectively. Let your whole self become conscious of him.
Think of him as shining beauty, radiant joy, creative power, all-
pervading love, perfect understanding, purity, and serenity. This
need only take a moment or two once the habit has been formed, but
it is of inestimable importance. It sets the tone for the whole day.

Even if one is awakened by the peremptory shout of a raucous
voice, or the nerve-shattering rattle of an alarm clock, the real
Presence can be apprehended almost instantaneously.

One's waking mood tends to correspond to the state of mind in
which one falls asleep. If, therefore, as a result of a disturbed night
or simply because of lack of practice, this first thought of God should
evade you, look out of the window for something obviously made by
him, trees, flowers, the sky, or a wind-shaped cloud, even a gray one,
and ponder on the perfection of his handicraft.

Perhaps you are living in an overcrowded home, without fresh
air, entirely divorced from nature, deprived of the natural means
by which God manifests himself to his people, so that from your
narrow window you cannot even see the sky for smoke. If so, let
your thoughts rest on a beautiful picture. But if all outside aids are
denied you, a memory will suffice, a picture in your mind, or the
recollection of a cool breeze you have once felt on your brow.

If unpleasant memories press in upon you so that you cannot
fasten your mind on him, do not worry about it. Laugh at yourself

248 The Techniques

and think, "What a good thing God does not look at me as I look
at myself! He sees something thoroughly lovable in me. He thinks
of me as a potent sort of person, and is expecting something rather
great and fine to work itself out through my life, and is waiting for
it to show itself. As God looks upon us he sees the inherent ability,
the hidden beauty, the unused power of spirit in each of us.

Do not get out of bed, therefore, until you have set your thought
on God. Then remind yourself that he is waiting to illumine your
spirit each morning as you awake.*

Consider yourself not ready to start the day, ill equipped, un-
prepared to mix with your fellows, until you have spent at least
fifteen minutes in prayer. Count it as much a social necessity as
washing.

The cultivation of the spirit should be considered with at least
as much intelligence as the cultivation of corn. If the field is of good
soil and well plowed, if good seed is sown in it, if each day it gets a
normal amount of sunshine and rain, if the four winds of heaven
blow upon it, good corn inevitably appears. So it is with ourselves.
If our mind is prepared and disciplined, if the teaching of Christ
is sown in it, if each day it is set toward God and without anxiety and
fuss laid open to his influence, good character inevitably appears.
"Is it likely," asks Henry Drummond, "that the growth of corn
should be regulated by law and the growth of character by mere
caprice ?"

The day will not be the jewel, the poem, the joy it might be unless
one can come to the pitch when one can say the prayer: "Behold
me, O Lord, in thy hands ready for all; spin me backward or spin
me forward, for I desire nothing other than the doing of thy will,
and oh! that I might do it worthily and perfectly!"

An old man was asked by a friend to explain the secret of his
serene enjoyment of life, his knack of spreading happiness. At first
he demurred, but at length, seeing his friend's eagerness, he confessed
to a certain rule kept from his youth up. He had devoted an hour
before breakfast each day solely to thanksgiving. He never allowed

Prayer and Meditation 249

a thought of worry or a difficulty, a fault or a sin to turn his mind
from the simple enjoyment of God's presence, from praising and
thanking him for his glorious works. It became a matter of habit
with him, just as giving way to worry, a sense of inefficiency, or self-
pity becomes a habit with others. That hour of concentration on all
that was glorious, beautiful, and satisfying brought him so near to
God that the glow of it lasted all day. The law of cause and effect is
as reliable in the spiritual as in the physical realm.

There are many who depend on their morning prayer for strength
to tackle the difficulties ahead of them, and for wisdom to solve the
pressing problems of the day. Yet they would soon cease to think of
these difficulties ahead if they habitually linked themselves to God
with their waking thought. Our puniness turns into strength as we
think of Him, so that even the fact of our being well or ill depends
to a large extent on how many seconds out of the twenty-four hours
we have God in our minds.

Self-consciousness — that bane of youth — disappears, as we practice
praying. During this hour we become more conscious of God than
of our fellows and learn that achievement is worth more than any-
thing else in life. During the morning prayer-time new aspirations
form themselves in one's mind.

"Am I ready for such tasks?" Anyhow, I am ready to be made
ready, as I wait in quietness for God's help and co-operation.

"Faith is the conscious co-operation with an unseen force which
is ever molding men and things to higher uses." If we want to play
our part in this cosmic process, we have to hold ourselves in readiness
to do anything at any time and in any circumstances. "I would
fain be to the Eternal Goodness what his own right hand is to a
man." *

Never get into bed with a burdened or a heavy mind; whether it
be a vague oppression or a definite fear, shame or remorse, anger or
hate, get rid of the evil thing before you lie down to sleep.

Night is a holy time, a time of renewing and refreshment. He
giveth to His beloved while they sleep; our unconscious mind is
active during our slumber. Settle down restfully to let your mind

250 The Techniques

get clear and your spirit unclogged. It would be better to sit up half
the night, wrestling in spirit until you have won your way to peace
and wholeness rather than embark upon hours of unconsciousness
with an unresolved conflict, an unacknowledged fear, or an un-
forgiven friend in your mind.

It is a folly ever to shirk the issue of a single, worrying, doubting
thought. Face each one before you get into bed, face them in the
presence of your Father who knows all your muddled feelings and
understands your tempestuous passions.

It does not take long, this process, but it forms one of the most
important parts of your evening prayer. Silent in God's presence, you
can relax yourself completely. The restfulness of being alone at last,
facing reality, may even make you laugh aloud for joy as you open
your mind in perfect confidence and summon the whole bustling
medley of burdensome thoughts before Him. Let them come, wait-
ing quietly for each, without a shadow of dread. See how they show
up in the deep calm of God's presence. "That anger I felt this morn-
ing, it was like murder, it did real harm to the person it was vented
upon, others are re-acting to it still; it was anti-social, a sin. God
forgive me. It is not remission of penalty I am asking for when I say
'forgive'." It is a longing to be made whole again, a passionate desire
to save my victim from the consequences of my anger, a willingness
to do anything to make amends. Anger is a force and I have let it
loose upon the world; it may have wrecked the happiness of several
people today.

One may wait a few moments before the next impression comes
to the fore. That new line of thought: it seemed dangerous, but
there was no time to explore it. Now, you can welcome it, pursue it
with far greater clarity. Patiently seek the truth. Certainly one of
your most cherished convictions may be threatened if this new line
of thought is true, but why have you been cherishing this conviction ?
You must continue to observe its course. You must talk it out with
wise friends. You can go no further just now, alone.

As one waits quietly, other thoughts of fear or anxiety come to
the forefront and are faced in the same way. Most of them disappear,
vanish incontinently in the presence of God.

Prayer and Meditation 251

One is at peace now. Then, as drowsiness increases, the words of
committal can be used. "Father, into thy hands I commit my

spirit." *

Muriel Lester, 1883-. English author, social worker.

Ways of Praying.

A Discursive Meditation on the Nature of Reality

Cause and effect an aspect of Reality: The forces of reality impinge
upon me here this instant and at all times and places. Everything I
feel and think and do brings down upon me definite and certain reac-
tions, though these reactions may not become discernible to me until
after a long or short lapse of time, though I may never become aware
of some of them. No matter how it may appear to me, it is absolutely
impossible for me to fool the universe.

Where the connection between my thoughts and actions and the
result is clear, I can see that my failures to realize genuine, lasting
satisfaction have been due to a distorted self-seeking, leading to a
feeling of separateness or alien-ness. Fear is largely responsible for
this feeling of alien-ness. (By fear, I mean an excess of feeling beyond
what is necessary to guide me out of an injurious situation.) Because
of the interposition of the false self, of which fear is one expression,
the universe that I see is not the real universe but a construction based
upon the extremely few and distorted fragments that get past all these
obstructions to my mind. Thus, I am ignorant of the Good, and what
I miss thereby is the punishment for my sin.

On the other hand, I know from my own experience that when-
ever I have been able to pierce through this feeling of separateness
to a more constructive feeling— to one of love, interest and of real
(not simulated) compassion for all kinds of persons — I have tended
to be happier, in better health, have appreciated more the beauty
around me, and have grown in understanding. For instance, I have
discovered in discussing controversial matters with other people that
when I have first taken the trouble to see the elements of truth in their
points of view, and so have been ready to modify my own, they have
usually been more disposed to prune away the remaining erroneous
parts of theirs. And I find that the parts of truth, from whatever

252 The Techniques

source derived, when errors are pruned away, tend to fit together
completely. Over and over I have been shown that a fellow-feeling
with the universe and with all the persons and things in it is more
nearly in harmony with the basic plan of the universe than any feel-
ing of separateness can be; and this fact is an indication that the
forces, principles, relationships that make up the real universe are
bound together— integrated into a harmonious whole, which I may,
if I wish, call God.

The sustaining nature of ultimate Reality: Now the more I have
constructive feelings of love, of interest, and of unity with others, and
think and act accordingly, the more my much distorted conception
will right itself and move gradually toward an awareness of ultimate
Reality. Uultimate Reality is more kind, more loving, more helpful
to me than any human father, mother, or friend can be, for humans
are always fallible, arbitrary in some matters, making mistakes in
their desire to help. But the structure of ultimate Reality is perfect
in its integration, always boosting me along if I act in accordance
with any part of it, though I may not be immediately aware of it, and
always making me uncomfortable if I have wrong feelings, thoughts,
and acts. The discomfort necessarily involved in the mistaken course
may, in the flush of supposed worldly success, be only a dull, subcon-
scious awareness that something is amiss, that my apparent pleasure
is transitory; but ultimately it becomes more fully conscious. Sooner
or later my wrong course leads me to a position where I am so far
out of line with the universe that I come into conflict with the invari-
able forces governing it and experience severe suffering. Thus, again
and again I am given opportunity to break away further from my
false view of life and realize anew and more deeply the true joys of
universal fellowship.

Obstacles to fellowship: The most basic psychological urge is for
complete intimate fellowships with all life. When this is not found,
the various "drives" appear as abortive attempts to compensate. Such
are the sexual drives, the "will to power," intellectual ambitions, par-
ticular egocentric patterns, et cetera. These do not, and cannot,
satisfy. I learn and experience what the universe really is only when
I allow these desires to melt into the warmth of a love that is not

Prayer and Meditation 253

falsely motivated, nor confined only to particular individuals who
might reciprocate. It must be a love that is able to see, beneath the
unpromising exterior of each person whom I chance to meet, the
same kind of struggle going on that I am waging. Thus, the barriers
between myself and other selves break down.

Further, I must consider criticisms of myself to find the elements
of truth behind them. And in order to keep myself from obscuring
truth, I must strive to become disinterested and non-partisan in the
sense that I do not follow any course merely because it maintains a
position my own self has previously taken or my friend or the party
which I like, but solely because it fits with truth, with my growing
conception of the wider fellowship of the entire universe. I must be
willing continually to offer up my own pet ideas, to see them modi-
fied or discarded altogether — ideas such as any particular form of
meditation (like this one), any particular form of pacifism, any
particular form of religion, any theories of socialism, capitalism, be-
haviorism, or Americanism. I must offer up my pet ideas as to the
running of my own home and children as well as all other specific
"willings" that obscure Reality.

Dedication to ultimate Reality: As I thus concentrate on the desir-
ability of achieving a greater awareness of Reality, I am moved to
reaffirm a willingness to give up the fears, greeds and hatreds which
block my own awareness. I call upon the integrating process of the
universe further to reveal me to myself, and to strengthen my com-
mitment.

I now realize that if I want to pursue an upward course, I have no
other choice. The only way I can improve, the only way I can attain
to more satisfactory relationships — indeed, the only way I can keep
from getting worse — is to dedicate myself without reservation to live
the life which tends most toward greater integration with Reality, the
life of wider compassion and of the elimination of selfness. Whatever
my age, whatever my station in life, I cannot afford to lose any time
in following this course, both for my own welfare and for that of
others, both for this life and for the future states of existence.*

Anonymous.
Adapted for this compilation.

254 The Techniques

Meditation on Forgiveness

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"

Concentrate on what forgiveness means, both the need for For-
giveness and the need to Forgive. The one seems to be dependent on
the other.

Try to think of all those whom you need to forgive because of
what they have done to you. Think concretely of them— of those
who have unjustly accused you and hurt you; of those who have
justly hurt you because of something you did; of those who in your
past have unwittingly done you harm, even perhaps your parents
and those who loved you. Take all these persons into the presence of
God and love them, try to understand them and why they did what
they did. Try to keep them in mind until all hurt and prejudice is
gone, at least for an instant.

Then think of all those who need to forgive you— of all the
"sins" which you have committed against people, all those you have
hurt, either consciously or unconsciously. Try to imagine how hard
it is for them to love you, even as it is hard for you to love them.
Stay in an attitude of humility in their presence as you hold them
before the presence of God.

Remember all the "evil" and "sin" of an impersonal nature of
which you are a part. Think of the suffering in the world, the in-
justice, the people that are deprived of even the necessities of life
because of the kind of world in which we live, and to which you,
in your present unillumined state, give your assent, by just being part
of it

Think of the suffering that you and others have had to undergo
because of being a part of such a world as ours — that is, not what
you have done but what has been done to you and others.

You realize then that both personally and impersonally you are
a victim often of wrong, and that you also inflict suffering on others.
Forgiveness must be the total act of turning to God, whose presence
you are able to sense again once you have gotten through these hurts
and wrong dealings. Having Forgiven and having asked Forgiveness,
you can now feel that God is Here, holding nothing against you,
as you hold nothing against anyone. His forgiveness of you, with

Prayer and Meditation 255

all your sinning and erring, becomes real because you have forgiven.
Love becomes real, the center of all, when you are able to love
through all difficulties, and to be loved. Then you know that God is
always there, with His great Forgiveness blocked only when you are
blocked.

Anonymous. Written for this compilation.

Meditation on "God is Love"

Start with a few moments of unreflective quiet, trying to quiet
the mind from all the things that have been occupying attention, and
to get away from the immediate distractions.

God is Love. Think of all the manifestations in the world of
Love: the people whom you know and love, the examples of real
love about which you have read, the situations between groups, or,
on a larger scale, between different peoples where there has been
some measure of mutual regard (i.e. where people of different
nations at war have been able to transcend these differences and
come together, as in China and Japan with certain student Christian
groups.) Put all the content possible into what this must mean.
Think of the difficulties involved. Think of the demands, the extent,
— the transforming power of love.

Next, think on the negative side as to what stops love— what
are the blocks in people — the selfishness, the greed, the desire to
dominate, the fear and hatred. Think of instances of these.

Realize that there are two contrasting ways working in the Uni-
verse, each with tremendous results:

Concentrate, then, on your own life. Think first of the negative
aspects, the contribution you are not making to your own life and to
society by not being loving, by being closed and self-centered. Look
at this Darkness in yourself, until you want to run away from it.
Seek to understand it.

Finally, concentrate on the Positive — think of any instances,
however small, when you have acted on the Positive Principle —
remember how it felt, what were the effects of it. What would be
the effects if you were able to be that way all the time. Determine
by a conscious re-affirmed attitude that you will keep the Good Way

256 The Techniques

before you at all times — attempting to give yourself to it. Realize
that you are dealing with the most dynamic, the strongest thing in
the world — the Love that is God, which works through people,
which can work through you, and which you resist because 'it
means giving up self-centeredness. Realize that it will doubtless take
you a long time to come to the point of giving up the "false" self,
even half-heartedly— but that at least you determine to start. You
resolve to give sufficient time and energy to whatever methods will
assist the unconscious as well as the conscious mind gradually to
yield up their store of egocentric patterns.

Affirm God as Love within you. Let yourself be permeated with
that love.

Anonymous. Written for this compilation.

A Buddhist Discursive Meditation

The meditations of the Four Divine States are important and
thoroughly suitable for Western students.

1. Metta means Love in the sense of benevolence or loving-
kindness.

2. Karuna 10 is compassion, or pity for all suffering.

3. Mudita10 is joyous sympathy with the happiness of other
beings.

4. Uppekkha 10 is equal mindedness, i.e. a state of serenity or in-
difference to joy or sorrow.

Metta

Metta: Before concentrating upon Love it is well to consider the evil
of hate and of the actions inspired by enmity and to reflect upon the
advantages of forbearance. "And it is with the object of separating
the heart from enmity — the evil of which is discerned, and of unit-
ing the heart with forbearance— the advantage of which is discerned,
that the exercise of Love is to be begun."

It is necessary to realize that all beings desire happiness, and to
begin by wishing happiness for one's self; for no distinction should

10 For instruction on this meditation the reader is referred to Miss Lounsbery's book.

Prayer and Meditation 257

be made between one's self and other beings and moreover one can-
not radiate love and happiness unless one possesses them.

Metta Sutta

The Metta Sutta is so beautiful that it would be well to memorize
it before studying the meditation formula.

Metta Sutta: This is what should be accomplished by the man who
is wise, who seeks the good and has obtained peace: —

Let him be strenuous, upright, and sincere, without pride, (easily)
contented and joyous; let him not be submerged by the things of
the world; let him not take upon himself the burden of riches; let
his senses be controlled; let him be wise but not puffed up, and let
him not desire great possessions (even) for his family. Let him
do nothing that is mean, or that the wise would reprove.

May all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety.
All living beings, whether weak or strong, in his, or middle, or low
realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far,
born, or to be born, may all beings be happy.

Let no one deceive another, nor despise any being in any state;
let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another. Even as a mother
at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so
with a boundless mind n should one cherish all living things, sufius-
ing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around without
limit; so let him cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole
world. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all his
waking hours let him cherish the thought that this way of living is
best in the world. Abandoning vain discussions, having a clear vision,
freed from sense appetites, he who is made perfect will never again
know rebirth.

Long Meditation Formula

Metta: Begin by saying: i. "A long breath I breathe in" — 10 times;
then, "A long breath I breathe out" — 10 times. 2. "A short breath I

11 Free from discrimination between one's self and others.

258 The Techniques

breathe in" — 10 times; then, "A short breath I breathe out" — 10 times.
3. Let the breath regulate itself according to a rhythm which is
natural and easy. Simply observe the breath as it comes and goes,
thinking of nothing else.

Before beginning to practise this longer meditation, it is necessary
to choose three persons to whom one will send thoughts of loving
good will. These three persons should be living, and no one of them
should tend to awaken passionate desire or lust.

Choose then: i. A person who is very dear. 2. A person who in-
spires only indifference. 3. A person who is an adversary or an enemy.

Having these three persons clearly in mind, having recited Ti
Sarana and practised the breathing exercises, begin by awakening
thoughts of love for one's self. This makes four persons who should
be considered as equally dear.

A. One's Self: May I be happy, may I preserve my happiness and
live without enmity. My heart is full of loving-kindness.

B. To one who is dear: I am sending loving thoughts to X, may
he (or she) be happy, may he preserve his happiness, may he live
without enmity. Continue to surround and to bathe this person with
pure, benevolent, loving thoughts.

C. To the indifferent person: (Repeat formula of B).

D. To the adversary: This person (X) has been unkind, un-
friendly, or harmful to me. May I free myself of enmity toward him,
may I free myself from anger. May I wish him no hurt or harm, may
he be happy, may he preserve his happiness, may he live without
enmity.

Do not fight, but refuse to harbour the disturbing feelings of re-
sentment that the thought of an enemy may awaken.

For a few seconds say: I am filled with good will, I am nothing
but good will. Or: I am making a thought of hatred to cease in the
universe and so diminishing the force of hatred.

When calm, think again of this person, his good qualities, think
of the suffering he is creating for himself (through bad Karma) by
his wrong actions. So, arousing compassion in the heart, try again to
send out thoughts of loving-kindness toward him.

Prayer and Meditation 259

"And now that he (the meditator) is again and again sending out
love to four classes of persons— to himself, to the dear person, to the
indifferent, and to the hostile— he should bring about a breaking
down of frontiers." 12

Try to make no difference, no distinction between one's self, the
person dear, the indifferent person, and the adversary. Envelop them
all in thoughts of love and goodwill as if they were one person.

Break down the boundaries between them by encircling them
with love; try to create a composite image, superimposing one face
upon the other, and to make no distinction between one's self and
others.

One will become conscious of nothing but love when the barriers
of personality are down— only a thought of love identified with the
love-consciousness will exist; continue to practise and develop this
state of mind.

MettaBhavana

Developing or expanding the love formula,13 send thoughts of
love to the place one inhabits, the house, the country, and the con-
tinent.

Let the mind run over these divisions pouring down thoughts of
love, suffusing them with love, as one would a person who is dear.

By Quarters: Imagine the globe divided into four quarters:
East, West, North, South. Take each quarter in turn and imagine
each as being dear. Pour down upon it thoughts of good will and of
loving-kindness, as upon a person who is dear. If it is of any help,
imagine some fellow-being living among the inhabitants of these
quarters. Or imagine that one is in the midst of these people, while
thinking of each quarter in turn. So continue to suffuse one quarter
of the globe with thoughts accompanied by love. Again expand and
develop the field of meditation to cover the Universe.*-**

Grace Constant Lounsbery, President of Les Amis DuBouddhisme (Paris).

Buddhist Meditation.

12 "The breaking down of the barriers (when love toward each and all is equal) gives
rise to the love image and to ecstasy."

13 "Beginners should not tire themselves by pursuing the meditation any further, but as
soon as sufficient training has been acquired the love formula is applied to the four quarters
of the globe,"

260 The Techniques

The Use of the Holy Sentence

Some modern teachers believe in the use of the holy sentence.
At times the aspirant will find that his mind lingers naturally over
one word or sentence, and that his consciousness seems to be per-
meated with its meaning, to the exclusion of other thoughts. As he
meditates, the actual words seem to fade, and he finds himself
plunged straight into their meaning, apprehending truth directly,
in a new mode.

Holy sentences, like symbols, get past the conscious into the sub-
conscious mind; like symbols, they are full of pious associations,
powerful, evocative. Round it, as time goes on, clusters the mystic's
religious experience. The Hindu's initiation formula, the Christian's
text, can express the particular aspect of divine truth with which he
has most affinity and on which he may most profitably meditate.

Aelfrida Tillyard, English lecturer, writer.
Spiritual Exercises and their Results.

Examples of "Sentences" for Meditation 14

"And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me
with all your heart."

Jeremiah.

"Let nothing be great unto thee, nothing high, nothing pleasing,
nothing acceptable, except it be simply God, or cometh of God."

Thomas a Kempis,

"Lead me from the unreal to the real! Lead me from darkness to
light! Lead me from death to Immortality."

The Upanishads.

"Let the good be; it is my one desire, and if the change in me,
needed to make it actual, lead to my elimination, it is well, indeed it
is so much better— for what is base has been permitted to purchase
excellence."

Anonymous.

14 The reader can select his own "sentences" for meditation from other material in this
anthology which may have special meaning for him. The Appendix, presenting various ideas
of God, should yield richly for this purpose. Material typical of both the negative and the
positive emphases in discursive prayer is also available, See Chapt II; III (Suffering),

Prayer and Meditation 261

". . . and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold
all that he had and bought it."

Jesus of Nazareth.

"No man is free until he is free at the center. When he lets go
there he is free indeed."

E. Stanley Jones.

"Give up what thou hast and then thou wilt receive."

From the Greek Mysteries.

"One must be able to strip oneself of all self-deception."

Frances G. Wickes.

"Meekness in itself is nought else but a true knowing and feeling
of man's self as he is."

The Cloud of Unknowing.

"Give me the patience to accept those things which cannot be
changed, the courage to change those things which can be changed,
and the wisdom to know the difference."

Source Unknown.

"True education can only proceed from naked reality, not from
any ideal illusion about man however attractive."

Carl Jung.

"Ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are
full of hypocrisy and iniquity."

Jesus of Nazareth.

"One must go into the darkness for that is where God is."

Alfred Romer.

"There is nothing covered up that shall not be revealed: and hid,
that shall not be known."

Jesus of Nazareth.

"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty."

John Keats.

"True self-revaluation has always as its counterpart a growth in
the knowledge of God."

Edward Leen.

262 The Techniques

"Do you know that you are God's temple and God's spirit makes
its home in you? If anyone destroys the temple God will destroy
him. For the temple of God is sacred and that is what you are."

Saint Paul.

"God is creative power, immanent in the Soul."
"God is Mind Essence, the all-inclusive Whole, containing all
things in potentiality."

"God is the binding element in the world."

"God is creative energy, the spring of all renewal."

"God is Truth, Goodness and Beauty."

Unknown.

"God is Love."

Jesus.

"I am the Light of the World. He that followeth me shall in no
case walk in darkness, but shall have the light of Life."

Jesus Christ

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine
own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall
direct thy paths."

Proverbs.

"In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

Isaiah.

"Wherever the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

Saint Paul.

"Creative Patience,

Who has set thyself to wait,
. While law achieves thy purposes,

And knows no soon nor late,

Shed thy still mood of timelessness

On us who watch with thee;

School us in love that we may share

Thy creativity."

Harriet Nugent

Prayer and Meditation 263

"Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart

are thy ways.

Who going through the vale of misery useth it for a well;
and the pools are filled with water."

Psalm 84.

"They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength,
They shall mount on wings, like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary
They shall walk and not faint."

Isaiah.

"My God, may all thy most holy intentions be accomplished in
me; — may they be accomplished because, while infinitely just in
themselves, they are also infinitely advantageous for me."

Pere de Caussadc.

"If ever, my God, it should happen through ignorance and
passion that I persist in desires contrary to thine, may I be dis-
appointed and punished, not by thy justice, but by thy pity and
great mercy."

Pere de Caussade.

"Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of thee; Thou only
knowest what I need; Thou lovest me better than I know how to
love myself. O father, give to Thy child that which he himself knows
not how to ask. I dare not ask either for crosses or for consolations;
I simply present myself before thee, I open my heart to Thee. Behold
my needs which I know not myself; see and do according to Thy
tender mercy. Smite, or heal; depress me, or raise me up; I adore all
Thy purposes without knowing them; I am silent; I offer myself in
sacrifice; I yield myself to Thee; I would have no other desire than
to accomplish Thy Will. Teach me to pray. Pray Thyself in me.
Amen."

Frangois de Fenelon.

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not
love I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."

Saint Paul.

264 The Techniques

"Love rejoiceth with the Truth."

Saint Paul.

"And whenever you stand up to pray, if you have a grievance
against anyone, forgive him."

Jesus of Nazareth.

"Every event is a creative opportunity, every contact is an in-
sight, a revelation."

Anonymous.

"This one commandment I leave unto you that ye love one
another."

Jesus of Nazareth.

The Use of One Word

And therefore, when thou purposest thee to this work, and
feelest by grace that thou art called by God, lift up thine heart unto
God with a meek stirring of love. And mean that God made thee,
and bought thee, and that graciously hath called thee to thy
degree: and receive none other thought of God. And yet not all
these, except thou desirest; for a naked intent directed unto God,
without any other cause than himself, sufficeth wholly.

And if thou desirest to have this intent lapped and folden in one
word, so that thou mayest have better hold thereupon, take thee but
a little word of one syllable, for so it is better than of two; for the
shorter the word, the better it accordeth with the work of the spirit.
And such a word is this word God or this word Love. Choose which-
ever thou wilt, or another: whatever word thou likest best of one
syllable. And fasten this word to thine heart, so that it may never
go thence for anything that befalleth.

This word shall be thy shield and thy spear, whether thou ridest
on peace or on war. With this word, thou shalt beat on this cloud
and this darkness above thee. With this word, thou shalt smite down
all manner of thought under the cloud of forgetting. Insomuch, that
if any thought press upon thee to ask thee what thou wouldst have,
answer with no more words but with this one word. And if he offer
of his great learning to expound to thee that word and to tell thee
the conditions of that word, say to him that thou wilt have it all

Prayer and Meditation 265

whole, and not broken nor undone. And if thou wilt hold fast to
this purpose, be thou sure that that thought will no while bide. And
why? Surely because thou wilt not let him feed himself on such
sweet meditations of God touched before.

An unknown English mystic of the fourteenth century.
The Cloud of Unknowing.

Meditation on "Beauty"

Beauty arises when the parts of a whole are related to one another
and to the totality in a manner which we apprehend as orderly and
significant. But the first principle of order is God, and God is the
final, deepest meaning of all that exists. God, then, is manifest in
the relationship which makes things beautiful. He resides in that
lovely interval which harmonizes events on all the planes, where we
discover beauty. We apprehend Him in the alternate voids and full-
nesses of a cathedral; in the spaces that separate the salient features
of a picture; in the living geometry of a flower, a sea shell, an
animal; in the pauses and intervals between the notes of music, in
their differences of tone and sonority; and finally, on the plane of
conduct, in the love and gentleness, the confidence and humility,
which give beauty to the relationships between human beings.

Such then, is God's beauty, as we apprehend it in the sphere of
created things. But it is also possible for us to apprehend it, in some
measure at least, as it is in itself. The beatific vision of divine beauty
is the knowledge, so to say, of Pure Interval, of harmonious relation-
ship apart from the things related. A material figure of beauty-in-
itself is the cloudless evening sky, which we find inexpressibly lovely,
although it possesses no orderliness of arrangement, since there are
no distinguishable parts to be harmonized. We find it beautiful
because it is an emblem of the infinite Clear Light of the Void. To
the knowledge of this Pure Interval we shall come only when we
have learnt to mortify attachment to creatures, above all to our-
selves.

Moral ugliness arises when self-assertion spoils the harmonious
relationship which should exist between sentient beings. Analogously,
aesthetic and intellectual ugliness arise when one part in a whole is

266 The Techniques

excessive or deficient. Order is marred, meaning distorted and, for
the right, the divine relation between things or thoughts, there is
substituted a wrong relation— a relationship that manifests sym-
bolically, not the immanent and transcendent source of all beauty,
but that chaotic disorderliness which characterizes creatures when
they try to live independently of God.

Aldous Huxley.

Meditation on "Holiness"

Whole, hale, holy — the three words derive from the same root.
By etymology no less than in fact holiness is spiritual health, and
health is wholeness, completeness, perfection. God's holiness is the
same as His unity; and a man is holy to the extent to which he has
become single-minded, one-pointed, perfect as our Father in heaven
is perfect.

Because each of us possesses only one body, we tend to believe that
we are one being. But in reality our name is Legion. In our un-
regenerate condition we are divided beings, half-hearted and double-
minded, creatures of many moods and multiple personalities. And
not only are we divided against our unregenerate selves; we are also
incomplete. As well as our multitudinous soul, we possess a spirit
that is of like substance with the universal spirit. Potentially (for
in his normal condition he does not know who he is) man is much
more than the personality he takes himself to be. He cannot achieve
his wholeness unless and until he realizes his true nature, discovers
and liberates the spirit within his soul and so unites himself with
God.

Unholiness arises when we give consent to any rebellion or self-
assertion by any part of our being against that totality which it is
possible for us to become through union with God. For example,
there is the unholiness of indulged sensuality, of unchecked avarice,
envy and anger, of the wantonness of pride and worldly ambition.
Even the negative sensuality of ill health may constitute unholiness,
if the mind be permitted to dwell upon the sufferings of its body
more than is absolutely necessary or unavoidable. And on the plane
of the intellect there is the imbecile unholiness of distractions^ and

Prayer and Meditation 267

the busy, purposeful unholiness of curiosity about matters concern-
ing which we are powerless to act in any constructive or remedial
way.

From our natural state of incompleteness to spiritual health and
perfection there is no magically easy short cut. The way to holiness
is laborious and long. It lies through vigilance and prayer, through an
unresting guard of the heart, the mind, the will and the tongue, and
through the one-pointed loving attention to God, which that guard
alone makes possible.

Aldous Huxley.

Meditation on "Grace"

Graces are the free gifts of help bestowed by God upon each one
of us, in order that we may be assisted to achieve our final end and
purpose, namely, unitive knowledge of divine reality. Such helps are
very seldom so extraordinary that we are immediately aware of their
true nature as God-sends. In the overwhelming majority of cases they
are so inconspicuously woven into the texture of common life, that
we do not know that they are graces, unless and until we respond
to them as we ought, and so receive the material, moral or spiritual
benefits which they were meant to bring us. If we do not respond
to these ordinary graces as we ought, we shall receive no benefit and
remain unaware of their nature or even of their very existence. Grace
is always sufficient, provided we are ready to co-operate with it. If
we fail to do our share, but rather choose to rely on self-will and
self-direction, we shall not only get no help from the graces bestowed
upon us; we shall actually make it impossible for further graces to
be given. When used with an obstinate consistency, self-will creates
a private universe walled off impenetrably from the light of spiritual
reality; and within these private universes the self-willed go their
way, unhelped and unillumined, from accident to random accident,
or from calculated evil to calculated evil. It is of such that St.
Francis de Sales is speaking when he says, "God did not deprive
thee of the operation of his love, but thou didst deprive His love of
thy co-operation. God would never have rejected thee, if thou hadst
not rejected Him."

268 The Techniques

To be clearly and constantly aware of the divine guidance is given
only to those who are already far advanced in the life of the spirit.
In its earlier stages we have to work, not by the direct perception of
God's successive graces, but by faith in their existence. We have to
accept as a working hypothesis that the events of our lives are not
merely fortuitous, but deliberate tests of intelligence and character,
specially devised occasions (if properly used) for spiritual advance.
Acting upon this working hypothesis, we shall treat no occurrence
as intrinsically unimportant. We shall never make a response that is
inconsiderate, or a mere automatic expression of our self-will, but
always give ourselves time, before acting or speaking, to consider
what course of behaviour would seem to be most in accord with the
will of God, most charitable, most conducive to the achievement of
our final end. When such becomes our habitual response to events,
we shall discover, from the nature of their effects, that some at least
of those occurrences were divine graces in the disguise sometimes of
trivialities, sometimes of inconveniences or even of pains and trials.
But if we fail to act upon the working hypothesis that grace exists,
grace will in effect be non-existent so far as we are concerned. We
shall prove by a life of accident at the best, or, at the worst, of
downright evil, that God does not help human beings, unless they
first permit themselves to be helped.

Aldous Huxley, 1894-. English novelist, poet, literary critic.

Meditation Based on Three Levels of Personality

Meditation is to help me to "live under the aspect of Eternity" by
cleansing my consciousness from the mistaken sense of Life as in-
cluded within time and of Self in separateness.

I am convinced that the realization and enjoyment of Life in-
volves the loss of life in the egocentric conception of it. The more
completely self-will can draw into consciousness all the implications
of personality of which it is the center, and the more completely it
can relinquish self and them, the more nearly empty and open is
consciousness for the flooding of a realization of the Unity that
transcends personality.

As I breathe deeply and quietly, therefore, I inhale to the thought

Prayer and Meditation 269

"I" with a widening inclusiveness of that self-concept, and exhale to
the thought "am," yielding the self to the boundlessness of true
existence.

I draw into the individuation of my "I" my vegetative level— all
the unconscious functioning that makes for assimilation and nourish-
ing. I realize that in "my" chemistry I am akin to earth and water;
I recognize my kinship with flowers and grass and trees, with brooks
and lakes and rivers, and I feel their rhythms flow through me with
peace and power, as I yield my sense of them-in-separateness to the
Unity which is their underlying reality.

I draw into my widening sense of self my circulation-level, the
blood, with all that implies of emotion and passion and creative
power. I feel my kinship with animals and man, man of all races
and colors, man with his untamed impulses and instincts; all that
surges through the darkness of the unconscious I recognize as part
of my inheritance. I acknowledge it and accept responsibility for it
and outbreathe it into the "allness" where it can function creatively
and unrestrictedly.

I recognize my respiratory level as the one that links the conscious
and unconscious in personality, and I use it, in quiet breathing, to
reconcile the two. Breath is like the wind that "bloweth where it
listeth," we "know not whence it cometh or whither it goeth." It
symbolizes the spirit which broodeth over the face of the dark
mysterious waters. I feel the kinship of my quiet breath with the
breath of Life which God breathed into man's nostrils. God's breath
fans me and winnows me, and hastens the relinquishing of what I
hold pent within my sense of separateness.

"I" am standing at my mental level as I draw level after level of
personality into my thought. The mental is the role in which I con-
ceive my "I." It must kneel in contrition for the arrogance of its
denial of the more basic levels, and for its proud assurance of my
personality's greatest mistake: its sense of itself as an isolated identity.
I link myself lovingly with other lonely consciousnesses, feeling my
oneness with them and outbreathing them with mine, yielding our
ignorance to the all-knowing, our impotence and futility to the all-
powerful, our little partialness to the great Whole.

270 The Techniques

My self-will and self-consciousness expand thus, through the
widening sense of kinship, outward toward the limits of separateness ;
but it is still only "kinship" not "Unity" that self-consciousness can
conceive. With all the completeness possible I now empty myself of
myself and wait— dark and empty, and silent— waiting if per-
adventure I may be filled, irradiated, orchestrated by that which in
its Infinity and Eternity transcends personality.

Ruth Raymond, contemporary American, Art educator.
Written for this compilation.

Meditation to Recall Reality

Recall the Need

At those times when it is difficult to concentrate or when there is
a feeling of revulsion toward meditation it is advisable to call to
mind one's present need for illumination (one's failures, lack of
insight, ineffective action, etc.) . Although negative realization is not
a place in which to stay, it can rightly stir zeal and form a spring-
board for concentration on the positive. It should not stop with one-
self but be expanded to a realization of the need of one's immediate
associates, of one's community, of the nation, and on to include the
whole of mankind. Consider the close relation between personal
lacks and needs and the injustices in the world. See them as a
projection of one's own distorted, unfree self and consider that, as a
prerequisite to changing the world, one must first be changed oneself.
Genuine humility can be achieved through such consideration, and
a deep desire for the discipline of prayer can be thus awakened.

Recall Value

Turning to the positive one affirms faith :

In the power of God, its availability, its transforming efficiency.

In the activity of God, His initiative toward all mankind.

In meditation as one of the means whereby the conscious and the
unconscious self become increasingly controlled by God.

Recall Reality

A. Concentrate on God Without, on God throughout the Uni-
verse. This consideration will vary according to what God means

Prayer and Meditation 271

to each person. For some it may mean "the supreme and unknown
Good"— or the "Other Mind— the Creator*" For others it may mean
"the all inclusive whole containing all things in potentiality." Let
God Without be recalled with great and growing vividness. It is
well to remember that one's present extremely limited vision of
Reality can only be extended by the courageous willingness to let it
all go— willingness to see it superseded and even nullified if need be
by what may appear that is closer to actual Reality. This involves a
faith in there being an infinitely larger Universe than one has yet
glimpsed.

B. Concentrate on God Within^ Explore the meaning of these
three statements:

"God is Existence."

"God is Knowledge."

"God is Bliss." (Or Joy.) (Beyond pleasure or pain, success or
failure, et cetera^

Then— "God is the One containing all three." (Perhaps best
symbolized by Light Within — see Symbols — page 228.)

At first this particular trinity of meaning may not appeal to the
Westerner, but it is worthy of one's experiment. It effectively shifts
the emphasis from self to God. (God Within is considered by many
the real Self as distinguished from the false self.) It helps one
realize: "I am not existence — God is Existence. This, that, or myself
is not Knowledge — God is Knowledge. This or that is not Bliss —
God is Bliss." To some people this realization brings a sense of great
relief as well as a transforming experience of the nearness and the
availability of God. These simple sentences are capable of infinite
expansion in meaning.

Anonymous. Written for this compilation.

Meditation on Freedom

Give freedom to the ones who dwell close to your heart, not by
separating yourself from them, trying to draw apart, for that often

15 Both Christian and Hindu teachers recommend that one think o£ God as within, as
in the heart.

16 See Exercise in Resignation.

272 The Techniques

holds them in closer bonds. Give freedom in every thought, give love,
overflowing love — with no restriction in your mind, no question of
any kind. As you fully let go, each one will swing into his own
accepted place.

Nothing relinquished is lost; everything finds its true balance, its
equilibrium, in God. Leave each soul loose and free in your mind
to swing into universal Life — a creative being in God, alone, at one
with God.

Be not held by false illusions of your worth. Pride and self-
condemnation walk side by side. Rid yourself of all condemnation,
and give freedom to the ones you felt called upon to please.

Rejoice over the falling leaves of self — you will be light and free
indeed when all sense of ownership is gone forever.

Realize that each soul is related to you. When you recognize that
everyone is part of you, you will find that you cannot withdraw from
another. Open your soul to the sun; you know how to loosen every
knot, release every cord, and leave everyone free.

No one comes to you by chance. Give of your bread to all who
would approach— then give them space, quietude, love.

Love gives; love never withdraws. Love warms and frees the will
of man, so he may receive his own inheritance and make his own
decisions.

Elise Morgan, American writer,
Your Own Path.

Intercessory Prayer

Intercession is a great and necessary part of Christian Devotion.
The first followers of Christ seem to support all their love, and to
maintain all their intercourse and correspondence, by mutual prayers
for one another. This was the ancient friendship of Christians, unit-
ing and cementing their hearts.

A frequent intercession with God, earnestly beseeching him to
forgive the sins of all mankind, to bless them with his providence,
enlighten them with his Spirit, and bring them to everlasting
happiness, is the divinest exercise that the heart of man can be
engaged in. Be daily therefore on your knees, in a solemn, deliberate

Prayer and Meditation 273

performance of this devotion, and you will find all little, ill-natured
passions die away, your heart grow great and generous, delighting
in the common happiness of others, as you used only to delight in
your own. This is the natural effect of a general intercession for all
mankind.

Though we are to treat all mankind as neighbours and brethren,
as any occasion offers; yet as we can only live in the actual society
of a few, therefore you should always change and alter your interces-
sions, according as the needs and necessities of your neighbours or
acquaintance seem to require; such intercessions, besides the great
charity of them, would have a mighty effect upon your own heart for
there £* nothing that ma\es us love a man so much, as fraying for
him. That will give you a better and sweeter behaviour than any-
thing that is called fine breeding and good manners.*

William Law, 1686—1761, English, clergyman, mystic.
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life,

Meditation on the Interdependence of Mankind

The community of need and interdependence is not a dream; it
is not a hope; it is an actual fact however undiscerned by the in-
stitutionalized mind. In the hour of his forsakenness the prophet can
sink into the folds of this great fellowship and be comforted. By
means of it he can leap over the barriers of enmity that separate him
from his fellows and hold with them a great friendliness even while
they destroy him. For this great fellowship of common need and
interdependence, we repeat, is not merely a dream or a hope. It is a
present, existing actuality, however hidden from eyes that see not.

One of the great functions of religious worship, both public and
private, is to enable a man to grope his way into this community that
underlies the mores. Discernment of this community and adaptation
to its requirements is one of the chief parts of the practice of religion.
The great brotherhood which some religions have fostered, when it
is not mere sentimentality, involves some discernment of this inter-
dependence which is so deeply hidden from the custom-bound
mind.

Turn away from all other things and contemplate the fact of this

274 The Techniques

unexplored interdependence of men with all its possibilities, which
is God.

Strive to attain some deeper insight into this great fact of human
interdependence and fellowship wherein God is revealed.

"Ponder in your heart" the social experiences you have had with
a view to finding those deeper meanings and integrating objectives
which bind men together but which have not yet come into the full
light of social recognition. Searchingly examine your own habits and
attitudes to discover what hinders you from serving more fruitfully
this sacred community.

Formulate as clearly as possible those personal attitudes which
are required to connect you creatively with your fellows to the end
of reconstructing the established system to meet the needs of human
interdependence.

Establish that attitude of mind in which you will be constantly
searching through all your associations with others for more com-
plete mutual understanding and cooperation with them, quick to
catch every hint that shows the way to better understanding, sensitive
to every sign that tells you you have missed the way, patient and
long suffering before every rebuff, with a meekness which cannot be
humiliated nor angered because it has laid hold on a bond which
cannot be broken and which lifts you above the petty pride that is
subject to humiliation and anger.

Establish this questioning attitude by some such words as these,
repeated many times, "I enter into deep organic creative community
with all mankind."*

Henry Nelson Wieman, 1884-. American philosopher.
Methods of Private Religious Living.

Meditation on the Unifying Life

The first contemplation must be of the unifying life to which
the individual belongs and into which he may be delivered by push-
ing through and beyond his individualistic arbitrary frontiers. He
should realize by mental concentration the state of being which (in
contra-distinction from the natural state of the individual — activated

Prayer and Meditation 275

by greed, fear and resentment) is manifested by three phases of en-
larged consciousness, which phases neutralize those intense aspects of
individuality and so make its resolving possible. The first is creative-
ness, so that the power to make may cancel and cut off at its source
the need to accumulate. The next is understanding— the realization
of the life ahead, the realization that individuality is a phase to be
transcended: this knowledge cuts the root of fear which is grounded
in anxiety that the individual self, the only reality, may not be pre-
served. The third phase of the enlarged consciousness is compassion,
the insight to see, in the other individuals who attack one's own in-
dividuality, the blind struggle which went on in oneself— because the
individual is striving to live and yet shrinking from birth: the insight
to see that such individuals and oneself can only be delivered when
their claims are both met and explained to them: the insight to see
that in their struggle the process of one's own salvation is not only
recapitulated but is actually being worked out; for without them, as
enlightened beings, one's own extra-individuality cannot be com-
pleted.

It should be clear that in this exercise the drive and trend is not
to thwart and deny the individuality in oneself but to make it realize
that the life which it so passionately desires, and fears may be taken
from it, will be won if only it can find its path out of its self-defeating
entanglement — an entanglement arising from ignorance of its real
nature. These positive aims, of creativeness, understanding, and
compassion aim at healing individuality by growth into its next
stage, by expansion, not by extirpation. Left as it is, it can only press
with increasing misery and inflammation against limits which it
imagines are imposed from without, but which in reality are due
to a blind hypertrophy, a refusal to realize the radical expansion of
development which is its true line of vital advance.

When the contemplation has reached this preliminary lucidity,
a next stage is to take up into the mind examples, those occasions of
other individuals' failure, treating such — as when in this condition
one can — as one's own failure. Then, translating all such egotisms
and violences as failure to realize the process of the evolution of

276 The Techniques

consciousness, it is possible to see them as desperate efforts of a
drowning man who, though sinking lower and even dragging down
those who swim to his rescue, has no wish but to be on land and who
would swim with all his might, did he but know the art. We must,
then, never say: "I cannot understand such behaviour." Our task
of enlightenment is to be able to analyse and translate all human
conduct. Nor is Baxter's 'There, but for the grace of God, go I" any-
thing but a very rudimentary attitude. It is only the noblest reaction
of the anthropomorphic ethic. The new ethic says rather: "There at
this moment go I." It sees all life (wronged and wronger) as a nature
tragically divided against itself, and it realizes that only the heart
which dares to endure the pain of understanding and feeling for both
sides is the heart which is already creating the new creature which
can embrace and reconcile both.

So, in contemplating, the practician broadens his sympathy until
there is no failure or cowardice, no betrayal and no treason that he
cannot understand. When he can conceive how natural it is for in-
dividuals to fall to such depths, then he realizes how desperate is the
case of individuality. He himself is driven with a double urge
towards illumination — to escape such degradation but also to make
it possible for his fellow, who is caught in that particular trap and so
degraded, to be extricated.

When, then, we have refreshed our understanding of the process,
we can turn and contemplate that transmuting delivering life.

The body is quiet and at rest— ready to reflect and not distract
the spirit's apprehension. The personality is relaxed and loosened —
its hard harness of character-habit is unbuckled and movements of
consciousness, which the restricted, professional, customary life does
not permit, are possible. The spirit stretches and, day by day, as it
does these exercises, finds its touch and even its grasp is gradually
extending. This is real evolutionary growth. Many details practical
authorities and advanced pioneers have added, add, and will add, to
this rudimentary outline and skeleton of praxis. He who knows
and goes to the limit of his knowing, will grow and, growing, will
know how much further he may see and go.*

Anonymous.

Prayer and Meditation 277

BRIEF INSTRUCTION FOR AFFECTIVE PRAYER 1T

Our natural dispositions and mode of life have an influence upon
the nature of our prayer. We shall not be surprised, therefore, to find
that one person should have passed on at once to affective prayer, hav-
ing had hardly any acquaintance with the prayer of meditation, and
that another should have arrived at certain other degrees without
having first gone through all those that were intermediary.

In order to facilitate the practice of affective prayer, it is as well
to do as St. Ignatius did, and to take as subjects for prayer not the
abstract virtues, but the historic facts that teach these virtues. When
we meditate on any Mystery of Our Lord's life, it is easy to make
the affections predominate by testifying our respect, love, gratitude
or compassion to Our Saviour or His Blessed Mother and holding
"colloquies" with them.

We can also establish a certain order in the sentiments that we
try to excite. To produce affections is really to make interior acts of
certain virtues; we shall therefore draw up a list of virtues appropriate
to our needs. We begin, for instance, by acts of faith, hope, or charity
towards God and our neighbor. We then go on to resignation, zeal,
love of regularity, etc.] or the four ends of the holy sacrifice of the
Mass : adoration, thanksgiving, petitions for pardon and for graces.

If we compare it with prayer in which the considerations pre-
dominate, we see that it is usually superior; for, all other things being
equal, its effect upon the conduct is greater.

The difficulty arising in the practice of the virtues proceeds, as a
rule, less from a want of knowledge than from a lack of faith, hope,
or love. The will is weak; we must begin, therefore, by arousing its
activity.

And then the virtues are acquired by a repetition of their acts
rather than by reflections; and, finally, these acts are more meritorious
than those of the understanding.

In this kind of prayer we not only throw off the inertia of the

17 Unlike discursive meditation wherein "careful attention is necessary to direct the
understanding to consideration of divine Realities,*' affective prayer moves the will more
spontaneously toward God in adoration, humiliation, renunciation, contrition and com-
mitment. (Editors)

278 The Techniques

will, but we dwell on certain sentiments and develop them. Now,
present-day psychologists have shown the great importance of feelings
from the point of view of action. A mere idea is not usually sufficient
to urge us to action. "Motor-ideas" (ideas-forces) are ideas accom-
panied by one or more feelings*

Union with God, wherein holiness lies, is, above all, a union of the
will. A method in which the acts of the will are more numerous or
more interior, leads most rapidly to the goal, the soul's activity being
less absorbed by the reason.

We must not exaggerate this doctrine, however, by despising the
considerations. For they are indispensable in order to excite the will,
more especially in the case of a soul that is not yet penetrated with a
horror of sin and has not understood that certain virtues, such as
prompt obedience, mortification, meekness, and devotion, are essen-
tial The motives for their practice must be insisted upon. If the acts
of the will are the end, those of the understanding are the means.*

A. Poulain, S.J., 1740-1801. French Jesuit Father.
The Graces of Interior Prayer, Trans. A. Smith.

Exercise in Resignation (Affective Prayer) 18

Whereas all internal affective prayer consisteth either: i. of such
affections as are apt to cause suitable motions in corporal nature; 2. or
of acts of the will, produced by and residing in the superior soul, as
among holy affections the principal is love, the source and mover of
all the rest, so among all immediate acts of the will the most useful
and considerable are those of Resignation or submission to the Divine
will.

As for the exercise of Resignation (which is, indeed, an exercise
of love too, but so as that it regards external difficulties as the occasion
or matter about which such love is expressed), it is an exercise that
deserves to be more particularly treated of.

There is in acts of Resignation far more security and less danger
of propriety or self-interest than in acts of immediate love. Again,
there is in Resignation exercised more directly true mortification and
contradiction to self-love and interest than in any other kind of inter-

18 See Kinds and Degrees, Chap. IV.

Prayer and Meditation 279

nal prayer, and consequently it is a prayer more purifying, and, con-
sidering the daily and hourly use that we have thereof in unavoidable
occurring difficulties, it is of all other the most profitable.

Good Lord, what millions of questions, debates, and perils doth
total Resignation cut off? Total resignation doth tend to simplicity,
doth reject all other things that may hinder or delay the soul from
attaining to that one only necessary good.

Hence it follows that that soul which is resigned both for external
and internal matters is not only freed from perils that may come
from temptations or contradictions, but in a manner from all doubts,
questions, and debates; whereas the unresigned soul is in a state
wherein nothing can satisfy or secure her conscience.

Concerning the matter of objects of Resignation they are: i. such
difficulties as are sure to happen; 2. or only probably; 3. or very un-
likely; 4. or, lastly, altogether impossible. Now in all these Resigna-
tion may be profitably exercised. But the better the more likely that
the things are to happen; and the best and most necessary Resignation
of all is in things sure to befall us, and which belong to our state
especially such against which our nature finds the greatest difficulty.19

Now, having made efficacious and prevalent acts of internal Resig-
nation, if, when the said difficulties do dc facto happen, we do truly
and really accept and embrace them with our superior will (whatso-
ever repugnance we find in our sensitive nature), this will much more
advance the soul in Divine Love, and increase the good habit of
Resignation, than many bare internal acts would do, by which the
soul doth only represent a difficulty in the imagination, resolving
with the will to accept it.

In performing these acts internally, a soul must be very careful to
exercise them with most profound humility, and a distrust of her
own ability to resist any temptation or contradiction, and with an
entire trust and dependence on God's grace, with a firm faith in
Him that He will assist her at all times whensoever He shall bring
such trials upon her.

In the beginning of the exercising this degree of prayer, I con-

19 See Chapter II — Self-knowledge (Pressure and Ego Investigation) and Chapter HI —
Role of Suffering and Crisis.

280 The Techniques

ceive it will be the best course for a soul to single out and make choice
of such acts of resignation as do regard such daily occurring difficul-
ties, to which nature hath less aversion to resign herself, and from
these to ascend afterwards by degrees to matters of more difficulty,
till at last, by God's grace, she be enabled to accept even those things
which nature doth most abhor; for if she should suddenly adventure
upon acts above her present strength and forces of mind she will be
in danger to be dejected, finding that she wants internal courage to
undertake or submit to such difficulties represented to her mind.

When special occasions of actual and real Resignation do not
occur, a soul may make general and indefinite acts of Resignation,
regarding in gross all occasions whatsoever without exception. This
practice of universal Resignation may be begun very timely, and
accordingly continued one's whole life; although, indeed, only per-
fect souls can purely, without reservation, exercise -such acts.

In exercising internally these acts, a soul is not to produce them
overf ast, and quick one upon another, to the hurt and oppression of
the head or spirit, but quietly and leisurely one after another, with
reasonable pausings.

As she may resign to sickness, pain, want, dishonour, etc., so she
may also, for the glory of God, resign herself to health, pleasures,
riches, honour, etc., intending, if God's will be such, to accept of
these also, and to employ them only to His glory, and not to the
satisfaction of corrupt nature, not diminishing but rather increasing
humility and divine love by them. It is the nature of a spiritual life
to make good use both of prosperity and adversity, in all things re-
nouncing all self-seeking, and having an eye only to God; though,
indeed, considering our frailty and inclination to be corrupted by
prosperity, adversity is far more secure and profitable for us, and
therefore such resignations are proper for few souls *

Augustin Baker, 1575-1641. English Benedictine Father.

Holy Wisdom.

Consideration of Death as an Act of Resignation

All things are impermanent, all the constituents of the body are
constantly changing.

Prayer and Meditation 281

Certain cells are dying, others are coming to be; death is ever
present in the body, bound up with life. Death is nothing but the
retreat of consciousness from the body.

Try to be detached from the obsession of clinging to personality.
Do not hold on to that which is illusive, impermanent, and unsatis-
factory.

Be peaceful; life is so short that it is foolish to waste the days, or
to be dominated by greed and grasping. It is well to cultivate pure
thoughts and higher states of consciousness. Pure thoughts and pure
actions are said to ensure rebirth under favourable conditions.

Call to mind the good actions performed in this life and ignore
the mistakes; say to one's self:

"There is nothing in death that should frighten; there is nothing
in life that should hold one back."

Before falling asleep at night send out loving thoughts to all
living beings.

Resolve, when the time comes, to sink peacefully into the sleep of
death, free from all regret and from all desire.

Such indeed is the Buddhist attitude toward death and the faring
on.

Grace Constant Lounsbery, B.SC., President of Les Amis Du Bouddhisme (Paris).

Buddhist Meditation.

Consideration of One's Psychic Abyss as an Act of Resignation

One of the most helpful forms of Aff ective Prayer is that in which
the individual seeks to face his own particular psychic abyss, his
minus 100, the thing that seems worse than death to him since it
represents the elimination of his false self. He should try to feel and
imagine himself as being actually in this worst-of-all situations. He
should seek to visualize what the objective reaction, as contrasted to
the egocentric fear-driven reaction, would be. He should remind him-
self that minus 100 situations are after all very human and general
and that even in these "worst" situations there have been men and
women who have responded in the creative, courageous, serene way
and that the same kind of inner courage and wisdom is available to
him. He should remind himself that it is available if he will but learn

282 The Techniques

to face and understand his own inner fear, thus lessening its hold on
him; and if he will affirm the transforming power of the Spirit
within. It is to the progressive realization of this inner Spirit — this
Real-self — that he must commit himself.

Anonymous.

DIFFICULTIES OF THE BEGINNER

For those of us who have recently begun the practice of religious
exercises, or mental prayer (as distinguished from vocal or traditional
petitionary prayer) the difficulties seem bewilderingly various. Espe-
cially is this so, if the early attempts to meditate have been lightened
by the insight or joy which often strengthens the beginner. These
difficulties can be placed perhaps in two groups— difficulties arising
from outer circumstance, and those springing from one's inner
attitude.

Many simple physical adjustments must be made: — the body
taught to be relaxed, the hour for prayer chosen wisely so that one is
best able to concentrate, the amount and kind of food one eats must be
strictly chosen, not on the old basis of one's likes, but on the new one
of bodily efficiency. One must learn to relax toward the irrelevant
noises which seem to fill one's ears, rather than resist them, which
serves only to make them roar the louder. The exciting activities
and demands of the body, now noticed in the unaccustomed quiet,
are to be forgotten. The actual schedule of the day may have to be
drastically rearranged to make way for this effort, for it is important
to have a margin of time on either side of the hour for meditation
to forestall the feeling of breathless self-importance we carry into
much of our daily activity. For some people it is a problem to find a
solitary, if not a quiet place, where one can be alone or with friends
who are meditating too. These adjustments can be grouped together
as making up some of the difficulties of outer circumstance or
environment.

Harder to banish are the obstacles or difficulties in meditation
which spring from one's inner life. Disheartenment over "the years

20 Also see Part One — Chapter III — Obstacles to Progression.

Prayer and Meditation 283

that went in empty sacrifice to mortal things" fills the wind with
gloom, amounting almost to despair. Everyone, it seems, goes through
this experience. Sometimes, too, it becomes an excuse for not work-
ing harder. Suddenly it is clear, "I'm just making this a side-line, all
my real interests are out on the counter. Perhaps I really don't want
this enough to go on with the discipline." And when this happens one
has stumbled on the very stubborn fact of one's own sloth. It is a
natural reaction, particularly at those times when the mind seems
full of sand, both heavy and dry, or when the mind swarms like a
freshly stirred ant hill with thought of everything else but the
Reality about which one desires to think.

At other times, over-confidence, the conviction one really belongs
among those who may be gifted in prayer, keeps one from making
progress. To begin to expect special manifestations of God's grace,
to anticipate experiences which one has read about but which belong
to a stage far beyond one's own development, is fatal to the real spirit
of meditation. If the experts agree on one essential quality of mind
and heart, in this work of practicing the Presence of God in prayer,
that essential is humility. For, say they all, the real work of prayer
is done by God,— our part is to empty the heart of those things which
keep Him out. Whatever then comes, if one has been sincere and
humbly eager to be fit for His indwelling, will be accepted tranquilly
as a necessary part of the process which is to lead us out of our narrow
selves into the wideness of God's infinite charity.

So then we learn to pray, not that one's prayer be made easier,
but that one's desire for Him be made deeper, not that one can have
the gifts one has not earned, but rather, the power to serve Him
through each day in every tiny act. We learn that everything we do
is insignificant if it points toward ourselves, but strangely significant
if it points toward God. With humility and desire and faith in God
as infinite and eternal and unchanging in His love and understand-
ing for all his creatures, the difficulties of meditation are seen as part
of one's growth. We must all come to terms with Holiness, soon or
late. It is for us to decide when.

Elizabeth Hunter, contemporary American.
Written for this collection.

284 The Techniques

Insincerity

A temperamental hazard (to progress), i£ such it can be termed, as
high for most honest people as a mountain, is the insincerity of daily
life. No honest man can pray without a sharp compunction; I pray
this way, but I live that way. The battle is promptly joined between
prayer and conduct. Often it is an unequal battle; prayer is killed
and buried without obsequies, while conduct lives on uneasy in its
un worthiness. Herein is the reason why prayer is tepid and fitful;
prayer keeps us from baseness, or baseness keeps us from prayer.
Doubt of prayer is sometimes a consequence rather than an origin:
we are self -indicted, and then take refuge in alleged perplexities to
justify our brokenness. Prayer involves us in a discipline so hard that
it resembles surgery. For our wrong does not rest like dust on a
smooth surface of life: it cannot be washed away by some ablution
of morning and evening prayer. Nor is the wrong separate and dis-
tinct: it cannot be picked out by some tweezers-moment of self-
criticism.

Prayer is not a vain attempt to change God's will: it is a filial
desire to learn God's will and to share it. Prayer is not a substitute
for work: it is the secret spring and indispensable ally of all true
work — the clarifying of work's goal, the purifying of its motives,
and the renewing of its zeaL*

George A. Buttrick, 1892-. American clergyman.
The Christian Fact and Modern Doubt.

Social Pressure

As soon as worldlings perceive that you wish to follow the devout
life, they will let fly at you a thousand shafts of their gossip and
slander: the more malicious will falsely attribute your change to
hypocrisy, bigotry and pretence; they will say that the world has
frowned upon you, and that for this reason you turn to God; your
friends will hasten to pour out upon you a flood of remonstrances,
which in their opinion are very prudent and charitable; you will fall,
they will tell you, into a state of melancholy, you will lose credit with
the world, you will make yourself unbearable, you will grow old
before your time, your domestic affairs will suffer thereby; when one

Prayer and Meditation 285

is in the world one must live the life of a person in the world; salva-
tion may be attained without so many mysteries; and a thousand
such-like foolish things.

We have seen gentlemen and ladies spend the whole night, and
even many nights consecutively, in playing at chess and at cards. Can
there be any attention more dull, more melancholy and more dismal
than that? And yet worldlings say not a word, friends are not in the
least disturbed thereat; but if we make an hour's meditation, or if
we are seen to rise a little earlier than usual in the morning, in order
to prepare for Communion, everyone runs off to the doctor that he
may cure us of melancholy and jaundice. People spend thirty nights
in dancing, and not one of them complains of any ill effects; but if
they spend one Christmas night in watching, everyone coughs and
complains of being ill next day. Who cannot see that the world is an
unjust judge; gracious and favourable towards its own children, but
harsh and rigorous towards the children of God ?

We cannot stand well with the world unless we become one with
it. It is impossible for us to satisfy it, for it is too capricious.

St. Francis de Sales, 1567-1622. French Bishop of Geneva.
Introduction to the Devotit Life, Trans. Allan Ross,

Immaturities in Devotion

It is amazing to see, how eagerly men employ their time, and
study— how all helps are called to their assistance, when any thing
is intended in worldly matters; and how dull, negligent, and unim-
proved they are, how little they use their abilities, to raise and
increase their devotion!

Mundanus is a man of excellent parts, and clear apprehension. He
has made a great figure in business; and he is always contriving to
carry every method of doing any thing well, to its greatest height. He
can tell you all the defects and errors in all the common methods
whether of trade, building, or improving land, or manufactures.
Thus has Mundanus gone on.

The one only thing which has not received any benefit from his
judicious mind, is his devotion: This is just in the same poor state it
was, when he was only six years of age, and the old man prays now,

^,86 The Techniques

n that little form of words, which his mother used to hear him
•epeat night and morning, without considering how improvable
he spirit of devotion is, how many helps a wise and reasonable man
nay call to his assistance, and how necessary it is, that our prayers
should be enlarged, varied and suited to the particular state and
:ondition of our lives.

If Mundanus sees a book of devotion, he passes it by, as he does
a spelling-book, because he remembers that he learned to pray, so
many years ago under his mother, when he learned to spell.

Now how pitiable is the conduct of this man of sense, who has so
much judgment in every thing but that which is the whole wisdom
of man?

And how miserably do many people, more or less, imitate this
conduct? *

William Law, 1686-1761. English clergyman and mystic.
Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

Inadequacy of Plan and Experiment

Prayer will always tend to settle down at the premature synthesis
of too slight experiment and too narrow a theory unless we have a
full plan of prayer. We must know of its three stages and from the
view of those three stages we must realize what through the entire
life of prayer we are intended to achieve. We must realize that we
are created by this method to achieve an evolution of consciousness
until our will is one with the divine will and our knowledge shared
its purpose. The arrest of this process always leads to one of two
sorry states. In some cases there comes an assured narrowness which
by lack of charity and a degree of willful ignorance may actually
come to "sin against light/' It may come to deny that spiritual people
who differ from it can be good, e.g., Teresa's gratuitous remark that
the Mirror of the Soul is hopelessly broken in all heretics. Even more
frequently it will end in a slow return to indifference. Gradually the
mind realizes that answered prayer is not the simple and complete
proof that it was assumed at first to be. Gradually the soul feels the
return of old desires, the urgency of former material interests, against
whose invasion it can oppose no valid arguments nor strong loyalties.

Prayer and Meditation 287

The alteration in conduct has not been sufficiently sustained to lead to
a change in character, still less in consciousness. The reaction of the
deeper habit-patterns, suppressed but not sublimated, now comes on
with renewed strength. The man either returns to his former way of
living, or, with a stoic defiance, and for the sake of his pride in his
own consistency and fear of contempt, hangs on, dry, embittered and
inwardly not far from despair.

This great danger, so common and so comprehensive, real knowl-
edge of prayer (and it alone) can wholly prevent. The right
knowledge which shows what life is for, that it is for the attainment
of a new quality of consciousness and that the whole of life is a
"hatching process," this knowledge guards us against being content
with Low Prayer or Middle Prayer, with "supply," with "cures," with
any specific influence. It points us on to an entire process whereby we
see our prayer life as the essential method whereby evolution con-
tinues in us and we co-operate with it.

Gerald Heard, 1889-. English author, religious philosopher.

A Preface to Prayer.

Advice Regarding Distractions

All day long we go about disguised, to a very large extent hiding
our real self that others may not see what we are, and this not
seldom to such a degree that the disguise becomes more real to us
than our actual self. But when we come to pray, our real self, torn
by a myriad interests, our interior mental life, crowded with distrac-
tions, surges out into that silent sanctuary wherein we seek the peace
of God. If we find the door shut, why should we be surprised?'

We must be convinced that little things are often as dangerous in
hindering our walk in the path of perfection as are great things. For
instance there is no occasion for us to hear and see, still less to say,
half the things which, if they do not lead to sin, yet disturb the peace
and calm of the soul. 'Keep thy tongue from evil' and from that idle
speaking to which our Lord refers so sternly, for talkativeness and all
that it leads to are most harmful to the spiritual life. It is too often
the mark of a shallow spirit; indeed, it would seem that the less a
man thinks — and thinking is fast dying out— the more he talks.

288 The Techniques

Talking/ said Faber, 'is a loss of power/ and it certainly tends to dis-
sipate that sense of the presence of God which is the greatest guard
of the soul. Deliberately to choose to be silent at times, to watch and
weigh our words when we speak, would accomplish more for many
than the pious practices they so much enjoy.

Another sphere in which custody of the sense is necessary, espe-
cially in view of our prayer, is that of concentration in the spirit of
St. Catherine of Genoa's 'One thing only and one thing at a time.'
To pray well demands not merely concentration, but a concentration
which has nothing forced or violent about it. St. Francois de Sales
never tires of insisting upon the need of calmness and tranquillity in
our approach to God. But to have this at our prayer means that we
must strive for it outside of our prayer, and one of the greatest aids
to this is to learn to do each thing as it comes, as if it were the only
thing we had to do, and having done it, or being compelled to leave
it to go on to another duty, to do so in the same spirit. So, occupied
and fully and calmly concentrated on each duty as it presents itself,
repressing all impatience, excitement and the vain attempt to do or
think of half a dozen things at once, we shall come to our prayer in
the same spirit, and find ourselves free from a swarm of distractions
which are simply due to the lack of any concentration in the rest of
our life.

The world of affairs is full of men who are intensely recollected
because they are intensely interested in some particular aim or project.
They do a thousand things a day, but behind all they do, dominating
and influencing all their life, is one supreme thing. They are not
always actually thinking of it; they may, 'indeed, and will at times,
be thinking of and doing the commonplace things, eating, drinking,
playing, that all men 'do. But always, even if not consciously at the
moment, one thing and one alone is supreme and central; for that
thing they live; without it, life to them would lose all meaning. They
are men of recollection.

And recollection in the spiritual life means precisely the same
thing; it is the spirit of the man who is possessed with the reality of
God as the true end of all human life. We need a conversion to God,
not merely from sin; 'seek the Lord and your soul shall live/ 'for if

Prayer and Meditation 289

ye truly seek Me with all your heart ye shall surely find me,' and to
find God is to have found that one absorbing interest before which
all else is as

Bede Frost, 1877- English priest, Church of England
The Art of Mental Prayer

Psychological Phenomena 21

Where the intensity is great, unusual psychological phenomena
appear. Sometimes voices are heard or sounds "like a mighty rushing
wind"; sometimes there are automatic visions of light or of forms or
figures,22 as, for instance, of Christ or of a cross; sometimes automatic
writing or speaking attends the experience; sometimes there are pro-
found body changes of a temporary or even permanent character;
sometimes a state of swoon or ecstasy lasting from a few seconds to
entire days. These physical phenomena, however, are as spiritually
unimportant and as devoid of religious significance as are the normal
body resonances and reverberations which accompany, in milder
degrees, all of our psychic processes. They indicate no high rank of
sainthood and they prove no miracle-working power. The significant
features of the experience are the consciousness of fresh springs of
life, the release of new energies, the inauguration of a sense of mission
and the conviction amounting in the mind of the recipient to cer-
tainty that God is found as an environing and vitalizing presence.

Rufus Jones, 1863-. American philosopher, author.
Spiritual Reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries,

Reformation of Others

Nothing is more important in the early stages of the spiritual life
than to resist that 'temptation of beginners,' the reformation of
others. 'Let us look at our own faults, and not at other people's. We

21 See "Mysticism" by Evelyn Underhill (E. P. Dutton and Company).

22 In recent years, fortunately, the highly trained religious psychotherapist has become
equipped to help persons who experience such psychic phenomena. If properly handled,
dreams and visions can be used to great advantage in clarifying religious experience, and in
releasing, assimilating and thus integrating unconscious dynamic factors. (See Chapter VI;
also see "Analytical Psychology and Religious Experience** by Michael Fordham, M.R.C.P. —
Lecture 46 — 1947 — of the series published by The Guild of Pastoral Psychology — London).
It is true, as Dr. Jones writes, that such manifestations indicate no high rank of saintly
achievement. Their importance rests in the opportunities they afford for inner clarification.

290 The Techniques

ought not to insist on everyone following in our footsteps, nor to take
upon ourselves to give instructions in spirituality when, perhaps, we
do not even know what it is.' (St. Theresa) 23

'When people begin to have pleasure in the rest and the fruit of
prayer, they will have everyone else be very spiritual also. To desire
this is not wrong, but to try to bring it about may not be right, except
with great discretion and great reserve, without any appearance of
teaching.' She, (St. Theresa), gives an illustration from her own ex-
perience, for she had made others endeavour to pray, only to find
that they contrasted what she said of the blessedness of prayer with
her lack of virtues, in spite of her prayer. 'And thus, during many
years, only three persons were the better for what I said to them; but
now that our Lord has made me stronger in virtue, in the course of
two or three years, many persons have profited.' 24 *

Bede Frost, 1877-, English priest, Church of England.
The 4rt of Mental Prayer.

Aridity

There are scarce any souls that give themselves to internal prayer
but some time or other do find themselves in great indisposition
thereto, having great obscurities in the mind and great insensibility
in the affections. So that if imperfect souls be not well instructed and
prepared, they will be in danger, in case that such contradictions in
inferior nature continue long, to be dejected, yea, and perhaps de-
terred from pursuing prayer, for they will be apt to think that their
recollections are to no purpose at all.

Yea, some souls there are conducted by Almighty God by no
other way, but only by such prayer of aridity, finding no sensible
contentment in any recollections, but, on the contrary, continual
pain and contradiction, and yet, by a privy grace and courage im-
printed deeply in the spirit, cease not for all that, but resolutely
break through all difficulties and continue, the best they can, their
internal exercises to the great advancement of their spirit.

The causes of this aridity and indisposition to prayer, ordinarily

23 (Inter. Castle, M. III., chap. ii. 19.)

24 (Life, xiii, n, 12).

Prayer and Meditation 291

speaking, are principally a certain natural complexion of some, and
especially of those who by their corporal temper are most fitted for
the exercise of sensible affections, because the humours and spirits of
the body, together with the change of weather, etc., have a far greater
influence upon these sensible affections than upon the mere operations
either of the understanding or will, which do not so much depend
upon the body. From this ground it is that devout women, who
naturally do more abound with sensible affections than men, are
more subject to be afflicted and persecuted with these aridities.

Such discouragements do least appear in Vocal prayer. The
prayer of Meditation likewise, in those for whom it is proper, is not
usually much assaulted with such aridities. The pain and anguish
that good souls suffer from these aridities is very grievous, being a
kind of continual martyrdom; and therefore the merit of constancy
in prayer, notwithstanding such discouragements in nature, is the
greater, and souls to whom God shall give such constancy will find
their exercises both much more secure, yea, and much more profit-
able than if they had flowed with sensible affections.

The spirit, whose operations do not much depend on the corporal
disposition, may in the midst of all sensible aridities and obscurities
perform its functions with great efficacy. The intellectual faculty is
at all times capable of illumination, and the will of receiving grace
and strength from God, and the light and grace which we receive
at such times are far more pure and divine than when corporal affec-
tions do abound, for then they are communicated purely to the
spirit. The essential profit of a soul consists in the light and love of
the spirit; such light and love, therefore, which are got with so much
difficulty, is far more solidly rooted in the soul than that which is got
by the exercise of sensible affections; because all the while there is a
continual combat against self-love, and all the most secret, subtle, and
deeply-hidden snares of it.

To the end to attain unto this most necessary courageousness of
mind, such souls may do well to help themselves during their aridi-
ties with the best motives and most efficacious affections that they can
furnish themselves withal, either out of their own invention or by

292 The Techniques

collection out of books, as likewise frequently to urge themselves
to the love of God by such ejaculatory prayers and desires.*

Augustin F. Baker, 1575-1641. English Benedictine Father.

Holy Wisdom.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Probably the most celebrated of all works dealing with the difficulties
(periods of dryness and desolation) met on the religious way is The Dar\
Night of the Soul, written in the sixteenth century by the Spanish mystic
San Juan de la Cruz. It describes the benefits and trials of two purgations
or Dark Nights. The first Night is described as the purgation of the
senses. It is operative through most of the first stage of the spiritual way,
becoming more intense as the beginner is being prepared to pass on to the
state of proficiency.

These Dark Nights 25 are variously described by different writers 26 and
seem to be the common experience of the great mystics. They offer data
of special interest to the religious psychologist who wishes to study the
Mystic Way and its practices in relation to the release of the creative Self.
This data will also be of general interest to all who are intent on follow-
ing the Way, for to be aware of its hardships helps prevent retarding dis-
couragement.

Although the experience of the first Dark Night is unquestionably
inherent in the process of purgation and self-knowledge, there is reason
to believe that some of the terrific intensity suffered by the early mystics,
especially in the second or Spiritual Night, may have been, in part, due
to a too rapid rate of progress, or perhaps to the inconsistencies between
an anthropomorphic cosmology and their experience which did not fit the
cosmology. The actual Light which they experienced may have been
brighter and more vast than the conceptual preparation so that the bright
dawn o£ a new day was like a Dark Night.

It is believed that the techniques for clarification developed by analyt-
ical psychology, if properly handled, can contribute toward an accelera-
tion in the traverse of these Nights of Purgation wherein a transforma-
tion of the personality is effected.

Though St. John's writing may present difficulties in the manner of
expression, they hold a wealth of insight. We deeply regret that lack of

25 The second Night is referred to as the Cloud oj Unknowing by the anonymous
writer of the classic treatise by the same name.

26 See Mysticism by Evelyn Underbill for an excellent discussion of difficulties on the
Way,

Prayer and Meditation 293

space prevents the inclusion here of the long selections chosen from this
great work. The reader is referred to the book itself. The Dar\ Night
of the Soul (trans, by G. C. Graham, Watkins, 1922, London). See
especially the material on The First Dark Night. See pages 61-83 and
87-105. The reader who has some psychological background is also
referred to the lecture by Michael Fordham, M.R.C.P., tided Analytical
Psychology and the Religious Experience, printed by the Guild of Pastoral
Psychology (16 Hillside, London S.W. 19.). Dr. Fordham says of St. John,
"One is tempted to call him a medieval analyst, for mysticism has become
almost scientific in his hands. . . ." (Editors)

Two Levels of Interest to Aid in Aridities

One quite general, yet very helpful preparation towards the prac-
tice of sobriety in prayer, and hence towards escaping, as far as pos-
sible, the acute reactions liable to follow upon such very delightful
prayer, is admirably preached and practised by Jean Nicholas Grou.
This fine classical scholar, and deeply spiritual writer and leader of
souls, urges the importance of the soul's possession and cultivation of
two levels and fynds of action and interest — a wholesome, natural
interest and action, and a deep supernatural interest and action. The
soul will then possess and will cultivate a genuine interest in politics
or economics, in language or history, in natural science or philosophy
—in these, as part of its bread-winning or as quite freely chosen
studies. And we will thus, when in dryness and even in anticipation
of it, possess a most useful range of interest to which to turn, as our
disporting ground, in relief of the dreariness or the strain of our
directly religious life.

Spiritual dryness is indeed inevitable in the life of prayer; we will
be much helped to bear these desert stretches, by persistent recogni-
tion—hence also, indeed especially, in our times of fervour— of the
normality and the necessity of such desolation. We will thus come to
treat desolation in religion as we treat the recurrence of the night
within every twenty-four hours of our physical existence; or as bodily
weariness at the end of any protracted exertion in our psychic life.
When desolation is actually upon us, we will quietly modify, as far as
need be, the kind and the amount of our prayer— back, say, from

294 The Techniques

prayer of quiet to ordinary meditation, or to vocal prayer — even to
but a few uttered aspirations. And, if die desolation is more acute,
we will act somewhat like the Arab caravans behave in the face of a
blinding sandstorm in the desert. The men dismount, throw them-
selves upon their faces in the sand; and there they remain, patient
and uncomplaining, till the storm passes, and until, with their wonted
patient endurance, they can and do continue on their way.

There are generally a weakness and an error at work within us,
at such times, which considerably prolong the trouble, and largely
neutralise the growth this very trouble would otherwise bring to our
souls. The weakness lies in that we let our imagination and sensitive-
ness be directly absorbed in our trouble. We contemplate, and further
enlarge, the trouble present in ourselves, instead of firmly and faith-
fully looking away, either at the great abiding realities of the spiritual
world, or, if this is momentarily impossible for us, at some other,
natural or human, wholesome fact or law. And the error lies in our
lurking suspicions that, for such trials to purify us, we must feel them
fully in their tryingness— that is, we must face and fathom them
directly and completely. It ignores the experience of God's saints
across the ages, that, precisely in proportion as we can get away from
direct occupation with our troubles to the thought and love of God,
to the presence of Him Who permits all this, in the same proportion
do and will these trials purify our souls.*

Friedrich Von Hiigel, 1852-1925. Austrian theologian, author.

The Life of Prayer.

Necessity for Habitual Prayer

It is not with prayer as with other arts or habits; a student by
cessation from study doth not presently lose nor so much as diminish
the knowledge that he had before, but a soul that is not in actual
prayer, or at least in an immediate disposition and an habitual desire
of prayer, sinks presently into nature and loses much of that strength
that she had formerly. There are not always occasions to exercise
particular virtues, as temperance, patience, chastity, etc., because
temptations do not always assault us; but we may always pray, and
always we have need so to do, for a soul, except she be in prayer, or
that the virtue of prayer be alive in her, is in a state of distraction and

Prayer and Meditation 295

disunion from God, and, consequently, exposed to all manner of
enemies, being withal deprived of the only means to resist them, so
that the dangers and miseries of an unrecollected life are inexplicable.

Augustin Baker, 1575-1641. English Benedictine Father.

Holy Wisdom.

Necessity of a Worthy View of God

Supreme worship, the recognition that here is Someone Who
heads and surpasses all values which we can attribute, Who, as we
say vernacularly, "beggars description," is what the soul tries involun-
tarily to give to God. It is precisely what the individual consciousness
feels spontaneously moved to give to the Supreme Consciousness.
For, in those words "involuntarily" and "spontaneously" lies the
clue to the real nature of worship. It is not and cannot be something
exacted as a duty. This being so, it is clear that praise, as it appears
in most traditional worship, has been hopelessly "overrepresented"
in our religious services. Of those who go to church, how many feel
themselves ever even faintly astounded at the wonder and beauty of
God ? Indeed we may say that so long as God is regarded with either
suspicion or an easy familiarity, as long as we think of Him as
Someone to be avoided or to get things out of, so long He cannot be
worshiped, he cannot be marveled at with that mixture of profound
awe and overwhelming self-forgetful delight which is the true
catharsis and deliverance of the soul who is so raised and cleansed.

Praise, true worship, is a result of having a worthy view of God.
The idea of God which has drawn out exultant joy from the soul is
one which always rises above any anthropomorphic notion of retalia-
tory punishment. God is conceived as the True, the Good, and the
Beautiful. Truth itself has power to awaken an authentic element of
worship. Truth is defined as "correspondence" — this fits exactly with
that— the law of the structure of my mind, the way my mind works,
is the complement of the law governing the structure of the universe
and the way it moves. Kepler's was an authentic act of worship when
he knelt down in delighted wonder and praise on recognizing the
simple orderliness of the planets* movements. We can feel the same
delighted wonder when we witness supreme goodness. Acts of noble

296 The Techniques

generosity and invincible compassion awake in us a delight which
is almost pain. We realize, with a relief which has in it some agony,
how near we had been to despair, to death, and now, at the sight of
this moral splendor, something in us vibrates in answer to its gran-
deur. And all of us who witness the deed— to say nothing of the
beneficiaries of the specific act— partake of the redemptive-creative
process.

But because with our Hebrew background and medieval middle
distance, because to the Jew God was Justice and the Law, and to the
Christian He was Sacrifice, we have neglected His third attribute.
Beauty. So it may well be that in our reaction to beauty it is that we
shall best come to understand the nature of worship and praise. For
in our response to beauty there is no adulteration of adulation, flat-
tery, carneying or cringing. When we see supreme beauty, either in
nature or in art, we do not— we cannot— ask, of what use is it? What
could it do for me ? or, How much does it demand of me ? As Manet
said, "We stand moved," we are arrested, rapt, altered. In our un-
guarded self-forgetfulness we "give ourselves away." The conscious-
ness which catches sight of beauty, which is caught up by loveliness,
is instantly and purely brought into an act of worship.

God, then, as Truth, Goodness and Beauty, exerts on the soul this
supreme attraction; and the spontaneous reaction to that attraction
is worship. Praise is the response of likeness, the desire to be that
which is admired. He who praises is the echo of God. Worship, then,
is inevitable: contemplation leads to it: all sustained contemplation
is a form of worship. For contemplation might be defined as that
creative glance whereby the creature, becoming one with the Creator,
achieves the constant interpretation of the apparent, temporal mani-
fold into the Eternal One. God is the Composer, man is the exe-
cutant.*-**

Gerald Heard, 1889-. English author, religious philosopher

A Preface to Prayer.

Necessity for Perseverance

Be like the pearl oyster. There is a pretty Indian fable to the effect
that if it rains when the star Svati is in the ascendant, and a drop of

Prayer and Meditation 297

rain falls into an oyster, that drop becomes a pearl. The oysters know
this, so they come to the surface when that star shines, and wait to
catch the precious raindrop. When a drop falls into them, quickly
the oysters close their shells and dive down to the bottom of the sea,
there to patiently develop the drop into the pearl. We should be like
that. First, hear, then understand, and then, leaving all distractions,
shut your minds to outside influences, and devote yourselves to
developing the truth within you. There is the danger of frittering
away our energies by taking up an idea only for its novelty, and then
giving it up for another that is newer. Take one thing up and do it,
and see the end of it, and before you have seen the end, do not give
it up. Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never
attain anything. They may titillate their nerves for a moment, but
there it will end. They will be slaves in the hands of Nature, and will
never get beyond the senses.

Those who really want to be Yogis must give up once for all, this
nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life;
think of it; dream of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles,
nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave
every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way
great spiritual giants are produced. Others are mere talking machines.
If we really wanted to be blessed, and make others blessed, we must
go deeper. The first step is not to disturb the mind, not to associate
with persons whose ideas are disturbing. But those who take up just
a bit of it and a little of everything else make no progress. It is of no
use to simply take a course of lessons. To those who are full of Tamas,
ignorant and dull, — those whose minds never get fixed on any idea,
who only crave for something to amuse them — religion and philos-
ophy are simply subjects of entertainment. These are the unpersever-
ing. They hear a talk, think it very nice, and then go home and forget
all about it. To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance.*

Swami Vivekananda, 1863-1902. Hindu mystic, seer.

Raja — Yoga.

CHAPTER SIX

Psychotherapy

Psychology on the one hand and religion on the other use two
means of approach to a common subject-matter. . . .

We need to realise that psychology leads us sooner or later to
religious experience, while religion can only be brought home to
the individual through essential psychological facts.

:M:ICHAEL

The specific value of psychotherapy is in the revelation o£
those motives and impulses operating outside the field of con-
sciousness which hold one back from true self knowledge.

FRITZ 3CXJNK.EL

CHAPTER SIX

Psychotherapy1

Not until one determines to restrict his task to the elimination of
his egocentricity, and no longer tries to force an increase of courage
and vitality, does the process of self-education get started. The dis-
tribution of the parts in the task is something like this : The light is
obscured; it is not my problem to light the light (for it is already
burning), but my problem is to clear away the obstacles that are
obstructing the light. I cannot create light, but I can remove the
shade. If a man wished to light the light himself, he would be more
vain than ever. If he would wait until the light penetrated the shade
by itself, he would be more timid than ever; he would be trying to
escape his responsibilities. The objective is the untiring work at the
removal of the shade and the unerring confidence in the presence of
the light*

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., 1889-. German psychotherapist, author.

God Helps Those.

The Relation of Psychotherapy and Religion

It is in the aiding of people to find meaning for their lives that
religion and depth-psychology are in partnership. The field of mean-
ing in life is essentially the religious area, but the technique of dis-
covering why persons fail to find meaning — why they suffer hin-
drances, complexes, irrational fears — is the modern contribution of
depth-psychology.

Many modern persons have been unable to quench their thirst for
meaning in the stream of organized religion. Numerous reasons
could be given for this — the stagnation that results from any large

1 Important: see pages 170-171. Also see pages 67-78; 483-86.

300

Psychotherapy 301

organization, the preaching of dry forms in which the vitality has
run dry, the great upheavals in our Western culture of the last cen-
tury. Whatever the reason, multitudes of modern intelligent people
have been unable to find the guidance they wished in conventional
religion. They have been told so oppressively often to believe in life
and love their neighbors, that the words ring with the cant of mere
verbal repetition.

At the threshold of the present century, a new endeavor to under-
stand the human personality sprang up as an answer to a great need.
Beginning with Sigmund Freud, this "psychoanalysis" was an at-
tempt to be scientific about the human soul. We cannot achieve health
or happiness, Freud pointed out, by the dishonest means of repress-
ing all tendencies that our Victorian moralism finds unpalatable, and
we are deceiving ourselves if we think that our arrogant "egos"
standing at the thresholds of our minds can arbitrarily decide the
great issues of life as the whim strikes them. The new understanding
of human motives worked out in Vienna constitutes probably the
outstanding discovery of the twentieth century.

The practical application of the knowledge which depth-psychol-
ogy has discovered was developed through various contributions by
Dr. C. G. Jung, who terms his subject "analytical psychology," Alfred
Adler, who calls his work "individual psychology," Fritz Kunkel,
Otto Rank, and others. The fact that so many of Freud's disciples
have dissented from the master, rather than a mutiny of the ranks,
was like the independent searching for gold of a number of pros-
pectors—since there was so much gold to be found.

In the past twenty years it has become recognized that most
psychological problems are intertwined with religious, and that reli-
gious problems have in most cases a very cleaFpsychological aspect.
. . . Dr. Jung expresses in vivid and perhaps extreme fashion what
psychologists of all sorts are beginning to observe: "Among all my
patients in the second half of life — that is to say over thirty-five—
there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that
of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of
them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of
every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been

302 The Techniques

really healed who did not regain his religious outlook." 2 Dr. Jung
goes on to caution us that this has nothing to do with the dogmas of
a particular church; it is rather, as this chapter has sought to indicate,
the reaching out of the human soul for basic meaning by which it
can live.

The psychoanalyst, or consulting psychologist, or whatever he
may call himself, is concerned with helping the individual overcome
fears and rationalizations and inhibitions so that he can move ahead
with success. The neurotic man who refuses to meet people and who
holds that all women are demons must first understand the detours in
his background that have led him to the impasse— here the sheer
technique of analysis comes into its own. But then, having been helped
back on the road, he must believe in the worth of love and friendship
in order that he may move down the road with courage. ... So
psychotherapy, the technique, points inevitably toward religion, the
goal and meaning.

Dr. Adler holds in his last book that we should view life sub
specie aeternitatis and at the time of his death he was engaged in
collaborating with clergymen in work on pastoral psychology. "The
best conception hitherto gained," he writes, "for the elevation of
humanity is the idea of God." 8

"It is doubtless true," writes Dr. Menninger, "that religion has
been the world's psychiatrist throughout the centuries." 4 One can
be coldly scientific in segments of the technique of analysis ; but the
closer the treatment comes to completion, the more the therapist
must take into consideration aspects of life which are by no means
coldly scientific, such as faith, hope, and love. "The patient needs
a world view," Dr. Otto Rank aptly puts it, "and will always need
it, because man always needs belief, and this is so much more, the
more increasing self-consciousness brings him to doubt." 5 *-**

Rollo May, contemporary American psychologist.
Springs of Creative Living.

2 Modern Man in Search of a Soul.

3 Beyond Good and Evil, p. 208.

4 Man against Himself, p. 449.

5 Will Therapy, p. 135.

Psychotherapy 303

Medicine, Psychotherapy and Religion

In my opinion, medicine requires that we should discriminate
at least 5 "Norms" of Health, viz., Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence,
Maturity and Middle and Old Age. Indeed, the development of
modern medicine is taking this direction in the development of
specialisation within its ranks.

I am not concerned here with the physical and mental norms of
health, but I must make one fundamental and important contrast
between the developmental history of the body and of the finite
mind on the one hand and the spirit— which I hold to be non-finite
mind— on the other. The growth-curve of the body rises by gradations
from infancy until maturity; growth then remains stationary for a
while and then, as bodily and mental decay begins to set in, the
body-curve declines with increasing rapidity during middle life and
old age. This decline is a healthy, normal state of affairs: death is no
more pathological than birth, although premature death is patho-
logical.

The growth-line of the immortal spirit is very different from
this. The spirit has emerged from the depths of the normal infant
soul before the age of five. Then it develops more or less synchron-
ously with the growth of the body and the finite mind— (although
the spiritual "climacterics" seem to me to precede the "climacterics"
of the body by an appreciable period). But after maturity, the growth-
line of the spirit normally begins to diverge from the now-descend-
ing growth-curve of the body. As the one begins to decline, the other
normally continues to rise and to develop. Increasing wisdom and
ripening judgment are measures of this continued spiritual growth.
At last, as old age approaches, we can begin to observe how the
"free spirit" starts to loosen and detach itself from its bondage to the
flesh, until at last the body returns to the earth, and the spirit to
God who gave it. Such I hold to be the normal relationship of the
healthy spirit to the healthy, although declining, bodily and mental
powers.

How can clinical medicine be practised as it should be practised
unless we possess a clear insight into these "Norms" of spiritual

304 The Techniques

hygiene? I used to be puzzled because there were so many different
and apparently irreconcilable "systems" of psychology. It seems to
me now that the rival schools are not so much rivals as persons
talking about different things, or perhaps, different stages of the
growth of the same things. My experience has suggested to me that
if a mother wants to understand the mind of her infant and to
help its healthy development, the concept of the "conditioned re-
flex" and the "psychology" of behaviour, will help her; at or before
the age of five, her child will begin to respond to the Individual
Psychology of Adler; during youth and adolescence (and during
the long period of "arrested adolescence" so often seen among
modern people) the Freudian approach proves helpful. In the
mature mind, Jung's system enters into its own. It speaks of the
actual problems of the post-mature man and woman: it speaks their
language, describes their feelings and experiences. Finally, I believe
that the religious psychology of Kierkegaard holds the key that un-
locks closed doors, especially for the middle-aged and the old.
Perhaps Kierkegaard's psychology is the psychology for doctors, psy-
chologists and clergymen. It seems to me therefore that what is now
needed is a comprehensive system of normal psychology that will
embrace the positive values of all these systems and will relate them
correctly to the "five ages of man." If possible, such a system should
be related also to the phylogenetic and anatomical facts that are
known about the development of the brain and nervous system. Such
a comprehensive system would be a valuable contribution to clinical
hygiene.*

Howard C. Collier, M.D., contemporary English physician.
The Place of Worship in Modern Medicine?

Psychoanalysis as a Technique

Feeling and knowing constitute the elemental qualities of con-
sciousness and when these two are well harmonized in a mind, the
will, or dynamic expressive aspect of the personality, is effective and
one-directional. Such a personality is happy. But through inept
human response to conflict, feeling and intellect tend to become dis-

6 Lecture 28— The Guild of Pastoral Psychology — 1944, London.

Psychotherapy 305

sociated or separated in individual minds. The will is then split
against itself and loses rapport with outer reality, which is repre-
sented in consciousness by the intellectual element. One of the first
and most vital concerns of man is the maintenance of integration
between feeling and intellect. It is a need fully as imperative to
human happiness as the need for food, and to meet this need is the
true psychological function of religion, as I believe the term should
be used. The theological structures built up in the process are in-
cidental. There is a secondary function of religion, which is the
prevention of cruelty in the world. In the long run religion and the
applicational aspects of psychology seem to constitute a common
human effort, which is probably an expression of the elemental
orientational motive in human consciousness.

It is the loss of the sense of feeling for things somewhere along the
way, that has come to constitute the vital tragedy of modern life.
Such a loss takes the whole principle of cohesiveness — the sense of
unity — out of a mind, and leaves only diffusive, little fragmentary
constellations of value. The mind that cannot fed what it %nows
becomes like a body with no skeleton. When there is no order or
principle to the arrangement of the mental bones, the concept of
character fades and vanishes. The integrity of such a personality can
be maintained only by going all the way back to the most elemental
instinctive values and rebuilding on them. In order to reestablish
rapport with feeling, the individual must revert to the instinctive
foundations of his consciousness and start over again, possibly under
guidance of a psychoanalyst. Psychoanalysis is then indeed nothing
more mysterious than a highly specialized technique for dealing
radically with desperate religious problems.*

William Sheldon, M.D., 1899-. American psychologist, educator.
Psychology and the Promethean Will.

Psychotherapy as a Catharsis

To cherish secrets and to restrain emotions are psychic mis-
demeanours for which nature finally visits us with sickness— that
is, when we do these things in private. But when they are done in
communion with others they satisfy nature and may even count as

306 The Techniques

useful virtues. It is only restraint practised in and for oneself that is
unwholesome. It is as if man had an inalienable right to behold all
that is dark, imperfect, stupid and guilty in his fellow beings — for
such of course are the things that we keep private to protect our-
selves. It seems to be a sin in the eyes of nature to hide our in-
sufficiencies—just as much as to live entirely on our inferior side.
There appears to be a conscience in mankind which severely punishes
the man who does not somehow defend and assert himself and
instead confess himself fallible and human. Until he can do this,
an impenetrable wall shuts him out from the living experience of
feeling himself a man among men. Here we find a key to the great
significance of true, unstereotyped confession— a significance known
in all the initiation and mystery cults of the ancient world as is
shown by a saying from the Greek mysteries: "Give up what thou
hast, and then thou wilt receive."

We may well take this saying as a motto for the first stage in
psychotherapeutic treatment. It is a fact that the beginnings of psy-
choanalysis were fundamentally nothing else than the scientific redis-
covery of an ancient truth; even the name catharsis (or cleansing),
which was given to the earliest method of treatment, comes from the
Greek initiation rites. The early method of catharsis consisted in
putting the initiate, with or without hypnotic aid, in touch with the
hinterland of his mind— that is to say, into that state which the
Eastern yoga systems describe as meditation or contemplation. In con-
trast to the meditation found in yoga practice, the psychoanalytic aim
is to observe the shadowy presentations— whether in the form of im-
ages or of feelings — that are spontaneously evolved in the unconscious
psyche and appear without his bidding to the man who looks within.
In this way we find once more things that we have repressed or
forgotten. Painful though it may be, this is in itself a gain— for what
is inferior or even worthless belongs to me as my shadow and gives
me substance and mass. How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a
shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole; and inas-
much as I become conscious of my shadow I also remember that I
am a human being like any other. In any case, when I keep it to
myself, this rediscovery of that which makes me whole restores the

Psychotherapy 307

condition which preceded the neurosis or the splitting off of the
complex. In keeping the matter private I have only attained a partial
cure— for I still continue in my state of isolation. It is only with the
help of confession that I am able to throw myself into the arms of
humanity freed at last from the burden of moral exile. The goal of
treatment by catharsis is full confession— no merely intellectual
acknowledgment of the facts, but their confirmation by the heart and
the actual release of the suppressed emotion.

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychologist, founder of System of Analytic Psychology.

Modern Man in Search of A SouL

The Role of "Helper"

Seek a helper. It may seem paradoxical to think of self-education
as involving the need of outside help. Yet the fact is, as we have
noted, that a helper is sometimes necessary and the most practical
thing to do is to seek one. After all, it must be obvious, that even
with the aid of the helper much depends upon one's own efforts at
self-education.

Some few persons have such a vivid sense of the reality of God
that they may find in communion with Him the helper par ex-
cellence. For most of us, however, the helper must be the human
being whose voice we can hear with our ears and whose presence we
can sense by touch and sight. This person should be one who is not
connected with our pressure. No one can be thought of by an ego-
centric person as the source of any serious distress involved in pressure
and at the same time be accepted as the helper. Much the same
situation is involved here as in the case of criticism. One factor in the
suffering under pressure is the feeling, conscious or unconscious, that
one has been attacked. This feeling is due to the fact the Ego seems
to be the Self, and, therefore, pressure exerted on the Ego seems to
be a threat to our very existence, and an unkind, inconsiderate,
inimical act insofar as we feel that anyone is responsible for it. There
is, therefore, a resistance to the pressure and a consequent negative
reaction to the person. He is felt to be the Black Giant who certainly
cannot be trusted as a helper.

This psychology of resistance in all serious cases makes it neces-

308 The Techniques

sary to seek help from one who is not connected with the pressure.
In minor, more or less incidental matters, it may be that one who
points out our weakness or gives us some slight degree of hurt may
be accepted as the helper, but even in such a case, there are dangerous
possibilities.

They are especially significant within the family or between
friends. For the natural and inevitable resistance to changing our
Ego in any way may develop into antipathy to anyone who in-
dicates that we ought to do so. This, the helper must do. Thus deep
resentments and even hatred may spring up between husband and
wife or friend and friend if one tries to be the helper for the other.
Even though this attitude may be only temporary, as it should be and
is, if the crisis turns out well, it is better that no such negative feelings
be stirred up among members of the family or friends. As a practical
matter it is, therefore, desirable to seek the helper among those not
too closely bound to one by family or friendship ties, though in some
cases the helper may be found among close relatives, and friends.

The helper need not be a psychologist though often such a person
is better qualified than others are. Any person of well-developed
We-feeling often can serve one most helpfully even though not
formally schooled in psychological principles. In our language we
would speak of them as comparatively objective persons. Seek such
a person.

Sometimes the helper may be a good book which interprets a
person to himself somewhat as the helper must, and points out life
values clearly and convincingly. This is one reason for the pre-
eminence of the Bible. Its power to speak truth to the human heart,
to interpret one to himself, to present life's highest values challeng-
ingly is enough in itself to make it The Great Book. Try finding in
its pages something of the counsel the helper must give.

Then turn to the pages of biography for the story of well-lived
lives, for illustrations of mistakes overcome and lives transformed
by objective purposes. This need not be the biography of some
famous person, helpful as it may sometimes be. Sometimes it is even
more helpful to find in the lives of plain people, like ourselves un-
known to fame, illustrations of the possibilities of creative living—

Psychotherapy 309

of growth, into finer and fuller personalities. Even a sound book of
fiction may have much the same value in interpreting to us life's
values and our own reactions.

Finally, turn for help to the creative philosophers and psycholo-
gists who have left the record of their insight into truth and human
nature and its needs on the pages of old books or even current
magazines. Here, too, one may find the truth he needs — the deeper
insight into himself and life's values which are so necessary to him.

After saying all this, it is necessary to add a word of caution. Much
that is written in the name of psychology and philosophy is so in-
accurate in its facts or unsound in its presentation that it is merely
trash. It is, therefore, important to read only material that has stood
the test of criticism 7 by those who are qualified to evaluate it.*

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., German psychotherapist, and Roy E. Dickerson, American author.

How Character "Develops.

The Role of Dream Analysis

"For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would
not, that I do." (St. Paul.) This is one of the earliest expressions of
that doublemindedness which harasses the path of all who con-
sciously attempt to follow the religious Way. Man is not only
motivated by those factors of which he is aware, but is more often
propelled into action by irrational, and yet potent impulses and
motives operating outside the field of consciousness. It seemed to
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychotherapy, that there were virtually
autonomous systems working against the rest of the psyche, and
causing various kinds of personality splits. An important question
then is how can this contradictory doubleness of behavior be elimi-
nated? We can look to psychotherapy as an aid in apprehending
these unconscious factors, in understanding their content, in setting
free the energy contained in them, and in integrating them into the
total personality.

The use of dreams came to be for Freud what he called the
"via regia" to the unconscious. For him, of course, dream analysis
was based upon the theoretical assumptions he made about the

7 See Reading List in back of book.

310 The Techniques

psychic structure, and involved primarily his notions of sexuality. In
the development of their own points of view some of Freud's
followers departed radically from him. The outstanding of these
are C. G. Jung, Fritz Kunkel, Alfred Adler, and Otto Rank, They
followed Freud in use of dreams as revelation of material not ac-
cessible to consciousness in any other way. But in the symbolism of
the dream, the way of interpretation, and the use of the dream in
relation to the rest of the personality, they differ widely from him.
The discussion which follows is oriented unreservedly toward the
point of view of Jung and Kunkel.

One of the major implications of the religious Way is the achieve-
ment of self-knowledge, the ability to discriminate between the
apparent-self and the real self — thus to recognize those elements
within the personality structure that block the needed movement
from the periphery of consciousness to the Center, which is of God.
The special value of the understanding and analysis of dreams is in
the revelation obtained thereby of those things that hold one back
from true self-knowledge, — i.e., the complexes, inhibitions, fears
which imprison part of the libido (life energy), splitting the per-
sonality. These elements lie in the unconscious, apparently non-
existent, but actually dynamic and often destructive, and often going
counter to that which is consciously desired. They are made available
to the conscious mind through dreams.

The dream images in the unconscious are diverse, arising as
they do from different sources and different levels. Generally the
distinction is made by Jung between the material from the personal
unconscious, and the material from the collective unconscious.
Elements in the personal unconscious are the result of personal
experience, the roots of which lie in long-forgotten childhood ex-
periences, or of experiences repressed, either because they are
contrary to the accepted development of a person or because they are
unpleasant or even unthinkable. Those elements coming from deeper
levels constitute the collective unconscious, that domain of inherent
inner images arising out of the psyche, as part of its very essence, and
not dependent on the outer or personal experiences at all. These
images form the basis of mythology, and are the common sub-stratum

Psychotherapy 311

of experience for all men. Just as the elements of the personal un-
conscious prove to be obstacles to the total freeing and integrating of
the self, so these deeper images may be influential on behavior. They
give rise to moods, fantasies, uncontrollable emotions, irrational
desires (as seen from the rational standpoint). Once the nature of
the unconscious is understood, much that was formerly unclear and
unknown becomes clear.

In order to utilize this technique of dream analysis it is advisable
to work with a specialist in the field. A skilled and trustworthy
analyst or psychotherapist trained in the Jungian, Kunkelian or
Rank points of view would be cognizant of the limitations as well
as the contribution which the psychotherapeutic procedure can make
to progression on the religious Way. With the help of an analyst
progress in clarification is relatively certain. Also it is sometimes
true that after some guidance enough understanding can be obtained
to permit one to proceed alone for a time. . It is doubtful, how-
ever, whether any trustworthy insight into the interpretation of
dreams can be obtained unless one begins with an expert. Indeed the
majority of therapists would say that a person can do nothing of
value alone in this area and that to try may definitely work harm.
They contend that an unskilled person, working alone, cannot under-
stand the symbols in dreams, many of which are hidden and dis-
guised because of their deeper meanings. In dream analysis, as well
as in all other phases of psychotherapeutic procedure, resistance to
the dream content may occur because what is revealed is often the
dark, repressed side which one would rather not acknowledge as
part of himself. Any inner resistance makes for personal bias and
would hinder a true interpretation of dreams, if attempted without
skilled help. A wrong interpretation is likely to produce a helpless
feeling with a consequent paralyzing effect. However, it must be
noted that there are instances on record, both ancient and con-
temporary, where persons have by themselves gained significant in-
sights through dreams relating to particular problems and their
solution. Much exploring remains to be done before any final opinion
can be formed on this point.

In summary, then, dream analysis in the hands of a specialist can

312 The Techniques

be of vital importance in its revelation of those unknown factors,
which if left hidden may hinder,, but if revealed and understood will
contribute to progression on the religious Way. In one sense, dreams
may be said to be the negative side of the process, the exposing of
the barriers. Yet they also have their positive phase, for they possess
creative, dynamic power, which is loosened and freed when the
dream is truly understood and its power assimilated. Thus dreams
are the symbols of these forces, which are negative if not understood
and brought to consciousness, and positive if they are.

Many persons who have worked through analysis in search of
the real self can testify that what occurs is similar to the religious
experience of conversion. For what is finally touched, if the process
goes deeply enough, is the Self, which is God within. When this
happens, the basic roots of the person are established within himself
as a part of that larger universal framework of which he is a part.
He is truly himself, because he is a part of the larger whole. Let it
be said that understanding a few dreams does not lead to this, nor
does any given period of analysis do so, in and by itself. It is achieved
only by those who continue to work throughout their lives, and often
through great suffering, to liberate the libido within, and to under-
stand with the heart the deeper unknown parts of Self.

E.B.H., S.M.

Written for this anthology.

The Symbol in Dream-Analysis

In Jungian dream-analysis the symbol plays a central role. The
psychic images, in the dream as in all their other manifestations, are
at once reflection and essence of the dynamics of the psyche. Just
as, in the case of a waterfall, the waterfall is at once reflection and
essence of force itself. They are the real energy-transformers in
psychic events. They have at the same time expressive and impressive
character, expressing on the one hand internal psychic happenings
pictorially, and on the other hand influencing — after having been
transformed into images — through their meaningful content these
same happenings, thus furthering the flow of the psychological
processes. For example, the symbol of the withered Tree of Life,

Psychotherapy 313

which was meant to convey the idea of an over-intellectualized
existence that had lost its natural instinctive basis, would on the one
hand express this meaning pictorially before the very eyes of the
dreamer, and on the other hand, by thus presenting itself to him,
impress him and thereby influence his psychic dynamism in a certain
direction. One can continually observe in the course of an analysis
how the various pictorial motives determine and lead into one
another. In the beginning they still appear in the guise of personal
experiences; they bear the characteristics of childhood or other re-
membrances. As the analysis penetrates to deeper levels, however, they
exhibit the outlines of the archetypes ever more clearly, the field
becomes dominated ever more definitely by the symbol alone.
Symbols can stand for the most varied contents. Natural events can
be portrayed symbolically just as well as internal psychological
processes. The symbol of "rebirth" stands always, for example, for
the fundamental concept of spiritual transformation, whether it
occurs as a primitive initiation rite, as a baptism in the early Chris-
tian sense, or in the corresponding dream-picture of a present-day
individual. Only the way in which this rebirth is attained differs
according to the historical and individual situation in consciousness.
Just for this reason it is necessary to evaluate and interpret every
symbol on the one hand, collectively, on the other, individually, if
one will do justice to its actual meaning in any given case. The
personal content and the psychological situation of the individual
must always remain decisive.

The content of a symbol can never be fully expressed rationally.
It comes out of that "between-world of subtle reality which can be
adequately expressed through the symbol alone." 8 An allegory is a
sign for something, a synonymous expression for a known content;
the symbol, however, always implies in addition something inex-
pressible by rational means. When "Plato, for example, sums up the
whole epistemological problem in the parable of the cave, or when
Christ presents his concept of the Kingdom of God in parables,
these are true and genuine symbols — namely, attempts to express
something for which as yet no verbal concept exists." The German

8 Contributions to Analytical Psychology, C. G. Jung, pp. 231-232.

314 The Techniques

word for symbol is Sinnibild, which compound excellently conveys
the implication that its content is derived from and belongs to both
spheres: as Sinn (meaning, sense) it is attributed to consciousness,
as Bild (picture, image) to the unconscious, to the irrational realm.
In this capacity, too, the symbol is best able to give an account of the
processes of the totality of the psyche and to influence as well as to
express the most complicated and contradictory psychological con-
ditions.*

Jolan Jacobi, contemporary German writer.
The Psychology of Jung. Trans. K. W. Bash.

The Dream, Its Compensatory Function

The particular truth which personal dreams bring out is directly
applicable to the dreamer himself. An apparently grotesque and
trivial dream may have a deep importance in showing what the
dreamer's immediate difficulty actually is.

For the dream has a compensatory and balancing quality. If the
whole conscious attention is concentrated upon one aspect of a
problem, the excluded and conflicting aspect becomes active in the
unconscious, and the dream, portraying what is going on in the
unconscious, reveals the other side which we need to remember in
order to evaluate ourselves properly and to see the complete picture.
It says, "This, too, is true." It is as though when the conscious is
concentrated upon one aspect the unconscious said, "But this is the
way things appear down here — you forget about this."

The dream, therefore, gives us a true picture, but often its truth
is only comparative, the truth about one aspect which needs to be
brought to our attention. Even when the dream startles us by its
vivid, pertinent comment we cannot rely on this as the voice of
infallible wisdom. We must connect it with our conscious attitude
and our outer situation at the time. For we are full of contradictory
elements; we can love and hate, fear and trust, desire and reject, and
we must remember that both sides are present when we are in a tight
place. Only by a comparison of the "affect" of the dream — that is,
the degree of emotion aroused by it— with our own conscious attitude
can we see that other aspect, and then choose for ourselves the side we

Psychotherapy 315

will accept, always remembering the other side with which we must
reckon. So the dream is continually reminding us of the part which
our conscious is forgetting. It does not speak with any absolute
authority; it simply gives a true picture of a situation which exists
in the unconscious. It speaks truth; but not, as some persons believe,
the truth. It shows the other side.

The unconscious may with infinite patience repeat a lesson over
and over, trying with new images, new pictures, to show the truth.
To express a relationship between unconscious images and conscious
life is not the same as asserting that the unconscious is purposeful
and itself acts with consciousness. The unconscious simply paints the
picture, this picture, that picture, as the sea may cast up treasures on
any shore; what use we make of these things is entirely our own
affair.

In each case the event, whether dream or outer happening, must
be accepted as an experience. It is as true with dreams as with life
events that the importance of the happening itself is secondary to
the importance of what we do with it. The dream does indicate that
something has happened in the unconscious, that an event has actually
taken place. If we will accept this inner event, experience it, make it
part of our consciously lived life, then it becomes a potent factor, it
produces change; we go from there to a new grasp, a deeper reality.*

Frances G. Wickes, 1882-. American psychotherapist.
The Inner World of Man.

The Activity of the "Shadow" 9 as Revealed by Dreams

Sometimes when one feels that the obstacles of life, even when
faced with courage, are insurmountable, one may discover that part
of the difficulty is caused by the unsuspected activity of the Shadow.
A result of ignoring the personal Shadow is graphically illus-
trated by a man's dream. At the time, he was involved in a situation
which called for more conscious responsibility and frankness than he
was willing to give. A relationship in which he had looked for unal-
loyed happiness developed unexpected difficulties. He had intuitions

9 The repressed side of the personality, the inferior side, the "undifferentiated function**
which one must learn to recognize and with which one must come to deal. (Editors)

316 The Techniques

of the unpleasant elements at work. The more he tried to ignore
these, the more his energies seemed to go from him. Doubt and
distrust crept in, and he put the blame for this upon others. He feared
to face the situation frankly, desiring to hold his infantile phantasy
of perfection.

Then he tried to dismiss his intuitions as disloyal. He tried to
reason things out consciously and to argue to himself that it was all
unimportant, but he only became confused as to what faults were
real and what were projections. He thrust the problem down out of
consciousness. But though his attempt was to repress only the negative
side, he lost all spontaneity of feeling. Then the dynamic energy of
the unconscious seemed to go from him — not only had his feeling
gone out, but the creative quality which had been present in his work
was no longer at his disposal. At this point, the unconscious came
to his aid by painting a dream picture:

"I am on a ship which has become stranded in a strange waste land.
I know that we have submerged this country in order to drown out the
inhabitants, whom we feared. But now we are attacked by a greater
enemy; we are prisoners. Then I realize that if we had not drowned out
the inhabitants we might have got help from them, whereas now we are
delivered over, helpless, to some unseen but omnipotent tyrant from
whom there is no escape."

His own interpretation was, "I have been trying to pretend that
all sorts of things which I knew intuitively were wrong in this busi-
ness either were better not talked about or else were the fault of
others involved and that, therefore, I could do nothing about them
and had best ignore them. But this has left me high and dry, delivered
over to the enemy who, in some strange way, has drained me of my
energy both in feeling and in power to work. I feel absolutely unable
to get back any enthusiasm for life."

Here the Shadow elements which he tried to drown were the
negative distrustful elements in himself which were roused when he
was faced with the responsibilities involved in the working out of a
difficult reality. In becoming conscious of these, in letting the waters
of the unconscious cover them, he projected the whole thing upon

Psychotherapy 317

other people involved and felt it all was due to the influence of their
shadows. He feared to test out the truth of his doubts lest he should
discover the situation to have no value for himself and he would
lose even the illusion of happiness. He would not frankly face the
disaster which might result from acknowledging the truth. First he
projected all the difficulties upon others, and then he tried to repress
these projections as being disloyal. He refused to become aware of
the inner voices which were contradicting his conscious decision. So
the whole problem was pushed back into the unconscious, where it
acted like an ever-increasing magnetic force continually drawing
down his energy.

In the end, it made the unconscious assume the proportions of a
great inundation which drowned all his spontaneous energy and
finally left him helpless, delivered over to one of those greater shad-
ows of the collective unconscious which in the dream appeared as the
inescapable tyrant. For, whenever he had pushed down any of his
fears, he had really been feeding the Shadow until it had grown to
proportions too great for his personal ego-consciousness to meet. It
had taken from him the dynamic and creative elements of the
unconscious which before fed his creative life.

For if one ignores the personal Shadow, one may be delivered
over to the greater enemy. In such a typical human situation as this,
for example, a failure to meet the problem may leave one at the
mercy of the archetype — here the unseen invincible tyrant. If the
archetype succeeds in swallowing the ego, the individual values are
disintegrated and one becomes possessed by the unconscious and
bereft of energy.

This man was acting in accordance with a generally accepted
social standard that the negative and disturbing aspects of a situation
should be passed over in a well-bred silence; that unpleasant things
are best left out of a discussion; that resentments and anger should
be hidden; in fact, that all the realities of the situation should be
concealed if they interfere with harmonious adjustment. But realities
dwindle when one fears anything which might disturb surface calm,
whether these realities are in the outer situation or the inner. Then
the difficulties may be projected. The devil is at work in the other

318 The Techniques

fellow. The shadows of others fall across the path and they must be
avoided. The outer life narrows, the inner life becomes more shallow.
But down below, the Shadow has a good supper.*

Frances G. Wickes, 1882-. American psychotherapist.
The Inner World of Man.

The Phantasy and the Transformation of Personality

The scientific credo of our time has developed a superstitious
phobia about phantasy. But that is real which works. The phantasies
of the unconscious work — this cannot be gainsaid. Our famous scien-
tific reality does not protect us in the least from the so-called unreality
of the unconscious. Something works behind the veil of fantastic
images, whether we give to this something either a good name or a
bad. It is something real, and for this reason its vital manifestations
must be taken seriously. But first the tendency to concretization must
be overcome* In practice, this means that the phantasies should not
be taken literally as soon as one approaches the question of interpre-
tation. But while we are involved in the actual experience, the phan-
tasies cannot be taken literally enough. Only when we come to the
task of understanding them; then we must never mistake the
semblance (i.e., the phantasy-image) for the effective process under-
lying it. The semblance is not the thing itself, but only an expression
of it.

The two opposing "realities," the world of the conscious and the
world of the unconscious, do not quarrel for preeminence, but to-
gether constitute a reciprocal relativity. That the reality of the uncon-
scious is highly relative will surely excite no vigorous denial, but that
the reality of the conscious world could be called into question will
be less easily tolerated. And yet both "realities" are psychic experience,
psychic semblances emerging from unknowable, mysterious back-
grounds. To a critical reflection nothing is left of an absolute reality.

Of essence and absolute being we know nothing. Our experience
consists of various effects, from "without" by way of the senses, and
from "within" in the form of phantasies.

A sustained conscious attitude that not only makes conscious, but
also participates actively in the various events of these phantasy con-

Psychotherapy 319

structions (which would otherwise remain quite unconscious) has
very definite consequences, and I myself have witnessed these cases
not once or twice, but innumerable times. The first effect is that the
range of consciousness is increased by the inclusion of a great number
and variety of unconscious contents. This is followed by a gradual
diminution of the dominating influence of the unconscious. The
third and most important effect is a very considerable change in per-
sonality.

This change in personality is ^naturally not an alteration of the
original hereditary disposition, but rather a transformation of the
general attitude. Those sharp cleavages and antagonisms between the
conscious and the unconscious, which are so abundantly evident in
the endless conflicts of neurotic natures, depend almost invariably on
a pronounced bias of the conscious attitude, by which absolute prece-
dence is given to one or two functions;10 while other functions are kept
unduly repressed in the background. Through the actual experience
of the phantasies and the assimilation of them by consciousness, the
unconscious and relatively inferior functions become organized in
the conscious hierarchy. Naturally, this is a process which cannot take
place without a far-reaching effect on the conscious attitude.

I will for the moment refrain from a discussion of the nature of
this change in personality, since at present I only want to emphasize
the fact than an essential change does take place. I have called it the
transcendent function, and it obtains by virtue of a fundamental
coming to terms with the unconscious. There is a remarkable capacity
for transformation existing in the human soul, expressed in the
transcendent function.*-**

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychotherapist
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Trans. H. G. and C. F. Baynes.

Dangers of Psychotherapy

A peculiar and, for the religious situation, important significance
is attached in the present to the art of healing. It must be recalled
that with the elimination of the priestly confessional and the loss of
its real values the physician stepped upon the scene as a substitute.

10 Feeling, thinking, intuition and sensation.

320 The Techniques

Yet he was a substitute who could not supply what should have been
supplied, a healing process proceeding out of man's central function^
that is, out of his religious relations. First of all the separation of
body and soul, then the mechanization of the body, then the concep-
tion of the psychic as a product of the physical machine — these
logical consequences of a rationalistic, atomistic conception of nature,
which had been deprived of life and of inwardness, made the healing
art more and more a mechanical and technical activity. The separate
organs were treated as though they were separate parts of a machine
which could be isolated; furthermore, the body was treated, and only
the body. Even the science of psychical healing came to be in fact a
science of physical healing or of the healing of separate organs. It is
evident that according to this conception the relation of physician
and patient could only be an external, objective and contractual rela-
tionship, not one of real community supported by love. Such a rela-
tionship corresponds to the fundamental lack of community-love in
the spirit of capitalist society. In spite of all principles, it is true,
authority upon the one hand and trust upon the other always played
an important role and revealed their great significance, particularly
in the treatment of psychic disorders. But it was only when the
psycho-analytic method became effective after 1900 that more im-
portant consequences were realized. This method restores inde-
pendence to the soul. The depths of the unconscious are explored
independently of bodily and organic processes. Naturally such a proce-
dure cannot be used unless the physician can enter sympathetically
into the mind of the patient and this requires again that the patient
have a personal Eros-attitude toward the physician (the attitude will
oscillate between love and hate, and has nothing to do with eroticism,
must in fact exclude this). Thus an important analogy to the old
confessional relationship has been created. In the one, as in the other,
decisive significance attaches to the soul's misery, which is almost
always connected with guilt-complexes, to the relief brought by the
recognition, verbal expression and the realization of hidden connec-
tions and, finally, to the determination to reconstruct the soul. Yet
there is a profound difference between the two methods. In the con-
fessional all this takes place in the presence of God. The mind is

Psychotherapy 321

directed first of all to the eternal and only in the second place toward
itself. The things confession is concerned with belong to the very
heart of personality, to its freedom and responsibility. The danger of
psycho-analysis is that it will deal with these same things from the
point of view of natural occurrences and that it will constantly direct
the attention of the patient to himself and his temporal existence. Thus
the soul's center of gravity may be transferred from the center— from
the point of personal responsibility in the presence of the Uncondi-
tioned— to the impersonal, unconscious, purely natural sphere. This is
the source of the frequently destructive effects of psycho-analysis and
the indication that in this instance also the self -sufficient finitude of
the psychic has not been actually broken through. Only a priestly man
can be a complete psychiatrist. For with him the relation to the patient
and the inner activities of the patient have been lifted out of the realm
of the subjectivity of the finite into the inclusive life of the eternal.

Paul Tillich, i886». American theologian, philosopher.
The Religious Situation.

The psychological doctor who presumes to meddle with the
dynamics of an educated human being, without having a coherent
view of that universe in which the educated human being is an
integral part — a universe in which human "values" are objectively
grounded— is a charlatan: first, because it is impossible that a man
who is not himself truly integrated can show the way to self-integra-
tion to another, and without such a world-view he cannot himself be
integrated; and, secondly, because there is no possibility of integrating
his patient unless he can put before him such a coherent world-view.
To tinker with souls without knowing what you are doing, without
knowing or caring to know whether you have the right to do what
you are doing at all, is an offence

It is impossible that psychology should make itself the equivalent
of religion, unless it first sets itself to understand what religion is.
That is the most important, and most urgent task before modern
psychology. Not that it is a task for psychology alone; it is equally in-
cumbent upon any mind which can rise to the conception of a neces-
sary continuity in human evolution. Anyone who wishes to under-

322 The Techniques

stand human history must understand religion; and since no one
can really understand himself except he understands human history,
the effort to understand religion is incumbent upon all who seek self-
knowledge. But psychology is especially concerned. Half-consciously
it has drifted or been pushed into the position of religion: it under-
takes most of the duties, and assumes most of the responsibilities,
which were for many centuries undertaken and assumed by religion.
It must either rise consciously to the full height of the responsibility
it has unconsciously assumed, or be definitely relegated to the realm
of quackery and pseudo-science.

It would be hard for me to decide which is the greater; the con-
tempt which I feel for most of what passes for modern psychology,
or the confidence which I feel in the potentialities of modern
psychology if its responsibilities are truly accepted,*

John Middleton Murry, 1889-. English author, literary critic.

God.

SOME SELF-EDUCATION PROCEDURES

The Handling of Phantasy Material

The art of letting things happen, action in non-action, letting go
of oneself, as taught by Meister Eckhart, became a key to me with
which I was able to open the door to the "Way." The key is this: we
must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this becomes
a real art of which few people know anything. Consciousness is for-
ever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, and never leaving
the simple growth of the psychic processes in peace. It would be a
simple enough thing to do, if only simplicity were not the most
difficult of all things. It consists solely in watching objectively the
development of any fragment of fantasy. Nothing could be simpler
than thisj and yet right here the difficulties begin. Apparently no
fantasy-fragment is at hand— yes there is one, but it is too stupid!
Thousands of good excuses are brought against it: one cannot con-
centrate on it; it is too boring; what could come out of it? It is
"nothing but, etc." The conscious raises prolific objections; in fact, it
often seems bent upon blotting out the spontaneous fantasy-activity
despite the intention.

Psychotherapy 323

If one is successful in overcoming the initial difficulties, criticism
is likely to start afterwards and attempt to interpret the fantasy, to
classify, to aestheticize, or to depreciate it. The temptation to do this
is almost irresistible. After a complete and faithful observation, free
rein can be given to the impatience of the conscious; in fact it must
be given, else obstructing resistances develop. But each time the fan-
tasy-material is to be produced, the activity of the conscious must
again be put aside.

In most cases the results of these efforts are not very encouraging
at first. It is chiefly a matter of typical fantasy-material which admits
of no clear statement as to whence it comes or whither it is going.
Moreover, the way of getting at the fantasies is individually different.
For many people, it is easiest to write them; others visualize them,
and others again draw and paint them with or without visualization.
In cases of a high degree of inflexibility in the conscious, oftentimes
the hands alone can fantasy; they model or draw figures that are
quite foreign to the conscious.

These exercises must be continued until the cramp in the conscious
is released, or, in other words, until one can let things happen; which
was the immediate goal of the exercise. In this way, a new attitude is
created, an attitude which accepts the irrational and the unbelievable,
simply because it is what is happening. This attitude would be poison
for a person who has already been overwhelmed by things that just
happen, but it is of the highest value for one who, with an exclusively
conscious critique, chooses from the things that happen only those
appropriate to his consciousness, and thus gets gradually drawn away
from the stream of life into a stagnant backwater.

At this point, the way travelled by the two above-mentioned types
seems to separate. Both have learned to accept what comes to them.
One man will chiefly take what comes to him from without, and the
other what comes from within, and, as determined by the law of life,
the one will have to take from without something he never could
accept from without, and the other will accept from within, things
that always would have been excluded before.

This reversal of one's being means an enlargement, heightening,
and enrichment of the personality when the previous values are ad-

324 The Techniques

hered to along with the change, provided, of course, they are not
mere illusions. If the values are not retained, the man goes over to the
other side, and passes from fitness to unfitness, from adaptedness to
the lack of it, from sense to nonsense, and from reason even to mental
disease. Everything good is costly, and the development of the per-
sonality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a question of yea-
saying to oneself, of taking the self as the most serious of tasks, keep-
ing conscious of everything done, and keeping it constantly before
one's eyes in all its dubious aspects— truly a task that touches us to
the core.

The Chinese can fall back upon the authority of his entire culture.
If he starts on the long way, he does what is recognized as being the
best of all the things he could do. But the Westerner who seriously
wishes to start upon this way has all authority against him in intellec-
tual, moral, and religious fields. The step to higher consciousness
leads away from all shelter and safety. The person must give himself
to the new way completely, for it is only by means of his integrity that
he can go farther, and only his integrity can guarantee that his way
does not turn out to be an absurd adventure.*-**

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychologist, founder of the System of Analytic Psychology.

The Secret of the Golden Flower. Trans. C. F. Baynes.

Active Phantasying consists in letting the mind loose, allowing
whatever will to come into consciousness. The difference between
this and idle day-dreaming is a question of valuation or attitude. The
very fact that meaning is attached to the imagery, and that it is
recorded and valued, seems to constellate the autonomous activity in
a peculiar way. Instead of wayward ephemeral fancies that blow down
the wind like thistledown, the images that arise under the influence
of value and attention are pregnant and relevant in a high degree.
It is not unlike the experience of men who, for years perhaps, have
had only the lightest and most trifling relations with women; sud-
denly, for no discoverable reason, a woman steps out of the condi-
tion of ephemeral irrelevance and becomes commandingly relevant.
Such a man, we say, has been seized by the love-problem. In much
the same way one can be seized by the psyche, the spontaneous, un-

Psychotherapy 325

willed activity of the mind suddenly assuming a peculiar significance.
What makes the woman or the fantasy suddenly relevant ? In neither
case is it mere accident; indeed, in the psyche sphere there can be
no such thing as accident; when reason is in control, we are able to
weigh all the factors for or against a certain decision; but in the irra-
tional realm, the event goes of itself without conscious direction, and
often with astonishing certainty of aim. But whose aim? Unless we
wish to introduce some extra-psychic cause in deference to time-
honored tradition, we have to accept the concept of the self as em-
bracing both irrational and rational, unconscious and conscious ele-
ments. Only with this conception is it possible to comprehend a sub-
jective aim more far-sighted and more commanding than the deliber-
ate-aiming consciousness. Without this central conception it is, I
believe, fundamentally impossible to reach the heart of a dream, or
to give vital value to such irrational products as we shall presently
discuss.

Active fantasy-production may follow many different routes,
according to individual preference. With some subjects the fantasy
springs directly out of a dream, and there is an immediate inclination
to paint or in some way11 elaborate the dream-image. Modelling
clay or plasticine, painting or drawing, carrying on the dream-scene
in waking fantasy, conversing with personification of the unconscious
or independent entities, written accounts, poems, dialogues, even
dancing and posturing — in fact, any method at all which gives con-
creteness, independence, plastic vitality to the psychic contents
I include under this term as a rule. Those products have little or no
aesthetic value; in short, the ideal condition for active fantasying is
that of the child, only it must be combined with the purposiveness
of maturity.*

H. Godwin Baynes, MIX The late English Jungian analyst.

Mythology of the SouL

Painting of Dream Symbols

A true symbol can never be fully explained. We can make its
rational component comprehensible to consciousness; its irrational

11 See The New Art Education by Ralph M. Pearson.

326 The Techniques

component we can grasp only with our feelings. Therefore Jung
urges his patients so emphatically not only to set down their "in-
ward pictures" (dreams) in speech or writing but also to reproduce
them in the form of their original appearance, in which not only the
content of the picture but also its colours and their distribution all
have a particular individual significance. Only thus can one quite do
justice to their meaning for the patient and utilize their form as well
as their content as a highly important factor in the psychological
process of realization.

With such pictures it is "naturally not a matter of art, but of some-
thing more than and different from mere art, namely of a vital effect
upon the patient himself/' 12 or whoever produced the pictures. There-
fore, too, it does not matter at all whether such a picture is good or
bad in the sense of an artistic evaluation. For it can even occur that
a painter or sketcher draws such pictures with a primitive, un-
skilled, and childlike hand, artistically far poorer than one who has
never used pencil and brush but whose inward pictures are so lively
and intense that he can reproduce them perf ectly. Such drawings and
paintings "are dynamic fantasies; they work within the man who
makes them. . . . Moreover the material objectification of such
a picture enforces a prolonged contemplation of it in all its parts,
so that it can thereby unfold its full effect. And what works in the
patient is he himself, but no longer in the sense of the previous mis-
understanding,, in which he took his personal ego for his Self, but
in a new sense, strange to him up to now, in which his ego appears
as object of that which works within him. Mere painting is not
enough. It requires above and beyond that an intellectual and
emotional comprehension of the pictures, by means of which they
become integrated not only rationally but also morally with con-
sciousness. Then they must still be subjected to a synthetic interpreta-
tion. We find ourselves, however, in absolutely new territory, in
which broad experience is needed above all, because we have to do
here with a vital process of the psyche outside of consciousness, which
we can observe only indirectly. And we have as yet no notion to

12 Carl G. Jung.

Psychotherapy 327

what depths our insight reaches here" 13 Whoever has once himself
experienced in distress of soul the liberating effect of a mood thus
brought to expression or an inward picture thus captured and held
fast, which it seemed impossible to clothe in words, knows what
boundless relief it affords. Persons who had never used brush or
pencil have thus suddenly become in the course of an analysis ac-
complished portrayers of the verbally indescribable contents of their
psyche and have so been permitted to partake in a certain sense of
the same ecstatic experience as the artist who brings forth forms, and
fixes an image out of the depths of his soul. Although such symbols
and archetypes are most often apprehended in the form of images, it
is sometimes given a poet, drawing from the same source, to attain in
words to a certain approximation to the unutterable, as it was
Coleridge when he dreamt "Kubla Khan.55 Precisely this fact demon-
strates the transcendental character of the symbol and shows that it
is a core of meaning bound to no sense modality, much less a mere
hallucination. Its fixation means amortization; gives forms to what
is inexpressible and vague; and enables us to recognize this in its
true nature, to reach an understanding of it, and, bringing it into
consciousness, to integrate it.*

Jolan Jacobi, contemporary German writer.
The Psychology of Jung, Trans. K, W. Bash,

Confessional Meditation 14

If you repress what you harbor, you will be stifled by your own
unlived life. If you express the repressed tendencies, you may destroy
and kill You must find another way to "make terms with your
opponent, so long as you and he are on the way to court" (Matt. 5:25,
Moffatt). The way out, indeed the only way out, as far as we know, •
is the way of confession. But the word confession must be under-
stood, and the method must be used in the right way, according to
the structure of the human mind and the special problems of our
time. Otherwise, the result will be the opposite of what it should be.

13 Carl G. Jung.

14 The practice of Confessional Meditation should not be attempted without further
direction such as is found in the final chapters of In Search of Maturity by Fritz Kunkel.

328 The Techniques

Originally there were two people involved, the confessing initiate
and the priest, the father confessor; or, since the ministry has lost the
knowledge and the power of the confessional way, the psychologist.
But the latter is often as poorly equipped for this dangerous work as
is the minister.

Imagine the confessional process in all its crudity and ruthlessness.
It is a powerful and dangerous discharge of high voltage; and if you
are not an expert in this field you had better stay away— or defend
yourself by assuming the role of a judge. If you judge, you turn con-
fession into new repression. Where there is judgment, there is no
truth. And absolution is judgment, too. If some one confesses in
order to be absolved he is unable to confess the "hidden sins," namely
the darkness of his unconscious mind.

The superficial deeds which he remembers can be easily told and
are easily plucked, but these are only the poisonous flowers blossoming
above the earth. The roots remain in the unconscious, and they will
thrive again and again — new flowers, new sins to be confessed daily.
And both the sinner and the absolver live in an unconscious agree-
ment never to touch the poisonous roots, because the same explosion,
the same revolution would upset the whole outer and inner lives of
father confessor and parishioner alike. "Keep off!! High Voltage!!"
That is one of the reasons why two thousand years of confessional
practice have failed to discover the unconscious. The result of this
wrong practice is that scarcely anything can be more boring and
more useless psychologically than the usual routine of confession.

We have to revitalize, indeed to recreate, the meaning of the old
and colorful word, if we can use it at all. And we try to do so by
stressing two aspects of its meaning: one being known, but too much
neglected so far, the other being quite new and, as far as we can see,
included only vaguely in some old descriptions.

The first aspect is that the nearer mankind draws to real Chris-
tianity the more the Christian can and should confess to the One
who was always supposed to be represented by, or present in, the
Father Confessor, namely God. A trustworthy friend, a father con-
fessor, if possible an expert in depth-psychology, should be available
in case of emergency. But the main part of the task has to be solved

Psychotherapy 329

by the individual alone by himself in confessional meditation; and
that means "in the presence of God." Try to pour out before Him
whatever comes to your mind. Be not embarrassed by His presence.
Do not refrain from strong words — say "swine" if you mean swine :
God knows what you say and what you do not say anyhow. He
knows your conscious and your unconscious mind equally. Therefore
His presence will help you to discover your "secret sins" and unearth
your "buried talents."

Here we reach the second point: our confession has to bring to
light the unknown, the unconscious darkness, and the undeveloped
creativity of our deeper layers. Confession then becomes research,
investigation, discovery. We discover our individual as well as collec-
tive drives, too much and too little power, emotional drought and
emotional floods, destructive and constructive urges, our animal
nature and our vegetal nature. If we can spread out before Him all
the hidden roots of our virtues and vices, if we are honest and
courageous enough to release before Him the high voltage of our
unconscious hatred and love, we may discover that all our power is
in the last analysis His power, and that our darkness turns into light
because He is both darkness and light.

Expression of what we find within ourselves, honest and reckless
expression before the face of the Eternal, assuming responsibility for
what we are, even if we are unaware of it, and asking God to help
us to master the wild horses, or to revive the skeletons of horses which
we dig out during the long hours of our confessions— this is the
psychological method of religious self -education. It is a way of bring-
ing to consciousness our unconscious contents, and of establishing
control over our hidden powers. It is the way to mature responsibility.
It is the old way of the Psalmist: "Yet who can detect his lapses?
Absolve me from my faults unknown! And hold thy servant back
from wilful sins, from giving way to them" (Psalm 19:12, 13,
Moffatt).

Not in the presence of a minister or a psychologist, but in the
presence of God, things change completely. If you hate your brother,
and you pour out all your hatred, remembering at the same time,
as much as you can^ the presence of God— and your hatred docs not

330 The Techniques

change, then you are not sufficiently aware either of the presence of
God or of your hatred, and probably of neither. Be more honest, give
vent to your emotions. You hate your brother: imagine his presence,
before God tell him how you feel, kick him, scratch him. You are
ten years old now— get up from your chair, don't pretend to be a
wise old Buddha, pace the floor, yell, scream, punch the furniture,
express yourself. Rant and rage until you are exhausted, or until
you laugh at yourself.

You hate your brother: God is there, tell Him the truth, be as
honest as those old Hebrews: "Routed, dishonoured, be they who
delight in harm to me!" (Psalm 40:14, Moffatt). Pray God He
should punish your brother, torture him, help you to defeat him.
Try to be one with God, the old God of vengeance. He will help
you, if not in killing your enemy, then otherwise. Look: during all
your rage, listening to your furious prayer, God was there, His
presence encompassed you like the calm, creative smile of a father
who knows that his child will spend his fury and then discover the
truth and find the right way. Certainly you will find the right way,
but only when you have spent your force, honestly and thoroughly,
in rage and fury or complaint and despair. It will take weeks or
months; you may have to travel the long way through the whole
Old Testament, not just through a few Psalms of hatred and
vengeance. And finally you will meet the God of the inner storms:
"smoke fumed from his nostrils, and scorching fire from his lips, that
kindled blazing coals, as down he came on the bending sky, the
storm-cloud at his feet" (Psalm 18:8, 9, Moffatt). It is a nightmare
more real than anything you have ever seen in the outer world. But
it is not yet real enough. The highest reality emerges out of the fire
in complete calm. We may realize it for a moment beyond space and
time: the center itself. And at last "What is old has gone, the new
has come" (II Cor. 5:17, Moffatt). The new is "God's peace that
surpasses all our dreams." (Phil. 4:7, Moffatt.)

Thus we combine the old practice of "the presence of God," well
known in the tradition of meditation and prayer, with the new
practice of depth-psychology, well known in modern literature. The
result is "confessional meditation."

Psychotherapy 331

Much unconscious, unexpected material will come to light: facts,
tendencies, emotions, capacities, and power. It may take time, weeks
and perhaps months, but it will happen. Forgotten scenes will be re-
called, people and relations will appear in a different light. More
important, of course, than the accumulation of material is its new
evaluation and its application to our future. Grudge will change into
compassion, and hatred into love. Destructive tendencies will give way
to newly discovered creative capacities. Our unlived life, thus released
from its prison, wants to be lived. We are dimly aware, during this
time, of the primitiveness and immaturity of our new desires and
ideas; yet the same regression which enabled us to unearth the un-
conscious power now makes it difficult to refrain from its immediate
use. No mistake, however, would be worse than this. Confessional
meditation without continence, fasting, voluntary privation, is
doomed to failure. Express your hatred or love, your greed or envy,
before the face of God; but do not express them to the people whom
you hate or love. This is the best way to discover more or deeper
hatred or love, and to draw nearer to the real center.

Our repressed drives, when they come to consciousness, are
primitive, undifferentiated and powerful, like young hippopotami.
Not to satisfy them is a heroic task, presupposing some training in
the old and almost forgotten art of fasting. Therefore, when you
set out on the road of self -education learn how to fast — not only with
regard to eating too much (any good dietician can help you to learn
that) but also with regard to some of your other bad habits. We not
only eat and drink and smoke too much: we also talk too much,
read too much, write too much; we are too busy satisfying our petty
needs. If you like to smoke, stop it, and you will meet with "the
beasts in the desert." And when you have the first great dream, and,
stunned by its appalling colors, would like to tell your friends or
husband or wife about it— stop! Fast! Refrain from gossip! If you
betray the secrets of the soul no further secret will be entrusted to you.

Conscious sacrifice is required, instead of unconscious repression,
expressing all the anguish of unsatisfied vital needs before God, but
not before our fellow-men. The child-like imperative "you must
not . , ." is replaced by the mature insight "I will not . . ." Thus we

332 The Techniques

may learn to leave "brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or
children or lands or houses" . . . (Matt. 19:29, Moffatt). This conscious
sacrifice is what is meant by fasting and plucking out our eye. It is
an integral part of confessional meditation.

But the long and winding road of self-education cannot be
travelled in seclusion and solitude. It has to be a part of our normal
activity. We have to live in the world, and its demands, satisfactions
and disappointments are an integral contribution to our psychological
research. We should refrain — at least during periods of crisis — from
important decisions and from strong emotional reactions towards the
outer world. But we should study this world and study our re-
actions towards it, and even sometimes try, in the sense of an ex-
periment, to do something against our habit-patterns or beyond our
usual self-control.

Without the verification in outer life all our inner progress
remains questionable. And without the inner experience of new
understanding, power and creativity, all our outer improvements
would remain a shallow masquerade. The pendulum of religious
self-education has to swing back and forth between introvert and
extravert experiences, confessional meditation and positive training:
this is the best way to avoid the one-sidedness and self-deceptions
which always threaten our spiritual development.*

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., 1889-. German psychotherapist, author.

In Search of Maturity.

Positive Training

Do something new. The way out of your shell involves enlarging
your experience in the direction of greater usefulness and larger
productivity. Your Ego includes your ideas about what you cannot
do as well as your feelings about your value or worth. These set up
limits beyond which you hesitate to venture. Nevertheless the Self
seeks expressions of its creative capacities. So again and again you
may feel "I don't think I could do that but I could try." We may
speak of this as the temptation to productivity, representing the
inner urge to growth, the prompting of the Self toward increasing
productivity.

It is important to understand the inner meaning of the feeling,

Psychotherapy 333

"I cannot/' which one often has. Of course, there are absolute
limits to what one can do. Obviously the lack of wings and the
possession of only two hands instead of four impose certain limita-
tions concerning which we must say "I cannot." Apart from in-
capacities of this type the meaning of the feeling "I cannot" is
usually "I must not because I am afraid of what might happen if
I did."

Growth in character and the consequent deeper satisfactions are
dependent again and again upon discovering this masked fear and
facing it. Quite the opposite reaction also needs to be understood
in this connection. It is the feeling, "I must." It is the sometimes
terrifying feeling that one experiences when he feels impelled to do
something that seems virtually impossible yet somehow necessary

to one's very existence Here, too, back of the "I must" is the

-loo, the fearful thing which one is seeking to escape, this time not
by refusing to try the new task but by assuming what may be an
impossible one.

Look back of your feeling "I must" for the possible minus 100 in
your life. Do so especially when you feel unhappily urged on. But
the "I must" may be, and is at times, the wholesome urge to greater
creativity. ... In such cases there is a deep joy in the impulsion to
go on. This is objective living which is by no means free from hard-
ship but always essentially satisfying and even joyous. The ego-
centric "I must" is darkly dyed with fear and unhappiness.

In all sound efforts to do something new, it is important to re-
member the principle of the small steps. When you look ahead to
the new experience that you need to widen your world and take
you beyond your former limits, do not think of some quick and easy
journey to new realms, for that is the egocentric wish for quick
triumph. It tends to defeat your own ends, especially in those situa-
tions in which your reaction is "I cannot." If, feeling thus, you try to
reach your goal by one giant step, you will, of course, fail, and then
you will say to yourself and others, "I was right. I thought I could
not and now I know it. I tried and I failed as I thought I would." *

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., German psychotherapist, and Roy E. Dickerson, American social worker.

How Character Develops,

CHAPTER SEVEN

Fellowship

The first, easiest and most obvious assistance toward an indi-
vidual's private efforts is the simple association with others
making the same attempt.

ANONYJMOUS

The corporate life of worship checks religious egotism, breaks
down devotional barriers and in general confers all the support-
ing and disciplinary benefits of family life.

EVELYN UNDERHILL

All these intellectual attitudes (against religion) would have
short shrift if Christianity had remained what it was — a com-
munion; if Christianity had remained what it was — a religion of
the heart.

CHARLES PEGTJY

Ecclesiastical institutions can either work havoc with religion
or give it support and opportunity.

HARRY EJMERSON FOSDICK.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Fellowship

INTIMATE FELLOWSHIP

Fellowship too (as well as prayer) is a lesson in receptivity. Its
discipline of silence is not less rigorous because it is incidental to the
business and enjoyments of daily living. Without such silence it
would relapse into mere noisy sociability. There is a seeking out of
the best in others, of that which is most ultimate in them, and ex-
posing oneself to it, to learn from it and be made over by it, which
brings friendship very close to the mood of prayer. It runs also the
same risk of romantic subjectivism. It is all too easy to use one's
friends as a pleasant retreat from the facts of one's own failure or of
the world's iniquity, build up with them little gardens of Epicure
and wall out the dirt and distress of the real world outside.

But the distinctive thing about fellowship is its lesson of self-
subordination. Confronted with the problem of self-assertiveness,
prayer takes it out by the horns and simply bids the self be stilled
and quiescent, while it seeks directly the great reality of God. Fellow-
ship cannot take quite so radical a way. My self is precisely that
which I must bring to my friends, with which I must approach them,
and through which I must present whatever contribution I have to
make. I cannot suppress it. I must find the place within the relation-
ship which it can legitimately fit, and let it grow into it. Any friend-
ship— between two or between a hundred — entails a new emergent
unity, where each of the constituent selves is far more in its func-
tional oneness with the rest than it ever was in its apartness.

That greater self demanded by the relation is the self which I can
and must try to be; it is a definite possibility which invites growth,
demands readjustment, has power of inspiration and criticism. And

336

Fellowship 337

I find that greater self just in so far as I am willing and able to lose
myself — the isolated, unrelated self — in the organic unity of the pros-
pective togetherness. In that process of losing, to find my self, I get
the most effective working correction and expansion of the content
of my idea of God.

Take the marriage bond, for instance. To enter it is to find whole
new realms of understanding, of loyalty, of forgiveness, of patience,
of appreciation, of trust. One's earlier notion of the good grows with
the harvest of this new experience; it is corrected, enlarged, enriched.
It is the same good, the same God, whom one still serves and cele-
brates, but it covers now a new dimension of experience and vibrates
with new meanings. Every relationship brings the same enrichment.
If one be only sensitive to the needs of each new situation, if one be
willing to cut loose from one's old moorings and meet each new
association with all the eagerness and humility of faith, one will live
to follow the Unknown God in an ever deepening acquaintance,
a steady process of discovery and growth.

Gregory Vlastos, 1909-. Canadian Professor of Philosophy.

The Religious Way.

GROUP FELLOWSHIP ' ' '

No man can live this religious life alone. He must have the fellow-
ship of others who are trying to live in this way. This is so because
the human personality above all things is a social entity. It is created
by association and shaped by association. Interchange of thought and
feeling with other persons is the very breath of life of personality.
As the organism must breathe to live, so the human personality must
communicate to live.

The most potent group in which to foster the distinctively reli-
gious way of living is small in number. It should range from two or
three or four up to twelve or fifteen, although the last number is too
large except in rare cases. Jesus Christ chose twelve and that seems to
have been too many by. one. The number must be few enough to
permit personalities to interact freely and know one another deeply,
at least in respect to the nature of their ruling loyalty. One of the
purposes of such a fellowship is to make inhibitions to dissolve away.

338 The Techniques

the dark areas of personality to be illuminated, and the individuals to
become translucent to one another.

Our civilization is one in which people, as a usual thing, do not
know one another beyond superficial levels. Consequently we are
constrained, concealed, unconfessed; at best suave and smooth and
efficient, with an oily ease in getting about and dealing with people.
But the depths of personality are never exposed. Human personality
cannot grow and flower in such dark crypts of social concealment.
It must have the sunshine and rain of understanding and sympathy.
Psychic madness, social revolution, and international conflict rise
higher and higher as long as this personal isolation continues with its
competitive attitude toward all comers.

In forming a fellowship to save personality from these evils the
individuals should be selected with great care. A single wrong choice
will ruin it. If it is found that there is some one who cannot interact
fittingly, the group should disband and another be formed at some
later time. Individuals selected should be ready to practice the
method we have described. This exclusiveness is not selfish, for the
main purpose of such a group is to release power to transform per-
sonalities and change the social order in the interests of greater com-
munity among all

It is important to note that such groups often arise spontaneously.
Many people are already members of such a group without knowing
it. Such fellowships grow up like wild native plants. All we need do
is to learn the disciplines required for fostering their growth that
they may be more luxuriant and productive. However, we may be
reaching a stage in our civilization where they must be consciously
fostered, else they will not grow.

Members of the group should strive for most complete openness
toward one another in relation to what is most important in their
lives and in relation to the difficulties in their respective personalities
which interfere with their ruling devotions. They should work out
together a body of convictions they can share concerning what is
most worthful. Deep communion and most complete openness be-
tween the members will make for spontaneity and freedom in

Fellowship 339

dealing with all personalities and situations and provide for richer
growth of all the connections of value.

Occasionally each member of a group should seek out among the
members some friend whose love and ruthless honesty and insight he
can trust. He should expose himself to the criticism of that other, for
only the penetrating gaze of such a friend who shares devotion in
this peculiar way of life can reveal to one the defects and obstacles
which interfere with growth. However, not all persons are equipped
to pass judgment upon another in this way, even when they are most
sincere and loving. They do not know enough about life and per-
sonality. Hence there should be some criteria by which to determine
who is able to render this service and who is not. On the other hand,
it should be noted that even a mistaken judgment about oneself made
in all sincerity by another may be very illuminating if one can take
it objectively and discover the error in it. The discovering of the error
in the judgment about oneself made by another, will often reveal
truth about oneself that could not otherwise be detected.

The group should worship together, although the practice may
not go by that name and should assume the form best fitted to their
needs. It may be Quaker silence, or singing together, or reading
together great prose or poetry or biography. Such practice helps to
illumine the direction and meaning of their lives, unite them in their
controlling loyalty, purge them of inhibitions, fixations, conflicts,
and disturbing attachments. It widens their horizons, purifies their
motives, quickens their devotion.

Such a group as we have described is a source of spiritual power.
It is out of such power-groups that all the great world-transforming
religious movements have arisen. The early Christian groups, the
Franciscan and Jesuit groups, the early Quaker and Methodist
groups, are examples.

In a time like ours the only way that a new and transforming
religious movement can be started is through creative fellowships
such as we have tried to describe. He who lives in the peculiarly
religious way must have the support of such a group. The devitaliz-
ing, competitive, atomistic social order is all around him. It will

340 The Techniques

suffocate or crush or desiccate the devoted life within him unless
he has the support and nourishment of such a cell of spiritual renewal
and power .*

Henry Nelson Wieman, 1884-* American philosopher, theologian, educator.

The Growth of Religion 1 (Part II)

God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that
means not simply to men who are individually good,, but to men
who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one
another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant
humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.

Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning
about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him
together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equip-
ment for this science— the laboratory outfit

C. S. Lewis, 1898-. Contemporary English professor, author.

Beyond Personality.

EXPERIMENTS IN COMMUNITY

All effective communities are founded upon the principle of un-
limited liability. In small groups composed of members personally
acquainted with one another, unlimited liability provides a liberal
education in responsibility, loyalty and consideration. It was upon
the principle of unlimited liability that Raiffeisen based his system of
co-operative agricultural banking, a system which worked success-
fully even among a population so illiterate, so desperately poverty-
stricken as that of the barren Westerwald district of Prussia in the
later forties of last century. . . .

Individual members should possess nothing and everything—
nothing as individuals, everything as joint owners of communally
held property and communally produced income. Property and
income should not be so large as to become ends in themselves,, nor
so small that the entire energies of the community have to be
directed to procuring to-morrow's dinner.

1 The Growth of Religion— -by Walter M. Horton and H. N. Wieman.

Fellowship 341

We come next to the problem of discipline. History shows that it
is possible for associations of devoted individuals to survive under
disciplinary systems as radically different from one another as those,
respectively, of the Society of Jesus (Loyola) and of the Society of
Friends. Between the Higher Militarism of Loyola and the complete
democracy of a Quaker committee, in which resolutions are not even
put to the vote but discussed until at last there emerges a general
"sense of the meeting/' lies the constitutional monarchy of Benedic-
tine monasticism. All three types, as history has demonstrated, are
capable of surviving. Our choice between the various types will be
determined partly by the nature of the tasks to be performed, but
mainly by the nature of our conception of what human individuals
and societies ought to be.

At all times and in all places communities have been formed for
the purpose of making it possible for their members to live more
nearly in accord with the currently accepted religious ideals than
could be done "in the world." Such communities have always devoted
a considerable proportion of their time and energy to study, to the
performance of ceremonial acts of devotion and, in some cases at any
rate, to the practice of "spiritual exercises.'*

Many communities have been content to seek salvation only for
their own members and have considered that they did enough for
the "world" by praying for it and providing it with the example of
piety and purposeful living. Most Hindu and many Buddhist com-
munities belong to this type. In some countries, however, Buddhist
monks conceive it their duty to teach, and schools, both for children
and adults, are attached to the monasteries. In the West the majority
of Christian communities have always regarded the performance of
some kind of practical work as an indispensable part of their func-
tions. Much has been written on the civilizing influence of the
monasteries in their practical, non-religious capacity. The early
Benedictines revived agricultural life after the collapse of the Roman
Empire. For many centuries education and the 'dissemination of
knowledge through written books was mainly in the hands of the
Benedictines. Poor relief and medical aid were also supplied by the

342 The Techniques

monasteries,, and in most countries, almost up to the present day,
there were no nurses except those who had been trained in a com-
munity of nuns. During the last two centuries most of the non-
religious work performed by the religious communities has come to
be done either by the state or by secular organizations in the way of
ordinary business. Up till that time, however, neither the central
authority nor the private business man was willing or able to under-
take these jobs. We may risk a generalization and say that at any
given moment of history it is the function of associations of devoted
individuals to undertake tasks which clear-sighted people perceive
to be necessary, but which nobody else is willing to perform.

In the light of this brief account of the salient characteristics of
past communities we can see what future communities ought to be
and do. We see that they should be composed of carefully selected
individuals, united in a common belief and by fidelity to a shared
ideal. We see that property and income should be held in common
and that every member should assume unlimited liability for all
other members. We see that disciplinary arrangements may be of
various kinds, but that the most educative form of organization is the
democratic. We see that it is advisable for communities to undertake
practical work in addition to study, devotion and spiritual exercises ;
and that this practical work should be a kind which other social
agencies, public or private, are either unable or unwilling to perform.

All of us desire a better state of society. But society cannot become
better before two great tasks are performed. Unless peace can be
firmly established and the prevailing obsession with money and
power profoundly modified, there is no hope of any desirable change
being made. Governments are not willing to undertake these tasks;
indeed, in many countries they actively persecute those who even
express the opinion that such tasks are worth performing. Private
individuals are not prepared to undertake them in the ordinary way
of business. If the work is to be done at all— and it is clear that, unless
it is done, the state of the world is likely to become progressively
worse — it must be done by associations of devoted individuals.*-**

Aldous Leonard Huxley, 1894-. English writer, literary critic.

Ends and Means.

Fellowship 343

CORPORATE WORSHIP

Central as is the relationship between the separate individual and
God, each man needs an experience of life in the great family of God
if he is to grow to understand the real nature of that love and the
real character of his response to that love, to say nothing of growing
to understand and to live creatively with his fellows.

For the past fifteen years I have lived among students and intel-
lectual people both in this country and abroad. And I have seen the
pain and the blocking of inner growth that has come to people who
have known the religious life, for the want of fellowship and of
active participation in the corporate worship and family life of some
religious group.

Critical as this generation is, and may be justified in being, of the
existing forms of religious fellowship, it can no longer be content
with the emphasis of men such as William James, who interpreted
religion as an individual affair that had little to do with its group
expressions, or even with Henri Bergson, for whom the corporate
side of religion can never be other than a static element. This Olym-
pian aloofness of "sitting like God, holding no form of creed but
contemplating all" and feeling above active participation in corporate
worship has flatly failed to help its defenders to grow in the religious
life.

The role that actual participation in corporate religious worship
plays in nurturing the life of us halting ones has too long been
obscured.2 Augustine's regular attendance on the church celebrations
and the sermons of Bishop Ambrose in Milan played no small part
in preparing him for that scene in the garden where he consciously
yielded to the Christian way. Only in vital action, whether it be
symbolic or direct, does thought ripen into truth, and the modern
mind would do well not to confuse religion with a state of conscious-
ness. "Thou art man," The Imitation of Christ gently reminds us,
"and not God; Thou art flesh and no angel." And Pascal saw that
this flesh must be disciplined not alone by thoughts but by acts of
love and by corporate acts of worship. "For we must not misunder-

2 See Worship by Evelyn Underbill, Harper & Bros., 1937.

344 2'A* Techniques

stand ourselves; we are as much automatic as intellectual; and hence
it comes that the instrument by which conviction is attained is not
(rationally) demonstrated alone." We become what we do.

It is almost impossible to avoid a self-centered religion when one
has no active regular share in the corporate worship of a larger reli-
gious fellowship. This is particularly true of those who are not
engaged in manual work. There is the subtle temptation to become
one of those who mistake being "agin" the group, being otherwise-
minded, for following the dictates of conscience. Eccentricity, the
sense of martyrdom, and an almost total absence of that precious
element of "creatureliness," of humility in one's religious life as one
of the great family of fellow creatures offering up their lives before
the great Father— these frequently accompany this reluctance to
share in corporate worship. Friedrich von Hugel used to tell of the
sense of common need and of common love that came to him as he
prayed through his rosary or listened to the mass while kneeling
next to some Irish washerwoman. For this woman and millions of
others, whatever their place in man's petty order of rank, would
that very day perform the same act of love and devotion before a
Father in whose loving regard each was of equal worth.

It is this vivid sense of creatureliness and the felt attitude of the
creature towards the creator that many have declared to be the
central experience of worship or devotion and the very secret source
of the religious refreshment at the base of their lives. For in this
sense of creatureliness, the springs of the only enduring center of
equality between men are forever being renewed. Here is the heart
of a social gospel that is eternal. Here each is visited with a sense
that he, in his need, is one and only one among other needy ones;
that he is one among the many who have come to offer up their
adoration and aspiration; that he is responsible for all and can never
wrench loose from that responsibility. Howard Brinton has expressed
the effect of this approach to the center in the fellowship of worship
by the figure of the spokes of a wheel. The nearer the spokes of the
wheel are to the center, the nearer they are to each other.

Corporate worship, however, does much more than to induce
creatureliness and to strengthen the bonds of the divine family. The

Fellowship 345

regular participation in corporate worship nurtures the tender in-
sight of private prayer and helps to give it a stalk, a stem, a root, and
soil in which to grow. Without its strengthening power of believing
in your conviction, you may be overcome by the general attitude of
the world in which you live or by the same attitude that is being
pressed upon you from within by the vast residue of fear-carcasses
that the mind and habits are still laden with and that have not yet been
cleared away. Not only in the tender beginning, but at every point
in the life, we need this fellowship of corporate worship. For again
and again, dry times and doubt and conflict level the fragile house
of our faith and compel us to rebuild it on deeper foundations. At
times the fellowship seems the only cord that holds us.

We need corporate encouragement to recall and be re-dedicated
to that deep citizenship to which our lives stand pledged. To scorn
such reminders and to claim all days as sabbaths and all places as
equally holy may mean that one has reached a high sense of spiritual
freedom. But it may also mean that one is approaching indifference.
This corporate ceremonial communion in any Christian group that
is more than occasional in its character carries a sense of historical
continuity with a great spiritual tradition. You do not begin this
quest nor will it end with you. It has been lived in the world of space
and time by others who have gone before. Their lives have irrefutably
proved and tested it and lifted it above the realm of speculative ideals
and theories. In such corporate worship you become a working mem-
ber of that great community and you enter the vast company of souls
whose lives are opened Godward. Your life takes on a new perspec-
tive in this great communion of the church invisible.

Douglas V. Steere, 1901-. American author, Professor of Philosophy.

Prayer and Worship.

Distinguished men of letters, essayists, novelists, and poets, have
recently asserted their conviction that the only thing which can save
our sagging culture is a revival of religious faith, but many of these
men make no contact whatever with the particular organizations in
their own communities which are dedicated to the nourishment of
the very faith they declare necessary for our salvation. There are

346 The Techniques

countless people who would resent being considered irreligious but
who reject the practice of group religion. "I have my own religion,"
has become a cliche. Some prefer to say they believe in Christianity,
but not in Churchianity. In short, they believe in religion, but not in
the church. They are keenly aware of the weaknesses of the church
as they have known it and they propose the experiment of church-
less religion.

Any candid observer will agree that most of the popular criticisms
of the church are justified. It has hypocrites in it, and it is weak when
it ought to be strong. But the urgent question is the question of a
better alternative when the nature of our present crisis is such that
our option is a forced option. The only live alternatives to the church
are the pseudo religions of totalitarianism or vague religiosity. Since
we have already seen reason to reject one of these, the other, />.,
vague religiosity, is really the only alternative to the church that our
present culture offers. Loyal identification with the church may have
difficulties, but the alternative position may have more. . . .

Instead of being baffled by any difficulties that we may feel about
church membership we need to ask ourselves quite seriously where
else we may turn. What organized institution is there, apart from
the church, that has as its major purpose the fostering of Justice,
Mercy, and Truth and the Freedom that they jointly make possible.3
Bad and divided as the church may be, it is the only organization
really working at the job of affecting men's lives in the deep way in
which they must be affected if what we prize is to survive. . . .4

If faith is to be effective in undergirding civilized society, it must
be given some concrete embodiment. . . . Life is not raised to new
levels by the mere fact that we have been intellectually convinced by
the cosmological argument. Our predicament is too great and too
serious for our salvation to come in so academic a manner. What is
needed is something that can set men's souls on fire. . . . What, in
historical experience, has most often been able to do this ? It is that
hypocritical, bickering organization that we call the church. Without

3 See Christianity by Edwyn Bevan, Henry Holt & Company.

4 Carl G. Jung has made some recent psychological studies on Christian ritual that are
very illuminating and should help the skeptical mind in adequately evaluating corporate
practices.

Fellowship 347

it we might long ago have been submerged. If our civilization is to
be saved, we must have it or something like it, for man is the kind of
creature who needs it,*

D. Elton Trueblood, American contemporary philosopher.
The Predicament of Modern Man.

Therapeutic Value of Religious Fellowship

No matter in what sense the concept of the group mind be con-
strued, a group sentiment centered in Christ can only be developed in
and through corporate worship. If a Christ-spirit could be developed
in many social units, most of the extrinsic causes of illness on the
mass-scale—poverty, unemployment, war, famine and pestilence-
would soon be abolished also. If we reflect upon the strictly medical
consequences of such a change of heart in nations, we shall realise
something of the measure of the importance that should be given to
the practice of corporate worship.

Recent advances in medical knowledge in the fields of nutrition,
chemotherapy and hormone therapy promise greatly to diminish the
mass-incidence of disease the world over. As the gross, physical
causes of illness are abolished, the psychogenic and spiritual causes
will become relatively more prominent and important. Medical re-
search must then move out into new fields, one of which will be the
field we are discussing.

My own experience convinces me that religious group psycho-
therapy in right hands and under proper conditions has a great con-
tribution to make to neurotic healing. Worship has a double function
to perform for these patients: firstly, it gives the patient some insight
into his own personality faults; in this way worship is psycho-
diagnostic: secondly, worship makes available the power, the ability,
the means by which these faults, in measure at least, can be cor-
rected; in this way worship is therapeutic.

The healing effect of worship is greatly assisted by the warm
fellowship that invariably springs up between the members of a
worshipping group. I have been interested to observe the gradual and
progressive spiritual evolution and healing of some of my patients
who have been persuaded to join such groups.

348 The Techniques

In many cases, however, expert psychological treatment is a neces-
sary preliminary. Sometimes that treatment seems to fail because it
is not carried on beyond the critical point at which insight is reached
and true healing commences. The analyst "dissolves" a sentiment
or analyses a complex: if he does not restore the functional efficiency
of the analyzed mental organisation, he may leave the patient worse
than he found him, like the "house swept and garnished." In so far
as the analyst proceeds to synthesis, he is a spiritual healer: if he be
a spiritual healer, why does he not make use of the most powerful
means of psycho-synthesis, namely, worship? Again, why do we
cling to the notion that the healing relationship between doctor or
psychologist and patient is essentially or solely a person-to-person
relationship ? How can a solitary person heal a socially-caused or a
socially-conditioned illness ? Nearly all neuroses and psychoses mani-
fest themselves as faults in human relationships. Only a social, a
group-to-person relationship, can heal such faults. To tell the neu-
rotic to "go and make friends" is silly: that constitutes his problem.
We must provide for him a group of friends, who will accept him
with all his faults and will help him to resolve his difficulties by
understanding him, by encouragement and by example. I believe that
these needs can only be provided by a worshipping group and by the
life of fellowship and friendship that surrounds it. It seems to me,
therefore, that the Church can become, if it will, the group physician
of the future.

Much has been written, especially by Freudians, about "trans-
ference" and the difficulties that occasionally arise in connection
with it. The resolution of the "transference" should always be its
sublimation — or so I think. Every psychotherapist should be able to
point, as John the Baptist pointed to Jesus, to One who is greater
than the psychologist. During worship a transference is established
between the worshipper and Christ. During worship child-depend-
ence is replaced by mature competence and by co-operation with
others in the fellowship. Until this has been achieved, treatment has
not been completed, even if it has been ended.*

Howard E. Collier, M.D., contemporary English physician.
The Place of Worship in Modern Medicine.*
6 Lecture published by Guild of Pastoral Psychology, London,

CHAPTER EIGHT

Action

Enlarging insight depends on expansion due to exercise; vision on action,
on acting up to the limit of what has been glimpsed.

ANONYMOUS

You must lay aside with your former habits your old self which is going
to ruin. . . . You must adopt a new attitude of mind, and put on the new
self which has been created in likeness to God.

SAINT PAULT

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to
live one way and pray another.

WILLIAM LAW

1 Trans. E. J. Goodspccd

CHAPTER EIGHT

Action f

Worship and Work

Commitment does not stop with contemplation. It seeks issue
in work. For the God discovered thus is a God at work, reconciling
the world to Himself. And those who worship in spirit and truth
find themselves called to a ministry of reconciliation. A world un-
finished and broken is to be made whole. Worship sends us out to
work. But work in turn, through frustration or consummation, may
continually tend again toward worship, wherein illumination and
renewal are to be found. Such, in part, is man's way toward God.*

Robert Lowry Calhoun, 1896-. American theologian, educator.

God and the Common Life.

Doing as the Completion of Knowing

Knowledge is the beginning of practice; doing is the completion
of knowing. Men of the present, however, make knowledge and
action two different things and go not forth to practice, because they
hold that one must first have knowledge before one is able to prac-
tice. Each one says, "I proceed to investigate and discuss knowledge;
I wait until knowledge is perfect and then go forth to practice it."
Those who to the very end of life fail to practice also fail to under-
stand. This is not a small error, nor one that came in a day. By saying
that knowledge and practice are a unit, I am herewith offering a
remedy for the disease.*

Wang-Yang-Ming, 1472-1529. Chinese philosopher.
Wor\s of Wang-Yang-Ming, Trans. Henke.

The method of investigation by which we test our religious in-
sights requires that we become clearly and deeply conscious of what

2 See pages 172-73; and Chapt. XI, pages 428-49.

350

Action 351

we are doing and what mankind is doing for or against the process
of integration which is at work in the world. It consists in bringing
the whole of human life so far as possible under the searchlight of
observation with a view to seeing how well adjusted it is, and how it
can be better adjusted, to the value-making process of the world. In
religious experience one gets a new impulse toward some new way of
living; in religious method one observes the working of that impulse
and of all other impulses and habits to discover whether they lead to
richer integrations. Another function of religious method is to bring
to practical fruition the new possibilities for good which are opened
by the way of life, discovered through religious experience.

This phase might be called the practical and constructive. It is
the endeavor to reconstruct customs, institutions, personal attitudes
and physical conditions in such a way that they will foster the most
inclusive and intimate mutual support between individuals and
groups of men, and between men and the rest of the world. It is the
tremendous effort to remake this world into a home for men and to
remake men so that they can live in it like brothers. Great work
awaits the doing; but men have not the courage for it, they have
not the energy and poise and insight and passion for it, unless reli-
gion supplies them. Historically religion has provided this equip-
ment of personality for great achievement and can do it again if
the right methods of religious living are known and practiced.*

Henry Nelson Wieman, 1884-. American philosopher, theologian.
Methods of Private Religious Living.

Prayer as Preparation for "Action"

Prayer is not escape from reality and from action; it is the source
of strength and insight for action. It is the only preparation for sound
action.

Prayer is not the pleading to be saved suffering; it is the pleading
that one will be spared no suffering which is necessary to achieve the
end one desires: unity with God and co-consciousness with all men.

Prayer expresses itself fundamentally in the two great Christian
attitudes toward life: gratitude and contrition. Gratitude springs
from a sacramental view which sees the earth and the creatures of

352 The Techniques

it as the whole creation of God and stands in awe and wonder before
the majesty of God's handiwork. Contrition springs from man's
recognition of his failure to act on that fact, recognition of his
constant effort to make himself God and the center of life, instead
of giving central place to God, Author of all creation.

Out of this dialectic springs a synthesis which is the unity of the
self in resolution so to act that this creation of God's may be made
more pleasing in the sight of God; that man may be made again in
the image of God.

There is danger that prayers such as "Grant us brotherhood" may
become substitutes for positive action toward creation of brotherhood
in the world. It is a trick of the human spirit to turn to abstract
worship of something which man will not pay the price to achieve
—so vicariously he enjoys the fruits of it in an idealistic worship of
something of which the realities of the world make a mockery.

Kneeling alone in a dark garden in an ultimate crisis of his life,
Jesus said, "Father, may this cup pass from me." But that was not
the end of his prayer. Had he— as we so often do— proceeded to
rationalize the ways in which an answer might come, the course of
human history might have been different. Instead, he carried that
prayer — a legitimate cry of the human spirit — on to the absolutely
essential conclusion, "Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt."
And his action, following that prayer, has changed the pattern of
human history.

Rose Terlin, contemporary American editor, writer.
Prayer and Christian Living.

The Relation Between Action and Insight

It is not easy for man so to change himself. As we have seen,
it is one of the most tragic facts about ourselves that we have always
imagined that it was easy, but of no great profit, to change one's own
nature, and hard, but immensely valuable, to change outer nature.
Detailed examination of the problem is now showing us the reverse
to be the truth. Our construction of fact (what we call the outer
universe) and ourselves we see are tied together in an intense inter-
lock. We can change the world we see, but only in proportion as we

Action 353

have the self-control and courage to let go of the present current
construction. For it is not possible, without mental disaster, for
anyone to see with equal clearness two mutually exclusive worlds at
once. There can never be for a living creature more than one full
reality at one time.

We must remember how much even the best of us cling to the
present picture of things. This world made by greed and fear suits
most people so well that to suggest that it is brutal and in the end
will prove disastrous is to awake even more fear and resentment.
They will endure agonies rather than leave it. However much they
complain, in all who are still ruled by fear and greed there is no real
wish for any other sort of world.

The third ethic can therefore have one aim and one only: to set
men free of fear and greed. And, because of the reciprocity of ethics
and cosmology, vision and action, the consequence of living up to
this ethic can be nothing less than the emergence into our sight of an
objective world in which greed and fear are steadily diminishing
elements.

This is the fundamental discovery of the third cosmology and its
fundamental difference from the only other two cosmologies which
have preceded it. Here is a cosmological-ethical revolution: man
makes the universe; he has made its nightmare, arbitrary quality (of
polytheism), its inaccessible righteousness (of monotheism), its
blind, inhuman necessitarianism (of mechanism). Each of these
cosmologies has been a part picture of an aspect of his nature. He
has only been able to see in outer nature what confirms and answers
to his inner nature. The invisible replies and materializes in the form
in which it is summoned and imagined.

But man can only remake the present crumbling picture of the
universe into one which will not be a pure chaos but an answer to his
higher emergent, super-individual nature, if he will behave con-
tinually in such a super-individual way. The growth of the cosmology
waits on the growth in the ethic; enlarging insight depends on the
expansion due to exercise; vision on action, on acting up to the limit
of what has been glimpsed.

Therefore man does not and cannot wait on an external God so

354 The Techniques

that that God may remake the universe in order that, when this has
been safely accomplished, man may get on with his noble behaviour,
his idealistic activity, his saintly conduct. Man is more than God's
vice-regent. He is the creative power's vice-creator, for he may make
any universe up to the standard of which he is prepared to live.
Absolute freedom from the individual self approaches absolute crea-
tive power. For as man dares act (this is the fact of creative faith),
his apprehension-construction grows and he sees not subjectively but
objectively a new reality. For he brings into being that which he has
so dared to desire. His desire (equal to the creative desire of animal
need which created out of energy-radiation another world of com-
mon sense and appetite) creates out of that same energy-radiation
another world, a nobler world, but a world as firm as the world of
common sense, because constructed and cemented by a desire as
strong. The one fundamental objective fact is that the energy-radia-
tion will sustain and substantiate any construction creative desire
calls upon it to support and fulfil.

The Kingdom of God is not imminent but immanent; it is not
"among you," about suddenly to break like a thunderstorm, but
"within you," ready to be expressed the moment you understand
your latent, common nature and how you must and can transcend
your individuality, your egotism, which makes the world the obstacle
it proves to-day to be to you.*

Gerald Heard, 1889-, English author, religious philosopher.

The Third Morality.

The Christian life is a journey. Jesus said, "They who do the will

of my Father shall know " And St. Gregory, "Whosoever would

understand what he hears, must hasten to put into practice what he
has heard. . . ."

Therefore do not wait for great strength before setting out, for
immobility will weaken you further. Do not wait to see very clearly
before starting: one has to walk toward the light. Have you strength
enough to take this first step? Courage enough to accomplish this
little tiny act of fidelity or of reparation, the necessity of which is
apparent to you? Take this step! Perform this act! You will be aston-

Action 355

ished to feel that the effort accomplished, instead of having ex-
hausted your strength, has doubled it, and that you already see more
clearly what you have to do next.*

Philippe Vernier, 1909-. French Protestant minister.
With the Master, Trans. Edith L. Pierce.

Action of the Unskilled Person Versus the Expert

We ought to learn how to keep a free mind in all we do, but it is
rare that an untrained person can do this, so that neither circum-
stances nor jobs bother him. It requires great diligence. Expert atten-
tion is necessary. To be aware of God at all times and to be enlight-
ened by him equally under all circumstances, there are two special
requirements. First: be spiritually quite private, guarding the mind
carefully against irrelevant ideas, so as to keep them out and not deal
in them, giving them no place in your life. The second has to do
with the mind's own inventions, whether spontaneous in the mind or
representing some object, or whatever their nature. Do not be dissi-
pated in such ideas lest you become lost in the crowd of them. For
these two requirements, for this goal, one must focus all his mental
powers and train his mind, for he will need to have his wits about
him.

You may say; "But when a person has a job to do, he must give
attention to it and thus concentrate on external things, for it takes an
idea to make a job possible." And that is quite true, but the reference
of ideas to things does not belong to the objective world as far as the
spiritual (subjective?) man is concerned, for all things are to him
simply channels of the divine and spiritual.

And this viewpoint is possible only through discipline and the
training of the intellect to the ways of God, and, doing this, a man
will become, in time, divine within. The mind does not get as close
to anything as God does, nor is it so germane to things, nor do they
require its presence (as they require God). Thus, there is no need
for the mind to turn elsewhere (than to God).

It would be fatal for an undisciplined and unskilled person to try
to do what an expert may do, and, what is more, he would get no-
where by trying. Only when he has been thoroughly weaned away

356 The Techniques

from things and things are alien to him— only then may a man do
as he pleases with things, free to take them or leave them with
impunity.*

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar and mystic.
Melster Eck^hart, Trans. R. Blakney.

Warning Against Premature "Good Works"

The first thing we have to remember is that, when theologians
speak of the active life as contrasted with that of contemplation, they
do not refer to what contemporary, non-theological writers call by
the same name. To us, "life of action" means the sort of life led by
movie heroes, business executives, war correspondents, cabinet min-
isters and the like. To the theologians, all these are merely worldly
lives, lived more or less unregenerately by people who have done
little or nothing to get rid of their Old Adams. What they call active
life, is the life of good works. . . .

The practical mystics have critically examined the whole idea of
action and have laid down, in regard to it, a set of rules for the guid-
ance of those desiring to follow the mystical path towards the beatific
vision. One of the best -formulations of the traditional mystical doc-
trine in regard to action was made by ... Louis Lallemant Lalle-
mant was a Jesuit, who, in spite of the prevailing anti-mystical tend-
encies of his order, was permitted to teach a very advanced (but
entirely orthodox) kind of spirituality to the men entrusted to his
care.

Whenever we undertake any action, Father Lallemant insists,
we must model ourselves upon God himself, who creates and sustains
the world without in any way modifying his essential existence. But
we cannot do this unless we learn to practise formal contemplation
and a constant awareness of God's presence. Both are difficult, espe-
cially the latter which is possible only to those very far advanced
along the way of perfection. So far as beginners are concerned, even
the doing of good works may distract the soul from God. Action is
not safe, except for proficients in the art of mental prayer. "If we
have gone far in orison," says Lallemant, "we shall give much to
action; if we are but middlingly advanced in the inward Hfe5 we

Action 357

shall give ourselves only moderately to outward life; if we have only
a very little inwardness, we shall give nothing at all to what is exter-
nal unless our vow of obedience commands the contrary." To the
reasons already given for this injunction we may add others of a
strictly utilitarian nature. It is a matter of experience and observation
that actions undertaken by ordinary unregenerate people, sunk in
their selfhood and without spiritual insight, seldom do much good.
A generation before Lallemant, St. John of the Cross had put the
whole matter in a single question and answer. Those who rush head-
long into good works without having acquired through contempla-
tion the power to act well — what do they accomplish? "Poco mas
que nada, y a veces nada, y aun a veces dano" (Little more than
nothing, and sometimes nothing at all, and sometimes even worse
than nothing.) One reason for hell being paved with good inten-
tions has already been mentioned, and to this, the impossibility of
foreseeing the consequences of actions, we must now add another,
the intrinsically unsatisfactory nature of actions performed by the
ordinary run of average unregenerate men and women. . , . Ex-
ternal activity causes no interruption in the orison of the proficient;
on the contrary it is a means for bringing them nearer to reality.
Those for whom it is not such a means should as far as possible
refrain from action. Once again Father Lallemant justifies himself
by the appeal to experience and a purely utilitarian consideration of
consequences. In all that concerns the saving of souls and the im-
proving of the quality of people's thoughts and feelings and be-
havior, "a man of orison will accomplish more in one year than
another man in all his life." *

Aldous Leonard Huxley, 1894-. English writer, literary critic,

Grey Eminence.

Creative personalities when they are taking the mystic path
which is their highest spiritual level, pass first out of action into
ecstasy and then out of ecstasy into action on a new and higher plane.
In using such language we describe the creative movement in terms
of the personality's psychic experience. In terms of his external rela-
tions with the society to which he belongs we shall be describing

358 The Techniques

the same duality of movement if we call it withdrawal and return.
The withdrawal makes it possible for the personality to realize
powers within himself which might have remained dormant if he
had not been released for the time being from his social toils and
trammels ... but a transfiguration in solitude can have no purpose,
and 'perhaps even no meaning, except as a prelude to the return of
the transfigured personality into the social milieu out of which he
had originally come: a native environment from which the human
social animal cannot permanently estrange himself without repudiat-
ing his humanity and becoming, in Aristotle's phrase, "either a beast
or a god." The return is the essence of the whole movement as well
as its final cause.*-**

Arnold J. Toynbee, contemporary English historian.
A Study of History.

Seen with the eyes of the social historian, the three years' activity
as a social revolutionary is the life of Jesus in its impact upon human
history. What makes it unique is the scope of the vision it embodies,
and his profound insight into the conditions demanded for its accom-
plishment. The teaching of Jesus is not something separable from his
life; it is the expression of the understanding which grew out of his
life. Theory and practice are there completely unified. The one inter-
prets and expounds the other. It is the fusion of insight and action
that makes the life of Jesus the religious life par excellence, though it
is far from being the kind of life that nowadays would be so
described.

John MacMurray, 1891-. Scotch Professor of Philosophy.

Creative Society.

ACTION AS A TECHNIQUE

Not Karma, mere action, but Karma Yoga, union with God
through action, is the essence of the teaching of the Gita. . . .

Not sacrifice for humanity, but service to humanity as a sacrifice
unto God, whose image we learn to see in man, is the true ideal. Not
political activities undertaken with a selfish motive, but duties per-
formed as worship of God; not merely family life and the perform-

Action 359

ance of the ordinary domestic duties, but a life of non-attachment in
the midst of these duties, combined with the knowledge of the nature
of one's immutable, eternal Self,— this is the real message of the
Rhagavad Gita. In short, temporal life and spiritual values stand in
a relation of harmony— one divine life, as the Gita tells us.*

Swami Prabhavananda, 1893-. Monk of Ramakrishna Mission.

Vedic Religion and Philosophy.

To work alone thou hast the right, but never to the fruits thereof.
Be thou neither actuated by the fruits of action, nor be thou attached
to inaction.

O Dhananjaya, abandoning attachment and regarding success
and failure alike, be steadfast in Yoga and perform thy duties.
Evenmindedness is called Yoga,

O Dhananjaya, work (with desire for results) is far inferior to
work with understanding. Therefore seek refuge in the Yoga of
understanding. Wretched indeed are those who work for results.

Being possessed with this understanding, one frees one's self even
in this life from good and evil. Therefore engage thyself in this
Yoga. Skillfulness in action is called Yoga.

The wise, possessed with knowledge, abandoning the fruits of
their actions, become freed from the fetters of birth and reach that
state which is beyond all evil.

The Bhagavad-Gita, Trans. Swami-Paramananda.

To discover the Kingdom of God exclusively within oneself is
easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer world
of minds and things and living creatures. It is easier because the
heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude
from their purview all that lies without. And though this exclusion
may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is
less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to
know the fulness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there
is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and
distractions are avoided and there is a general denial and suppres-
sion. But when the hope is to know God inclusively — to realize the

360 The Techniques

divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and
distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as oppor-
tunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-
turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become
sacramental. Mortification becomes more searching and more subtle;
there is need of unsleeping awareness and, on the levels of thought,
feeling and conduct, the constant exercise of something like an
artist's tact and taste.

Aldous Huxley, 1894-. English writer, literary critic.
The Perennial Philosophy,

It is well to remember that even in the holiest undertakings, what
God requires of us is earnest willing labour, and the use of such
means as we can command; but He does not require success of us:
that depends solely upon Himself, and sometimes in very love for us
He refuses to crown our best intentions with success.

Jean Nicolas Grou, 1731-1803. French Catholic priest.

Beginning Steps in We-Activity

Expose yourself to situations in which you are stirred by genuine
understanding and sympathy, in which you feel a desire to cooperate
with and help another regardless of material or other reward than
your inner We-feeling satisfaction. Learn from first-hand observa-
tion something of the life of those less-favourably situated than you
are. Seek an opportunity for some volunteer service to the sick, the
needy, the oppressed. Visit some shut-in and read aloud awhile or
otherwise share his load. Find a way to understand better the unhap-
piness of someone oppressed by racial prejudice or social injustice.
Look for the shy person to whom you can be friendly. Give a lift to
your tired fellow-worker. Let your imagination lead you into some
We-feeling response to those far away— perhaps the starving men in
Europe, in Asia or the flood victim in your own country. These are
but a fraction of the possibilities which may be discovered.

In all cases focus your thinking upon the sense of We-feeling
experienced in your deed. Do not be dismayed by discovering a cer-
tain amount of egocentricity in any act. Avoid that which gives you

Action 361

chiefly a feeling of pride, or superiority or the pleasure of talking
about your generosity or so-called unselfishness. Such reactions are
not We-feeling, but only egocentric, +100 emotions. Do whatever
stirs the chords of genuine We-feeling. Seek to set them vibrating
more and more until they become the dominating or sole satisfac-
tions in your experience.*-**

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., 1889-, and Roy E. Dickerson, 1886-.

How Character Develops.

True Work Defined

You should work like a master and not as a slave] work inces-
santly, but do not do slave's work. Do you not see how everybody
works? Nobody can be altogether at rest; ninety-nine percent of
mankind work like slaves, and the result is misery; it is all selfish
work. Work through freedom! Work through love! The word
"love" is very difficult to understand; love never comes until there is
freedom. There is no true love possible in the slave. If you buy a
slave and tie him down in chains and make him work for you, he
will work like a drudge, but there will be no love in him. So when
we ourselves work for the things of the world as slaves, there can be
no love in us, and our work is not true work. This is true of work
done for relatives and friends, and is true of work done for our own
selves. Selfish work is slave's work; and here is a test. Every act of
love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring
peace and blessedness as its reaction. Real existence, real knowledge,
and real love are eternally connected with one another, the three in
one: where one of them is, the others also must be; they are the three
aspects of the One without a second— the Existence-Knowledge-
Bliss. When that existence becomes relative, we see it as the world;
that knowledge becomes in its turn modified into the knowledge of
the things of the world; and that bliss forms the foundation of all
true love known to the heart of man.

Swami Vivckananda, 1863-1902. Hindu mystic, seer.

Karma-yoga.

Can we be believed? — and once more this amounts to the same—
we have known workmen who really wanted to work. No one

362 The Techniques

thought of anything but work. We have known workmen who in the
morning thought of nothing but work. They got up in the morning
(and at what an hour), and they sang at the idea that they were off
to work. At eleven o'clock they sang on going off to eat their soup.
Work for them was joy itself and the deep root of their being. And
the reason of their being. There was an incredible honor in work, the
most beautiful of all the honors, the most Christian, perhaps the only
one which stands of itself. That is why I say, for example, that a free-
thinker of those days was more Christian than a devout person of our
day. Because nowadays a devout person is perforce a bourgeois. And
today, everyone is bourgeois.

We have known an honor of work exactly similar to that which
in the Middle Ages ruled hand and heart. The same honor had been
preserved, intact underneath. We have known this care carried to
perfection, a perfect whole, perfect to the last infinitesimal detail. We
have known this devotion to Vouvrage bien faite, to the good job,
carried and maintained to its most exacting claims. During all my
childhood I saw chairs being caned exactly in the same spirit, with the
same hand and heart as those with which this same people fashioned
its cathedrals.

Those bygone workmen did not serve, they worked. They had an
absolute honor, which is honor proper. A chair rung had to be well
made. That was an understood thing. That was the first thing. It
wasn't that the chair rung had to be well made for the salary or on
account of the salary. It wasn't that it was well made for the boss, nor
for connoisseurs, nor for the boss* clients. It had to be well made
itself , in itself, for itself, in its very self. A tradition coming, springing
from deep within the race; a history, an absolute, an honor, demanded
that this chair rung be well made. Every part of the chair which
could not be seen was just as perfectly made as the parts which could
be seen. This was the self-same principle of cathedrals.

There was no question of being seen or of not being seen. It was
the innate being of work which needed to be well done.

All the honors converged towards that honor. A decency and a
delicacy of speech. A respect for home. A sense of respects, of all the
respects, of respect itself. A constant ceremonyj as it were. Besides,

Action 363

home was still very often identified with the work-room, and the
honor of home and the honor of the work-room were the same honor.
It was the honor of the same place. It was the honor of the same
hearth. What has become of all this? Everything was a rhythm and
a rite and a ceremony from the moment of rising in the early morn-
ing. Everything was an event; a sacred event. Everything was a tradi-
tion, a lesson; everything was bequeathed, everything was a most
saintly habit. Everything was an inner elevation and a prayer. All
day long, sleep and wake, work and short rest, bed and board, soup
and beef, house and garden, door and street, courtyard and thresh-
old, and the plates on the table.

Laughing, they used to say, and that to annoy the priests, that to
is to pray and little did they know how true that was.

So much of their work was a prayer, and the work-room an

oratory.*

Charles Peguy, 1873-1913. French writer.
Charles Peguy, Trans. A. and J. Green.

The "Cause"

There are some individuals who have achieved a remarkable
objectivity, whose personal influence is widely and constructively
felt, but who have not been known as "religious" persons. How does
one explain them ? What can one learn from them ?

Eugene Debs, Rayna Proehme, Michael Borodin, and many others
achieved a degree of freedom of spirit through devotion to a high
cause. This fact challenges one to a clear evaluation of "dedication to
a cause" as it relates to the development of the mature individual.

Within the Cause, most worthy ones, there are elements of value.
It is probably true that the degree to which a person yields himself
in devotion to these elements, to that degree will his own selfish
motives be modified, at least temporarily. If the devotion is sustained
over a long period, more permanent changes in character are likely
to occur, for sustained devotion requires inner discipline. That there
have been men and women who have yielded to such discipline is
well evidenced by their lives, and in some cases by their own writings.
Of the latter someone has written: "It is a strange fact that certain

364 The Techniques

men, who have spent long periods of their lives in lonely prison cells,
men who are not Christians,8 nevertheless have written some of the
profound truths which also are found in Christianity. I think of the
letters of Rosa Luxemburg and of Eugene Debs and of the auto-
biography of Angelo Herndon. . . .

"When offered the opportunity to run away rather than risk return
to the Georgia chain-gang and to possible death, Angelo Herndon
said, 1 cannot run away. There is too much at stake. If I run away
and you run away, and every one else who loves freedom and truth
runs away, who will be left to fight the good battle? I am not afraid.
Death itself is not the greatest tragedy that could happen to a man.
Rather, the greatest tragedy is to live placidly and safely and to keep
silent in the face of injustice and oppression.' Those words — amaz-
ing ones for this boy of nineteen— indicate the kind of insight which
comes to people who spend long hours alone and who are committed
to a high cause."

However, there are grave dangers in the Cause as a way of
growth, for the degree to which a cause is partial and limited, and
therefore un-umversal, and blocking to the good of the whole, to that
degree will the devotee also tend to be limited and lacking in whole-
ness. Also should the activity, in service of the cause, be based on the
policy that the end justifies the means, a distortion in the character
of the participant as well as in the end served is bound to occur.

One, therefore, needs to be warned against any Cause as a
sufficient-in-itself method for character development. One certainly
needs to be reminded that the beginner on the religious Way has
little or no insight that would contribute vitally to any major cause.
He had best limit his activity to areas commensurate with his stage
of progress. It is important also to be aware that most ordinary, unin-
spired activity may in itself become an escape device.

In spite of these warnings the role of action in bringing man to
his highest fulfillment must not be underestimated. Without action
up to the height of insight there can be no growth of insight. God

3 One is immediately reminded of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas K. Ghandi whose
years of imprisonment have been turned into benefit for all of India.

Action 365

may become very real in "action," and action and meditation have
been found to be both complimentary and indispensable to one

another.

Anonymous contemporary.
Written for this anthology.

Roots of Effective Activity

At the present time, and especially amongst us in Russia, the
Church and State deceit presents the chief obstacle to the establish-
ment of or even the approach to the Christian life, but one cannot
say that the strife with these deceits represents the chief business of a
Christian. The business of a Christian, by the means of which he
attains all his purposes, including the one which at present in Russia
stands before him, is everywhere and always one: to increase one's
fire and let it give light to men. But directing all one's attention, all
one's efforts, to some one particular object, as for instance the life
of manual labor, propaganda, or, as in this case, strife with this or
that deceit, is always a mistake, like that of a man who, during an
inundation, instead of directing the water through the chief outlet
or repairing the dike which resists the water, should construct dams
in his own street, overlooking the fact that the water will come in
from other directions.

Another comparison. One has to protect houses from the possi-
bility of a fire being communicated to all. One can cut green branches
and stick them into the earth between the houses. And this may
appear to be effective for a day or two. One can also plant small
trees, and when they take root and grow up, this will be effective
permanently.

It is necessary that our activity should have roots. And these
roots are in our submissiveness to the will of God, in our personal life
being dedicated to perfecting oneself and increasing love.

My physical health continues to be bad, but spiritually I feel very
well, and I can work and do work as well as I am able, more
seriously in view of the approaching end.*

Lyof N. Tolstoi, 1828-1910. Russian novelist, moral philosopher.

Letters, Trans. Aline Delano.

366 The Techniques

Discrimination in "Doing Good to Others"

One may be so preoccupied with the desire to be of use to society
that one loses the opportunity to do what one was best fitted to per-
form. If we fail thus in effectiveness it is because we have not been
free to be honest with ourselves. We have been distracted by that
too urgent and insistent demand to note the social consequences,
immediate or remote, of our enterprises. We have been nagged into
diminishing the scope of our effort from the breadth of its original
disinterestedness to suit some narrow utilitarian requirement.

The work of doing good to others over its whole range from
the simplest alleviation of human misery to the missionary ambition
of saving souls, is notoriously a difficult and, for the most part, a
thankless task. The reasons for this are many, but some of them
spring from the essential nature of the relationship involved between
the doer and the recipient of good. It is with these that we are
concerned.

"If I knew for a certainty," wrote Thoreau, "that a man was
coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I
should run for my life as from that dry and parching wind of the
African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose
and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear I should
get some of his good done to me, — some of its virus mingled with
my blood."

We may say that the successful reformers are those who are seek-
ing not so much to "make people good" as to share an enthusiasm.
The change they may work in others is a by-product of some dis-
interested devotion. I am justified in attacking my neighbour's mean-
ness or duplicity only in so far as I am manifestly inspired by a love
of generosity and integrity. My efforts can then be interpreted as an
attempt to recall him to his ideal and mine. I do not plan his voyage,
I merely propose to correct his compass. I am like the man in Plato's
Allegory of the Cave who knew that his chief task was to turn the
prisoners round so that they could face in the direction of the sun.
The sun would do the rest.*

Charles A. Bennett, 1885-1930. English philosopher,
Philosophical Study of Mysticism.

Action 367

Who arc you who go about to save them that are lost ?

Are you saved yourself?

Do you not know that who would save his own life must lose it ?

Are you then one of the "lost" ?

Be sure, very sure, that each one of these can teach you as much
as, probably more than, you can teach them.

Have you then sat humbly at their feet, and waited on their lips
that they should be the first to speak — and been reverent before these
children — whom you so little understand?

Have you dropped into the bottomless pit from between yourself
and them all hallucination of superiority, all flatulence of knowledge,
every shred of abhorrence and loathing?

Is it equal, is it free as the wind between you ?

Could you be happy receiving favors from one of the most
despised of these?

Could you be yourself one of the lost?

Arise, then, and become a savior.

Edward Carpenter, 1844-1929. English author, poet.

Towards Democracy.

PART THREE

The Outcomes

God does not work in all hearts alike but according to
the preparation and sensitivity he finds in each.

IMEISTER ECKLHART

Endowments vary, but the Spirit is the same, and forms
of service vary . , . but God who produces them all in us all
is the same. Each one is given his spiritual illumination for
the common good.

SAINT PAUL

Contents

PART THREE

THE OUTCOMES

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 371

HAPTER

IX. INWARD RENEWAL 373

X, OUTWARD CREATIVITY 397

Between Individuals 398

In Love and Friendship 399

In Marriage 402

XL OUTWARD CREATIVITY (Continued) 407

Between Individuals and Society 408

In Attitude 408

In Influence and Action 428

Within the Beloved Community 449

APPENDIX: The Object of Devotion 465

Some Modern Ideas of God 469

Some Generalized Mystic Ideas of God 489

PART THREE

The Outcomes

This section presents descriptions of some of the outcomes experienced
by those who progress through various stages along the Way. The purpose
of these descriptions is to make vivid the second half of the paradoxical
statement, "He who will lose his life shall preserve it." They give content
to the "Life" that is to be preserved.

It is hoped that for some readers the material may open new areas of
possibility even though the furtherest ranges of experience are only briefly
described. These far reaches of the spirit seem for the most part to be
inexpressible, or if expressed are beyond the understanding of all except
the very few. What is more, they are likely to be misunderstood. This is
the common fate of such sublime writings as The Practice of the
Presence of God and others, which by their very simplicity of style and
inspiring testimony concerning the ease and supreme joy of Union with
God mislead the beginner into thinking that such attainment is easy.
These precious outpourings of the religious genius must always be viewed
in the light of what has gone on before in the experience of the writer.
For instance, in The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence
writes indirectly of himself: "He is now so accustomed to the Divine
Presence that from it he receives continual succor upon all occasions. . . .
Judge from this what contentment and satisfaction he enjoys, feeling
within him so great a treasure; no longer is he in earnest search after it,
but he has it open before him." More directly he says : "As for what passes
in me at present, I cannot express it. I have no pain nor any doubt as to my
state, because I have no will but that of God, which I endeavor to carry
out in all things and to which I am so submissive that I would not take
up a straw from the ground against His order . . ." Yet he also wrote:
"For the first ten years I suffered much; the apprehension that I was not
devoted to God . . . my past sins always present to my mind . . . During

371

372 The Outcomes

all this time I fell often, yet as often rose again. It seemed to me that all
creation, reason, and God Himself were against me."

The reader is urged to keep in mind these necessary years of apprentice-
ship as he reads through this section, for there has been little attempt to
differentiate between the outcomes commonly effected early in the religious
life and those usually occurring in the later phases.

Further the reader is warned not to anticipate any particular "set" of
outcomes for himself or for any other person. This is of highest im-
portance, for any striving for particular results blocks progression and
causes needless discouragement. Many factors enter in to determine the
particular emphasis which the transformation will take in each person.
Biological endowment, temperamental equipment, and the degree of
early psychic conditionings influence the rate of progress and determine
the particular characteristics manifest for each person as he progresses.

The only tenable hope, therefore, one who has started on the Way
can have concerning outcomes, is a sure faith that with an increase of
devotion, a gradual release from unconscious hamperings, and a persistence
in training, there will come a re-orientation around the new Center — a
re-orientation that assures a gradual discovery of the new, the maturing,
the "real" self, and a gradual leave-taking of the old, the immature, the
"false" self. Every step of the way to fulfillment offers its own highest
reward— that of a deepening sense of coming ever closer to the end for
which one was created. Having left behind his strangulated self, man
achieves the kind of awareness wherein he finds himself at one with all
mankind, and possessed of an indwelling love which spontaneously
ministers unto them.

It is hoped that the words of men and women who have in varying
degrees gone this way before will serve as an irresistibly compelling factor
to the reader to make "the choice" that "is always ours" if he has not already
done so; and to follow through as fast and as far as endowment, effort,
and "Grace" will permit, so that he, too, will eventually find the full
treasure open before him.

CHAPTER NINE

Inward Renewal

The living water wells up from the depths and flows gaily
through the new-born man.

J. MIDDLETON iMURRY

Self realization has ceased to be looked upon as self
fortification.

HENRY BURTON SHARMAN

There are things —

"Which no eye ever saw and no ear ever heard,
And never occurred to the human mind,
Which God has provided for those who love Him."

I CORINTHIANS *

1 Trans. E, J. Goodspeed.

CHAPTER NINE

Inward Renewal

THE GOLDEN AGE IS IN MY HEART TODAY

Who are you, any one, who can remain unmoved when the Light

breaks upon you?

Who can say it does not concern him ?
Who can say it is just as well not to see as to see ?
Who can ever be the same child or woman or man again after the

Day has broken?
Who can admit there is anything else in the world, after this has

come to the world ?

I brushed all obstructions from my doorsill and stepped into the road ;
And though so many cried to me, I did not turn back;
And though I was very sorrowful having to leave so many friends

behind, I did not turn back;
And though the ground was rough and I was overtaken by fierce

storms, I did not turn back;
For when the soul is once started on the soul's journey, it can never

turn back. . . .

Can you now go on with your old life as if nothing had happened ?
The whole universe has happened;
All your forgotten kinship to the people has happened;
All the terrible thirst for justice has happened;
And all sad things have happened in gladness at last;
And all things out of place have happened at last;
And all old enmity has happened in friendship at last;
The golden age is in my heart today,

Author unknown.

374

Inward Renewal 375

Slowly on You, too, the meanings: the light-sparkles on water,
tufts of weed in winter— the least things— dandelion and groundsel.

Have you seen the wild bees' nest in the field, the cells, the grubs,
the transparent white baby-bees, turning brown, hairy, the young
bees beginning to fly, raking the moss down over the disturbed cells ?
the parasites ?

Have you seen the face of your brother or sister ? have you seen
the little robin hopping and peering under the bushes? have you
seen the sun rise, or set? I do not know — I do not think that I
have.

When your unquiet brain has ceased to spin its cobwebs over the
calm and miraculous beauty of the world:

When the Air and the Sunlight shall have penetrated your body
through: and the Earth and Sea have become part of it:

When at last, like a sheath long concealing the swelling green
shoot, the love of learning and the regard for elaborate art, wit,
manners, dress, or any thing rare or costly whatever, shall drop
clean off from you;

When your Body— for to this it must inevitably return— is
become shining and transparent before you in every part (however
deformed) ;

Then (O Blessed One!) these things also transparent, possibly
shall surrender themselves — the least thing shall speak to you words
of deliverance.

Edward Carpenter, 1844-1929. English author, poet.

Towards Democracy.

Let us be glad, and rejoice forever. Singleness of heart is come;
pureness of heart is come; joy and gladness is come. The glorious
God is exalting himself; Truth hath been talked of, but now it is
possessed. Christ hath been talked of; but now He is come and
possessed. The glory hath been talked of; but now it is pos-
sessed, and the glory of man is defacing. The Son of God hath
been talked of; but now He is come, and hath given us an under-
standing.

George Fox, 1624-1691. English, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Autobiography.

376 The Outcomes

FROM THE WILDERNESS

He who was a river into the wilderness
Is now come back from misery to bless
The hounding spirit.

He who was rich and now so seeming poor
Owns an inheritance which was not his before-
Even his self.

This was the gift from the dark hour which thrust

Him forth to solitude;

Which laid him in a grave while yet the dust

Was under him; while yet the blood

Water'd the withering march 'twixt sense and sand.

He knew the hour of nothingness when the hand
Is empty, and empty is the heart;
And the intelligence, with its keen dart
Of reasonable speech, slays its own pride.

Twas thus he died;

Suffering his solitary hour beyond the world of men:

And it was thus, alone, he found the flower

Of his own self;

Which yet had been only a flower of stone

Had he not brought it back into the world again,

William Sou tar, 1898-1943. Scotch poet

Foodless am I, and shelterless,

No home have I,

For me no children's prattle riseth at the eventide:

Yet am I rich beyond compute,
All love I have, all joy:

For I have God,

His grace I know, his love:

Inward Renewed 377

Come pain,

Come all adversity.

With thee, my God, enthroned within,

No ill can overtake me:

Let transcience pass,

A dream it came,

A dream it goes again :

For me abideth Permanence,

Immortal Joy,

In inward touch of soul with thee, my God.

Tukaram.
Songs from Prison, Trans, from Sanskrit by Gandhi — into English by Hoyland.

I am like a child who awakes

At the light, so safe and so sure,

Free from night's fears when dawn breaks,

In Thee I am ever secure.

There are times when doubts over me steal

But I know Thou art there and awake.

Thou art — and art — and I feel

No surging of aeons can shake

Thee — Life is a ring, I have found —
I am child, boy, man, more — I learn
The circle is rich, the full round
Complete in its perfect return.

I thank Thee, Thou deep force that falls

Imperceptibly on me, to grace

My working day on the hard lands,

To smooth it — as back of dim walls

And like a far-off Holy Face

Thy radiance shines on my dark hands.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875—1926. German poet.
The Book, of Hours, Trans. Jessie Lemont.

378 The Outcomes

I waited patiently for Jehovah;

And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.

He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay;

And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God:

Many shall see it and fear,

And shall trust in Jehovah.

Blessed is the man that maketh Jehovah his trust,

And respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.

Many, O Jehovah my God, are the wonderful works which thou

hast done,

And thy thoughts which are to us-ward:
They cannot be set in order unto thee;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.
Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in;
Mine ears hast thou opened:

Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required.
Then said I, Lo, I am come;
In the roll of the book it is written of me:
I delight to do thy will, O my God:
Yea, thy law is within my heart,

From the 40th Psalm, Old Testament.

I never lose heart. Though my outer nature is wasting away, my
inner is being renewed every day.

Saint Paul, first century Christian Apostle.
New Testament, Trans, E. J. Goodspeed,

When threatened with total blindness Toyohiko Kagawa was
compelled to lie for months with bandaged eyes in a darkened room.

"It's inconvenient, isn't it?" "What?" "Your blindness." "Yes, but
it is inconvenient for people not to have wings, isn't it? If, however,
they invent airplanes, these take the place of wings.

"The same is true regarding the external eyes. If they go blind it is
simply a matter of inventing internal sight. My God is light itself.

Inward Renewal 379

Even though every outward thing is shrouded in darkness in the
inner chamber of my soul, God's Eternal light shines on.

"Health is gone! Sight is gone! But as I lie forsaken in this dark
room God still gives light. Pains that pierce the very fires of Hell
itself sweep over me. Yet, even in the melting fires of Hell, God's
mercy, for which all of earth's manifold treasures would be an
utterly inadequate exchange, still enfolds me.

"To me all things are vocal. Oh, wonder words of love! The
bedding, the tears, the spittle, the perspiration, the vapor of the
compress on my eyes, the ceiling, the matted floor, the voice of
the chirping sparrow without, all are vocal. God and every inanimate
thing speak to me. Thus even in the dark I feel no sense of loneli-
ness.

"Simply because I am doomed to dwell in the dark is no excuse
for allowing my soul to devote itself to self-centered musings.

"In the darkness I meet God face to face. Here lies the reason
for this long blindness. This is the purpose back of this wearisome
confinement. I am being born, born of God. God has some great
expectation regarding me.

"With the thought of comforting me, a friend remarked, 'Be-
cause so many things are waiting to be done you must find this
long illness tedious.' I, however, was compelled to confess that I was
not conscious of any sense of ennui. I realize that a lot of work is
waiting. But work is not the purpose of my life. I am given life
that I may live.

"It is impossible for me to stupidly moon away this present
precious moment in boredom by idly thinking of tomorrow. My life
is focused in this one moment. My present task is here and now to
fellowship with God on this bed of pain.

"I am not thinking of tomorrow or the next day, or even of this
day's sunset hour. I am concerned only with being, this present
moment, without any sense of tedium, with God. And for me con-
stantly praising God for the joy of the moments lived with Him
there is no such thing as tediousness." *

Toyohiko Kagawa, 1888-. Japanese social reformer, Christian evangelist.
As quoted in Kagawa by William Axling.

380 The Outcomes

When one takes God as He is, divine, having the reality of God
within him, God sheds light on everything. He will be like one
athirst with a real thirst; he cannot help drinking even though he
thinks of other things. Wherever he is, with whomsoever he may be,
what ever his purpose or thoughts or occupation— the idea of the
Drink will not depart as long as the thirst endures; and the greater
the thirst the more lively, deep-seated, present, and steady the idea
of the Drink will be. Or suppose one loves something with all that
is in him, so that nothing else can move him or give pleasure, and
he cares for that alone, looking for nothing more; then wherever he
is or with whomsoever he may be, whatever he tries or does, that
Something he loves will not be extinguished from his mind. He will
see it everywhere, and the stronger his love grows for it the more
vivid it will be. A person like this never thinks of resting because he
is never tired.*

Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.
Meister 'Ec'khan, Trans. R. Blakney,

Two people who lived their lives deeply and consciously often
come to my mind, and I am struck both by their dissimilarity and
by their inherent likeness. One was a great physician and scientist,
the other a washerwoman in a frontier town. The dissimilarity lay
in circumstances and outer opportunity, in gifts and natural ability.
The similarity lay in their attitude towards experience; in their
ability to live deeply in whatever came to them, and to see the
true drama of life as something not produced by circumstance or
Fate, but by the inner relation to events. In each of them one felt
as the dominant quality, a life wisdom which, while drawn from
the daily experience, yet penetrated deeper to a level where the inner
being of the spirit was revealed and the moment became a part of a
greater reality. In each the judgment of an act was tempered by a
form of charity which, always acknowledging its own limitations,
was willing to give to others an understanding that helped to cast
out fear, so that bewildered people could see themselves more clearly
and, through this understanding, accept themselves.

One of these two people, operating in the world of science, con-

Inward Renewal . 381

tributed not only to the healing of individual lives, but also to the
greater knowledge of mankind; the other, operating in a small
pioneer town, contributed new courage and understanding to the
lives of many. In both were present an almost fierce integrity and
self-scrutiny, which, turned upon their own acts, gave them clarity
of vision in judging the acts of others. In thinking of them, I have
often remembered the parable of the talents and the judgment of
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant"— a judgment as right
for the possessor of two talents as for the one to whom ten had been
given.

To each of these people the word "individual" can be applied,
for the individual is one who, from the chaos of inner confusion and
the assault of outer reality, separates that undefinable nucleus which
makes him a unique being. This individual self may be very simple
or infinitely complex — the essential quality is the acceptance of its
own reality and its own true relation to life. Such people remind us
of trees whose roots are deep in the earth, their life is a process of
growth, their nature a maturing of some central germ, they are
deeply themselves. They are also more than themselves because they
are rooted in universal form. We may find them in any walk of life,
for their reality is not dependent upon outer circumstances but upon
the fact that in some way they have always maintained their connec-
tion with themselves, and in the various experiences of life have
accepted their own responsibility and have looked for the meaning
behind each personal experience.

Perhaps we could best describe these people by saying that they
do not accept life ready-made, as does the ordinary person. Whether
their thoughts are brilliant or simple, they are their own; whether
their taste is crude or subtle it expresses something that they wish
to express. Whatever they create in life, whether it be a philosophical
theory, a work of art, or a human relation, it is their own creation,
not something which they have taken over from outside. It is
perhaps this creative quality in them which makes them stand
apart*

Frances G. Wickcs, 1882-. American psychotherapist.
The Inner World of Man.

382 t The Outcomes

To have learned through enthusiasms and sorrow what things
there are within and without the self that make for more life or less,
for fruitfulness or sterility; to hold to the one and eschew the other;
to seek, to persuade, and reveal, and convince; to be ready to re-
adjust one's values at the summons of a new truth that is known and
felt; to be un weary in learning to discriminate more sharply between
the false and the true, the trivial and the significant, in life and in
men and in works; to be prepared to take a risk for the finer and
the better things,— that is perhaps all we can do. Yet somehow as I
write, the words "perhaps all we can do" seem a very meager phrase.
The endeavor to be true to experience strikes me at this moment as
the most precious privilege of all. To have found a loyalty from which
one cannot escape, which one must forever acknowledge. No, one
cannot ask for more.*

John Middleton Murry, 1889-. English author, critic.
To An Unknown God,

Thus says the Lord:
"Cursed is the man who trusts in man,
And makes flesh his arm of strength,
His mind being turned from the Lord!
He shall be like a scrub in the desert,
Unable to see the coming of good;
He shall dwell in the scorched lands of the wilderness,
In an uninhabited salt land.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
To whom the Lord is his confidence!
He shall be like a tree planted by waters,
That sends out its roots to the stream;
And is not afraid when heat comes,
For its leaves remain green;
Nor is anxious in a year of drought,
For it ceases not to bear fruit."

From the Book of Jeremiah, around sixth century, B.C.
Old Testament, Trans. Alex R. Gordon,

Inward Renewed 383

THE SNOW-BLIND

As men who once have seen

White sun on snow, white fire on ice,

And in a wide noon, shadowless,

Gone blind with light.

So these men walk who once have seen

God without veils — the mind's

Momentary and blinding birth of sight.

To them henceforth we are but shape and shadow;

Fog-forms, hands moving in the mist,

Our houses dark, our halls are winding tunnels,

Our little triumphs less than little straws

Balanced above a sparrow's nest.

And from that hour we call them dangerous men and

Strange,

Bigoted, fierce, loud croakers of a dream.

Anarchists, atheists, we say

Who walk, eyes stretched as blind men walk

But ask no man the way.

Josephine Johnson, 1910-. American novelist, poet,

dear's End.

John Woolman, a member of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of
Ministers, was deeply revered — a Friend of "great weight." Among other
things he was known for his consistency in refusing to benefit from the
slave system. One of the measures he found necessary was to wear
bleached clothing since the import of dye was involved in the slave trade.

In 1740, impelled by a special "concern," he undertook a month-long
sea voyage to England. It was made unusually difficult because he felt
obliged to travel steerage in order to maintain his integrity regarding
special privilege. His report of the conditions in steerage did much to
awaken the Colonies regarding the heretofore almost unknown misery of
the sailors of that day. This uncomfortable and hazardous journey to
England was matched by an equally trying experience which occurred
soon after his arrival. It is related by Janet Whitney as follows. (Editors)

384 The Outcomes

The London Yearly Meeting of Ministers and Elders was the
most august body in Quakerdom. (John Woolman of course was a
member of the equivalent body in Philadelphia, and a very im-
portant member.)

The ministers and elders had been in session about half an hour.
There they sat, rank after rank of respectable men. . . . Parliament
itself perhaps could hardly offer a more solidly well-to-do group.
They conformed sufficiently to the fashion to avoid being con-
spicuous, and would pass in any company.

Into this dim and dignified assembly there suddenly entered a
most extraordinary apparition. "His dress was as follows — a white
hat, a coarse raw linen shirt, without anything about the neck, his
coat, waistcoat and breeches of white coarse woolen cloth with wool
buttons on, his coat without cuffs, white yarn stockings, and shoes
of uncured leather with bands instead of buckles, so that he was all
white."

A slight stir of horror went over the meeting as this figure ad-
vanced confidently to the Clerk's table and laid down his certificate.
. . . Well, one never did quite know what was coming from America.
But this was the worst ever seen yet. . . . They dreaded to have him
go about the country with a minute and have him pointed at by
other people as a "Quaker." After a brief, hostile pause, Dr. John
Fothergill rose and expressed, in his cold and careful phrases, the
feeling of the meeting. He suggested that perhaps the stranger Friend
might feel that his dedication of himself to this apprehended service
was accepted, without further labor, and that he might now feel
free to return to his home.

The stunning humiliation of that blow sank home in a silence
that could be felt. Such a sharp public rejection of any visitor, un-
heard, was without precedent. The man in white started, as if unable
to believe his ears, and then sat with his face covered. Those near
him were aware that tears were wrung from him in the agony of
that discomfiture.

Practised in silence, the meeting waited. Most of the London
Friends expected one of two things — either an unseemly outburst
from this wild man, or slinking departure. . , . The silence pro-

Inward Renewal 385

longed, while Woolman sought deep within himself, first for control,
then for wisdom.

At last he rose, and removed his hat. Then, speaking . . . with
pain, but with assured dignity ... he said with the utmost brevity
that he could not feel himself released from his prospect of labor in
England, but he could not travel in the ministry without the unity
of Friends. While that unity was withheld he did not feel easy to
accept hospitality, or be of any cost to them. He had the good fortune
to be acquainted with a mechanical trade, and while the impediment
to his services continued, he hoped Friends would be kindly willing
to employ him in such business as he was capable of, that he might
not be chargeable to any.

He sat down, and in spite of themselves they were impressed.

They were unable to proceed with business The silence continued

unbroken, but the quality of it was different for that greatest
enemy of love, scorn, was no longer present. And as they sat in
quiet John Woolman was subtly aware of the difference.

That long silence shaped itself into an invitation. A smaller man
might have refused that opportunity out of pique and wounded
feelings. A weaker man might have refused it from a self-conscious
feeling that to speak now would seem to give a demonstration in
support of his credentials. But Woolman had lived in the world for
fifty-two years, and such feelings, if he had ever had them, he had
long outgrown. Although his reception had shocked him profoundly,
he was now bowing his heart to accept it as a discipline of some
sort— a lesson in humility or what not— from a higher Hand than
theirs. . . . The stranger again rose to his feet, removed his hat, and
with his brow serene and lifted, he threw away the personal difficulty
that had been between himself and them and spoke to them as to
Burlington or New Haven or Philadelphia, in the love of God and the
"pure life of truth."

When he had ceased, they sat still awhile more; and then Dr.
Fothergill rose and begged John Woolman's pardon in a voice that
was husky, and urged the meeting's endorsement of his minute,
which was unanimously accorded.

The diary of Elihu Robinson reads: "$th day. Our Frd Jno

386 The Outcomes

Woolman from Jersey made some pertinent remarks in this Meeting
as in many others, and tho ye Singularity of his Appearance might
in some Meetings Draw ye Attention of ye Youth and soon cause a
change of Countenance in some, Yet ye Simplicity, Solidity and
Clearness of many of his remarks made all these vanish as Mists at
ye Sun's rising— he made sevl beautiful remks in this Meetng with
respt to ye benifit of true Silence and how Incense ascended on ye
oppening of ye Seal and there was Silence in heaven for ye space of
half an hour."*-**2

Janet Whitney, contemporary English writer.
John Woolman: American Qua\er.

Men of stamina, knowing the way of life,

Steadily keep to it;

Unstable men, knowing the way of life,

Keep to it or not according to occasion;

Stupid men, knowing the way of life

And having once laughed at it, laugh again the louder.

If you need to be sure which way is right, you can tell by their

laughing at it*
They fling the old charges:
'A wick without oil,'

Tor every step forward a step or two back.'
To such laughers a level road looks steep,
Top seems bottom,
'White appears black,'
'Enough is a lack/
Endurance is a weakness,
Simplicity a faded flower.

But eternity is his who goes straight round the circle,
Foundation is his who can feel beyond touch,
Harmony is his who can hear beyond sound,
Pattern is his who can see beyond shape:
Life is his who can tell beyond words
Fulfillment of the unfulfilled.

Laotzu, born about 604 B.C., Chinese philosopher.
The Way of Life, Trans. Witter Bynner.
2 See author's text, pages 392-96 for a full account of this incident.

Inward Rcncwd 387

(To the Russian Ministers o£ the Interior and of Justice— April 20, 1896,)

Dear Sir: I address you as man to man, with feelings of respect
and good-will, in which feelings I beg you also to accept my letter.
The matter about which I write concerns the persecutions endured
at the hands of the officials of your Department by those persons who
possess certain writings of mine which are prohibited in Russia, and
lend them to others who desire to read them. As far as I know, many
different persons have been subjected to such persecutions. These
measures are in the highest degree unjust because they are not
directed against the person from whom emanates the activity which
the Government regards as evil.

In the present case, I am this person. I wrote and circulated those
books which the Government regards as pernicious, and still con-
tinue to write and circulate in books and letters and conversations
similar ideas to those expressed in the books.

The essence of these ideas is that the unmistakable law of God
has been revealed to men; that this law stands higher than all the
human laws; and that, in accordance with this law, we should not be
in enmity with or coerce each other, but, on the contrary, should help
each other — should act with others as we would wish others to act
with us.

I express the same thoughts to you now, also, indicating the acts
of cruelty and violence contrary to the law of God which are per-
petrated by officials of your Department.

If the Government wishes at all costs to punish and suppress that
which it regards as evil, then the least irrational and the least unjust
course it could take would be to direct all measures of punishment,
intimidation, and suppression against that which the Government
regards as the source of the evil, ix., against me; the more so as I
declare beforehand that I will, unceasingly, until my death, continue
to do that which the Government regards as evil, and which I regard
as my sacred duty before God,

And please do not think that in asking you to direct against me
the measures used against some of my acquaintances I imagine that
their application to me would create any kind of difficulty to the
Government— that my popularity or my social position protects me

The Outcomes

from police raids, cross-examinations, exile, imprisonment, and other
severer acts o£ violence. I not only do not think so, but am persuaded
that if the Government were to act vigorously with me, to exile me,
imprison me, or apply a yet more extreme measure, this would not
create any particular difficulty; and that public opinion would not
only not be revolted, but the majority would completely approve of
such action and say that it should have been done long ago,

God is my witness that in writing this letter I am not surrender-
ing to a desire for bravado, or to show off in some way, but am
prompted by a moral demand, which consists in relieving innocent
people of responsibility for actions committed by me.

With the feeling of true good-will, I remain, Yours respectfully.*

Lyof N. Tolstoi, 1828-1910. Russian novelist, moral philosopher.
Complete Worlds, Trans, by Aline Delano.

(From the Tower of London, where William Penn was imprisoned.)

All is well. Thou mayest tell my father, who I know will ask
thee, these words: that my prison shall be my grave before I will
budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man; I have no
need to fear, God will make amends for all. They are miserably
mistaken in me; I value not their threats and resolutions; for they
shall know I can weary out their malice and peevishness; and in me
they shall behold a resolution above fear; conscience above cruelty;
and a baffle put to all their designs by the spirit of patience, the
companion of all the tribulated flock of the blessed Jesus, who is the
author and finisher of the faith that overcomes the world, yea, death
and hell, too: neither great nor good things were ever attained with-
out loss and hardships. He that would reap and not labour, must
faint with the wind, and perish in disappointments; but an hair
of my head shall not fall, without the providence of my Father that
is over all

William Penn, 1644-1718. English Quaker,
From Inward Light — 1941.

In those days there visited him in the same palace a certain
physician of Arezzo, by name Good John, who was very Familiar
with blessed Francis. And blessed Francis questioned him saying,

Inward Renewal 389

"What thinkest thou, Bembenignate, of this my infirmity of drop-
sey?" And the physician said to him, "Brother, it shall be well with
thee, by the grace of God." And blessed Francis said again, "Tell me
the truth; what do you think? Fear not, since by the grace of the
Holy Spirit, I am so made with my Lord, that I am equally content
with death as with life." Then the physician said to him openly,
"Father, according to our medicine-craft thine infirmity is incurable,
and I believe that either in the end of September or on the fourth of
the Nones of October, thou wilt die." Then blessed Francis, lying
on his bed, spread his hands out to the Lord with very great devotion
and reverence, and said with great joy of mind and body, "Welcome,
my Sister Death." *

Saint Francis, 1182—1226. Italian monk, preacher.
The Mirror of Perfection, Trans. R. Steele.

If one lives for a long time immersed in God's grace there stretches
across one's inner soul a calm which nothing can destroy. When,
guarded by five officers of the law, I was thrown into prison pending
trial, when marching with a mob of 15,000 people along a street
seething with riot, when threatened with daggers in the hands of
desperadoes, the jewel of peace, hidden away in my soul, was in no
wise disturbed. When in an automobile crash the city tram rumbled
on over me, that inner peace was still maintained. Even when a
chronic eye disease threatened to rob me of my sight I experienced
no swells on the calm sea of my soul.

Polished like a mirror, this calm reflects in itself every passing
circumstance of life, but its occurrence leaves no turbidity on the
surface. Criticism, abuse, ridicule, slander, all these simply serve
as polishing powder in the process of further burnishing the mirror-
like calm in my heart.

Even I myself stand amazed at this calm! This tranquillity within
is so composed and sustained that it borders on the absurd. Neither
the earth's quaking nor the alarm of fire nor blizzard nor avalanche
can shake it. I have seen too much that is abominable and witnessed
too much of sorrow. The result is that even cruelty cannot ruffle this
calm.

390 The Outcomes

One thing and one thing only can break up this tranquillity of
soul. That is deep emotion issuing from love-stirred tears. This calm,
which neither wickedness nor danger can disturb, is mightily moved
when I behold pure love attempting to redeem the world.*

Kagawa, 1888-. Japanese social reformer, labor leader, Christian minister.
As quoted in Kagawa by William Axling.

The True Man

What is meant by "The True Man"? The True men of old did
not reject (the views of) the few; they did not seek to accomplish
(their ends) like heroes (before others); they did not lay plans to
attain those ends. Being such, though they might make mistakes,
they had no occasion for repentance; though they might succeed,
they had no self-complacency. Being such, they could ascend the
loftiest heights without fear; they could pass through water into fire
without being burnt; so it was that by their knowledge they ascended
to and reached the Tao. The True men of old did not dream when
they had slept, had no anxiety when they awoke, and did not care
that their food should be pleasant. Their breathing came deep and
silently. The breathing of the true man comes (evenly) from his
heels, while men generally breathe (only) from their throats. When
men are defeated in argument, their words come from their gullets
as if they were vomiting. Where lusts and desires are deep, the
springs of the Heavenly are shallow. The True men of old knew
nothing of the love of life or the hatred of death. Entrance into life
occasioned them no joy; the exit from it awakened no resistance.

Laotzu, Born about 604 B.C. Chinese philosopher, founder o£ Taoism.

Texts of Taoism, Trans. J. Lcggc.

If we had not the history to confirm the fact, it would be almost
impossible to believe that a priest like Abbe Vianney— so austere, so
humble, so surrounded by the veneration of all who were witnesses
of his extraordinary holiness— could fall a victim to hatred and
calumny. But he was to pass through this supreme ordeal which
God reserves for the final purification of His servants.

Even good priests wrote to M. Vianney in insolent and abusive

inwara renewal 391

terms, "A man who knows so little theology as you ought never to
sit in the confessional!" was the opening sentence of one of these
letters. And the Cure of Ars, who was forced to leave unanswered
hundreds of letters full of reverent entreaty, found time to answer
this rude missive, and to thank the writer. "Oh, how I ought to love
you, my dear and much respected brother!" he exclaims; "you are
one of the few who know me thoroughly. Help me, therefore, to
obtain the favor I have been so long seeking— namely, to be replaced
in my position here, which I am indeed unworthy to occupy on
account of my ignorance; and that I may be free to withdraw into a
corner and weep over my sins."

Once a friend exclaimed to him, indignantly: "Such calumnies
could only be invented by the most perverted of men!" But the holy
man answered gently: "Oh, no, they are not perverted; they are not
wicked at all; it is simply that they found me out and know me
better than others!" But when his friend retorted, "M. le Cure, how
could they reproach you with having led a bad life?" the servant of
God replied with a sigh: "Alas! my life has always been bad. I led
in those days the kind of life I am leading now. I was always good
for nothing." And so it was all through the trial: to unreasonable
hate and devilish rancor he opposed the meekness and charity of
an angel.

In after years a brother priest, who had been witness of the
persecution he had undergone, asked M. Vianney if it had not
troubled the peace of his soul. "What!" cried the servant of God,
while a heavenly smile shone upon his face, "the cross trouble the
peace of my soul! Why, it is the cross that gives peace to the world!
It is the cross that must bring it into our hearts. All our misery
comes from our not loving it."

The Cure of Ars was spared, it is true, in this crisis that trial
which adds such unutterable anguish to every other pain: he was not
deprived of the sense of divine consolation. Another person, in
alluding to this time of trial, asked him if he remembered having
ever been so unhappy under any other affliction. He replied : "I was
not unhappy under it at all. I was never so happy in my life."

During the eight years that slander and hate were let loose upon

392 The Outcomes

him the conversions and extraordinary spiritual graces obtained at
Ars increased beyond all calculation.*

Kathleen O'Meara, American writer.
Cure of Ars.

We live happily indeed, not hating those who hate us! among
men who hate us we dwell free from hatred! We live happily indeed,
free from ailments among the ailing! among men who are ailing
let us dwell free from ailments!

We live happily indeed, free from greed among the greedy!
among men who are greedy let us dwell free from greed!

We live happily indeed, though we call nothing our own! We
shall be like the bright gods, feeding on happiness!

Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy. He who
has given up both victory and defeat, he, the contented, is happy.

Attributed to Gautama Buddha. 600 B.C.
The Dhammapada, Trans. F. Max Muiler,

I am going to say to you that a human being can live without
complaint in an ice-house built for seals at a temperature of fifty-
five degrees below zero, and you are going to doubt my word. Yet
what I say is true. Father Henry lived in a hole dug out by the
Eskimos in the side of a hill as a place in which to store sealmeat
in summer. The earth of this hill is frozen a hundred feet down,
and it is so cold that you can hardly hold your bare hand to its
surface.

An Eskimo would not have lived in this hole. An igloo is a
thousand times warmer, especially one built out on the sea over
the water warm beneath the coat of ice. I asked Father Henry
why he lived thus. He said merely that it was more convenient, and
pushed me ahead of him into his cavern.

If I were to describe the interior, draw it for you inch by inch,
I should still be unable to convey the reality to you. From the door
to the couch opposite measured four and one half feet. Two people
could not stand comfortably here, and when Father Henry said
Mass I used to kneel on the couch.

The couch was a rickety wooden surface supported in the middle

Inward Renewal 393

by a strut, over which two caribou hides had been spread. On these
three planks forming a slightly tilted surface, Father Henry slept.

No white man has anything to boast of in the Arctic, but Father
Henry no longer had the little with which he had started. Whatever
he had possessed on first coming out here was to him part of a
forgotten past, and he referred to it as "all those things." It had
helped in the beginning, but now "all that" was superfluous.

(He) lacked every object known to the civilization of the white
man. "Those things make no sense here," — and with that phrase
he disposed of the subject. When I unpacked my gifts for him, re-
joicing in advance over the delight they would give him, he stood
by shaking his head. He took them and put them to one side, saying
absentmindedly, "Very kind, very kind." His thanks were an
acknowledgment of the intention: the gifts themselves had no mean-
ing for him, no value.

When he heard confession from one of the natives, his box was
the outer passage and the scene took place under the vitreous eyes
of the frozen seal. In this virtual darkness, at fifty degrees below, the
two men would kneel and murmur together.*

I had been with him several days when I began to see that some-
thing was on his mind.

"Come," I said, "What is it? You have something on your mind."
It must really have been preying on him for he made no attempt
to evade me.

"Ah, well," he said, "You see for yourself how it is. Here you are,
a layman, enduring these privations, travelling "tough"— another
locution of the North — "depriving yourself of your only cheese for
me. Well, if you do these things, what should I, a religious, be
doing?" I stared at him. A religious, indeed! What a distance that
one word suddenly placed between him and me! This man was
animated and kept alive by something other than the power of
nature. Life had in a sense withdrawn from him, and a thing more
subtle, mysterious, had taken its place. He was doubly superior to
me, by his humility and by his mystical essence as priest. "I am of
the most humble extraction/' he had said to me. He was a Norman

394 The Outcomes

peasant, and it came to me suddenly that if he had chosen to live
in this seal-hole instead of an igloo, his choice had been motivated
in part by the peasant instinct to build his own sort of farmstead,
even here in the Arctic. He was a direct, simple, naked soul dressed
only in the seamless garment of his Christianity.

By grace of that garment, his flesh was as if it were not. When I
said, for example, "It is not warm this morning," he would answer
mechanically, "No, it is not warm"; but he did not feel the cold.
"Cold" was to him merely a word; and if he stopped up the door,
or livened up the lamp, it was for my sake he did it. He had nothing
to do with "those things," and this struggle was not his struggle: he
was somewhere else, living another life, fighting with other weapons.
He was right and I was wrong in those moments when I rebelled
against his existence and insisted rashly that he "could not live like
this." I was stupid not to see, then, that he truly had no need of any-
thing. He lived, he sustained himself, by prayer. Had he been
dependent only upon human strength he would have lived in despair,
been driven mad. But he called upon other forces, and they preserved
him. Incredible as it will seem to the incredulous, when the blizzard
was too intense to be borne, he prayed, and the wind dropped. When,
one day, he was about to die of hunger — he and the single Eskimo
who accompanied him— he prayed; and that night there were two
seal in their net. It was childish of me to attempt to win him back to
reality: he could not live with reality.

I, the "scientist," was non-existent beside this peasant mystic. He
towered over me. My resources were as nothing compared to his,
which were inexhaustible. His mystical vestment was shelter enough
against hunger, against cold, against every assault of the physical
world from which he lived apart. Once again I had been taught that
the spirit was immune and irresistible, and matter corruptible and
weak. There is something more than cannon in war, and something
more than grub and shelter in the existence of this conqueror of the
Arctic. If, seeing what I have seen, a man still refused to believe this,
he would do better to stay at home, for he had proved himself no
traveller,*

Gontran de Poncins, 1900-. French scientist, author,

Kabloona,

Inward Renewal 395

When the soul uses the body as an instrument of perception, that
is to say, when it uses the sense of sight or hearing or some other
sense, she is dragged by the body into the region of the changeable,
and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is
like a drunkard, when she touches change. But when she contem-
plates in herself and by herself, then she passes into the other world,
the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchange-
ableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when
she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her
erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is un-
changing. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.

Plato, 427-345 B.C. Greek philosopher.
The Phaedo, Trans. R. Livingstone.

CHAPTER TEN

Outward Creativity

Wherever the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

SAINT PAUL

Only those who are their absolute true selves in the world
can fulfill their own nature; only those who fulfill their own
nature can fulfill the nature of others; only those who fulfill
the nature of others can fulfill the nature of things; those who
fulfill the nature of things are worthy to help Mother Nature
in growing and sustaining life; and those who are worthy to
help Mother Nature in growing and sustaining life are the
equals of Heaven and Earth.

1 Trans. Ku Hungming and Lin Yutang.

CHAPTER TEN

Outward Creativity

BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS
IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Love and Freedom

The night was luminous. They could see from the hill road the
earth, wrinkled with hill and hollow, lying like a vast sleeping
creature. The lakes in the hollows glowed like dim moonstones. Paul
and his companion did not speak. They who were closer to each
other than any in the world beside were yet free, and could take
lonely journeys in soul sure that they would not lose the way back to
each other. They stood for a while at the crest of the hill road. It was
there the Avatars had met and gone on their radiant journey together.
In that pause of quietness Paul became aware that the years had
changed him, that he had come to be within that life which as a
boy he had seen nodding at him through the transparency of air or
earth. For many years he had peered through the veil but he himself,
except for moments which were so transient that he was hardly
aware of them until they were gone, had been outside the heavenly
circle. Now something was living and breathing in him, inter-
penetrating consciousness, a life which was an extension of the life
that breathed through those dense infinitudes. He could not now
conceive of himself apart from that great unity. He knew he was,
however humbly, one of the heavenly household. In that new exalta-
tion the lights above, the earth below, were but motions of a life
that was endless. He almost felt the will that impelled the earth on
which he stood on its eternal round. Through earth itself as through
a dusky veil the lustre of its vitality glowed. It shimmered with

398

Outward Creativity 399

ethereal colour. Space about him was dense with innumerable life.
He felt an inexpressible yearning to be molten into that, into all life.
He thought of that great adventure he and his friends were begin-
ning, and what transfigurations in life and nature it would mean.
What climbing of endless terraces of being! He knew out of what
anguish of body and soul, through what dark martyrdoms, come
the resurrection and die life, but he thought of these in peace. At
last he came back to earth and to his companion. She was still brood-
ing as he had been, her face lifted up to the skies, intent on the same
depths. She was unconscious of the one by her side, and at that
moment he loved her more in forgetting than in remembering him.

George William Russell, 1867-1935. British poet.

The Avatars.

A simple heart will love all that is most precious on earth, husband
or wife, parent or child, brother or friend in God, without marring
its singleness: external things will have no attraction save inasmuch
as they lead souls to Him; all exaggeration, unreality, affectation
and falsehood must pass away from such an one, as the dews dry
up before die sunshine. The single motive is to please God, and
hence arises total indifference as to what others will say and think,
so that words and actions are perfectly simple and natural, as in His
Sight only. Such Christian simplicity is the very perfection of the
interior life— God, His Will and pleasure its sole object*

Jean Nicholas Grou, 1731-1803. French Catholic priest.

7 he Hidden Life.

Personal Versus Purposeful Relationships

There are two very different ways in which we can enter into
relations with our fellows. We can, in the first place, associate with
others in order to achieve some purpose that we all share. Out of this
there springs a life of social cooperation through which we can
provide for our common needs, and achieve common ends. We may
define this social life in terms of purposes. That is its great char-
acteristic. There is in this field always a reason beyond the mere
association for associating and cooperating in that particular way.
Because of this we cannot enter into this form of relationship with

400 The Outcomes

the whole of ourselves as complete persons, because the purpose is
always only one of our purposes. There are others which cannot be
achieved by that particular association. We cannot, therefore, live a
personal life on the basis of such relationships. The whole complex
of activities which are generated in this way is what we mean usually
by society or by social life. But there is a second way in which we can
enter into relationships with one another. We may associate purely
for the purpose of expressing our whole selves to one another in
mutuality and fellowship. It is difficult to find a word to express
this kind of relationship which will convey its full meaning, not
because there are no words, but because they have all been specialized
and degraded by misuse. Friendship, fellowship, communion, love,
are all in one way or another liable to convey a false or partial mean-
ing. But what is common to them all is the idea of a relationship
between us which has no purpose beyond itself; in which we
associate because it is natural for human beings to share their ex-
perience, to understand one another, to find joy and satisfaction in
living together; in expressing and revealing themselves to one
another. If one asks why people form friendships or love one another,
the question is simply unanswerable. We can only say, because it is
the nature of persons to do so. They can only be themselves in that
way. It is this field of human relations which constitutes what we
call the personal life, and that is the right name for it. Because that
is the only way in which we can live as persons at all, the only form
of human life in which we can be our whole selves or our essential
selves without self-suppression and self-mutilation. . . .

If two people are associated merely for what they can get out of
one another it obviously is not a friendship. Two people are friends
because they love one another. That is all you can say about it. If the
relationship had any other reason for it we should say that one or
the other of them was pretending friendship from an ulterior motive.
This means in effect that friendship is a type of relationship into
which people enter as persons with the whole of themselves. This is
the characteristic of personal relationships. They have no ulterior
motive. They are not based on particular interests. They do not
serve partial and limited ends. Their value lies entirely in themselves

Outward Creativity 401

and for the same reason transcends all other values. And that is
because they are relations of persons as persons. They are the means
of living a personal life, . . .

When two people become friends they establish between them-
selves a relation of equality. There is and can be no functional sub-
servience of one to the other. One cannot be the superior and the
other the inferior. If the relation is one of inequality, then it is just
not a personal relationship. But once a personal relationship is
established the differences between the persons concerned are the
stuff out of which the texture of their fellowship is woven. And
provided the equal relationship is maintained, it is precisely the
differences that enrich the relationship. The greater the fundamental
differences between two persons are the more difficult it is to establish
a fully personal relation between them, but also the more worth
while the relation will be if it can be established and maintained. All
great things are difficult, and this is the greatest of all.*

John MacMurray, 1891-. Scotch Professor of Philosophy.

Reason and Emotion.

Stages of Love

Love, like God, we tend to make in our own image; and only
after a long education does it seem possible for most people to be
able to say without cant, "God is love." They can have no clear
idea what that means at the beginning. We know now that mother-
love, long romanticized as pure love, can be as selfish and savage
as sensual sex love and do as much damage to its object. Probably in
learning the loss of the self, which is the final achievement of that
sympathy which is the understanding of the heart and that under-
standing which is the sympathy of the mind, we all go through the
four great divisions of mankind. There is the stage where we are
healthy animals and our goal is that of the Romantic Movement, the
passionate love of the one lover whose presence eclipses all the rest
of the world and whose absence robs life of meaning; the stage when
we are reflective workers and craftsmen and look for a mate with
whom to share our joy in working and appreciating fine work; the
stage when we become predominantly aware of the community and
strive in a life of service to find our goal in a psychophysical Utopia,

402 The Outcomes

and to find in a common comradeship of "devotion to the beloved
community" a true communion; and the stage when we become
aware that we are "transitional creatures/' that the end and meaning
of our existence is to emerge into a state of consciousness which will
transcend and sublimate individuality.

Anonymous.

But of deep love is the desire to give

More than the living touch of warmth and fire,

More than shy comfort of the little flesh and hands;

It is the need to give

Down to the last dark kernel of the heart.

Down to the final gift of mind;

It is a need to give you that release which comes

Only of understanding, and to know

Trust without whimpering doubt and fear.

Josephine Johnson, 1910-. American novelist, poet.
From the poem September.

IN MARRIAGE

To love means to decide independently to live with an equal
partner, and to subordinate oneself to the formation of a new subject,
a "we." This depends neither upon thinking nor upon feeling, but
upon the resolution of two subjects to accept life's most difficult task,
the creation of a double subject, a "we," with complete disregard for
egocentricity, all prejudices, training formulas, and drives. He who
has enough courage so to love finds in living with his partner the
strongest positive experience imaginable — the appearance of super-
personal purposes. He exchanges that part of his egocentricity which
he renounces for a part of the great clarification which awaits all of
us. And life reveals to him part of its meaning.

Fritz Kunkel, M.D., 1889-. German psychotherapist, author.

Let's Be Normal.

A mutual sexual attraction is no proper basis for a human re-
lationship between a man and a woman.2 It is an organic thing, not

2 See Creation Continues by Fritz Kunkel, M.D., pp. 73-79 and The Way of All
Women by Esther Harding, M.D.

Outward Creativity 403

personal. What, then, is a proper basis? Love is, between any two
persons. Love may or may not include sexual attraction. It may ex-
press itself in sexual desire. But sexual desire is not love. Desire is
quite compatible with personal hatred, or contempt, or indifference,
because it treats its object not as a person but as a means to its own
satisfaction. That is the truth in the statement that doing what we
want to do is not the same as doing what we ought to do.

But notice this — that mutual desire does not make things any
better. It only means that each of two persons is treating the other as
a means of self-satisfaction. A man and a woman may want one
another passionately without either loving the other. This is true not
merely of sexual desire but of all desires. A man and a woman may
want one another for all sorts of reasons, not necessarily sexual, and
make that mutual want the basis of marriage, without either loving
the other. And, I insist, such mutual desire, whether sexual or not,
is no basis of a human relationship between them. It is no basis of
friendship. It is the desire to obtain possession of another person for
the satisfaction of their own needs, to dare to assert the claim over
another human being— "You are mine!" That is unchaste and im-
moral, a definite inroad upon the integrity of a fellow human being.
And the fact that the desire and the claim are mutual does not make
a pennyworth of difference. Mutual love is the only basis of a human
relationship; and bargains and claims and promises are attempts to
substitute something else; and they introduce falsity and unchastity
into the relationship. No human being can have rights in another,
and no human being can grant to another rights in himself or her-
self. That is one of the things of which I am deeply convinced.

Now take another point. There is only one safe-guard against self-
deception in the face of desire, and that is emotional sincerity, or
chastity. No intellectual principle, no general rule of judgment is of
any use. How can a man or woman know whether they love another
person or merely want them? Only by the integrity of his or her
emotional life. If they have habitually been insincere in the expression
of their feelings, they will be unable to tell. They will think they love
when they only want another person for themselves. What is usually
known as "being in love" is simply being in this condition. It blinds

404 The Outcomes

us to the reality of other people; leads us to pretend about their
virtues, beauties, capacities, and so forth; deprives us of the power
of honest feeling and wraps us in a fog of unreality. That is no
condition for any human being to be in. If you love a person you love
him or her in their stark reality, and refuse to shut your eyes to then-
defects and errors. For to do that is to shut your eyes to their needs.

Chastity, or emotional sincerity, is an emotional grasp of reality.
"Falling in love" and "being in love" are inventions of romantic
sentimentality, the inevitable result of the deceit and pretence and
suppression from which we suffer. Love cannot abide deceit, or
pretence or unreality. It rests only in the reality of the loved one,
demands the integrity of its object, demands that the loved one
should be himself, so that it may love him for himself.

In the second place, between two human beings who love one
another, the sexual relationship is one of the possible expressions of
love, as it is one of the possible co-operations in love— more intimate,
more fundamental, more fraught with consequences inner and outer,
but essentially one of the expressions of love, not fundamentally
different in principle from any others, as regards its use. It is neither
something high and holy, something to venerate and be proud of,
nor is it something low and contemptible, to be ashamed of. It is a
simple ordinary organic function to be used like all the others, for
the expression of personality in the service of love. This is very
important. If you make it a thing apart, to be kept separate from the
ordinary functions of life, to be mentioned only in whispers; if you
exalt it romantically or debase it with feelings of contempt (and if
you do the one you will find that you are doing the other at the same
time; just as to set women on a pedestal is to assert their inferiority
and so insult their humanity) : if you single out sex in that way as
something very special and wonderful and terrible, you merely ex-
asperate it and make it uncontrollable. That is what our society has
done. It has produced in us a chronic condition of quite unnatural
exasperation. There is a vast organisation in our civilization for the
stimulation of sex— clothes, pictures, plays, books, advertisements and
so on. They keep up in us a state of sexual hypersensitiveness, as a
result of which we greatly overestimate the strength and violence of

Outward Creativity 405

natural sexuality. The most powerful stimulant of sex is the effort
to suppress it. There is only one cure — to take it up simply, frankly
and naturally into the circle of our activities; and only chastity, the
ordinary sincerity of the emotional life, can enable us to do so.

Sex, then, must fall within the life of personality, and be an
expression of love. For unlike all our other organic functions it is
essentially mutual. If it is to be chaste, therefore, it must fall within
a real unity of two persons— within essential friendship. And it must
be a necessary part of that unity. The ideal of chastity is a very high
and difficult one, demanding an emotional unity between a man
and a woman which transcends egoism and selfish desire. In such
a unity sex ceases to be an appetite— a want to be satisfied — and
becomes a means of communion, simple and natural. Mutual self-
satisfaction is incompatible with chastity, which demands the ex-
pression of a personal unity already secured. Indeed, it seems to
me, that it is only when such a unity in friendship has reached a point
where it is shut up to that expression of itself that it is completely
chaste. How can two people know that their love demands such an
expression? Only through a mutual chastity, a complete emotional
sincerity between them. That alone can be the touch-stone of reality.
And the law of reality in the relationship of persons is this: " 'the
integrity of persons is inviolable/ You shall not use a person for your
own ends, or indeed for any ends, individual or social. To use
another person is to violate his personality by making an object of
him; and in violating the integrity of another you violate your own."
In all enjoyment there is a choice between enjoying the other and
enjoying yourself through the instrumentality of the other. The
first is the enjoyment of love, the second is the enjoyment of lust.
When people enjoy themselves through each other, that is merely
mutual lust. They do not meet as persons at all, their reality is lost.
They meet as ghosts of themselves and their pleasure is a ghostly
pleasure that cannot begin to satisfy a human soul, and which only
vitiates its capacity for reality.*

John MacMurray, 1891-. Scotch, Professor of Philosophy.

Reason and Emotion.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Outward Creativity

(continued)

Every individual is involved in interaction with, his
fellows which reaches down to the innermost recesses of his
private life. Hence social and private religious living are
identical.

HENRY NELSON

We may risk a generalization and say that at any given
moment of history it is the function of associations of
devoted individuals to undertake tasks which clear-sighted
people perceive to be necessary, but which nobody else is
willing to perform.

ALDOUS HUXLEY

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Outward Creativity

(CONTINUED)

BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
IN ATTITUDE

INTERDEPENDENCE

No man is an Hand, intire of itself e; every man is a peece of the
Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the
Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were; as well as
if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any man's death
diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

John Donne, 1573-1631. English poet, divine.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.

The constructive critic, maintains organic fellowship with other
members of society even when maladjusted to them at the level of
the mores: for he lives in vital conscious membership in the com-
munity of interdependence and need. This establishes a bond between
him and others which is stronger and deeper than that of the mores.
It is a bond which makes him meek before the lowly and fearless
before the mighty: for he knows his need and their need is the same
and that all men are helpless without one another. Full consciousness
of this interdependence saves him in three ways. It enables him to
keep his mental balance even when opposed to the mores of his
fellow men; it gives him guidance and inspiration for the recon-
struction of the social system; it comforts and sustains him by a great
fellowship. Even when men in their blindness and misunderstanding

Outward Creativity 409

have cast him out, he knows he has not lost them from this fellow-
ship. Furthermore this community cheers and sustains him because
it is the promise and potency of that richer, better life and more
adequately organized society for which he works.

Henry Nelson Wieman, 1884-. American philosopher, theologian, educator.

Methods of Private Religious Living.

It is the duty of us who are strong to put up with the weaknesses
of those who are immature, and not just suit ourselves. Everyone of
us must try to please his neighbor, to do him good, and help in his
development.

Saint Paul, first century Christian apostle.
Letter to the Romans, Trans. E. J. Goodspeed.

A sound man's heart is not shut within itself

But is open to other people's hearts:

I find good people good,

And I find bad people good

If I am good enough;

I trust men of their word,

And I trust liars

If I am true enough;

I feel the heart beats of others

Above my own

If I am enough of a father,

Enough of a son.

Laotzu, Born about 604 B.C., Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism.

The Way of Life, Trans. Witter Bynner.

He turns pure Spirit. Utter joy

Creeps on to tranquillize
His mind who seeks such discipline,

While sin with passion dies.

Sin vanishes for him who clings

to training such as this;
At one with Spirit, he attains

With ease and endless bliss.

410 The Outcomes

He sees himself in every life,

Sees every life that lives
Within himself; and so to all

A like emotion gives.

The New Testament of Hindu Scriptures, first century B.C.
Bhagavad-Gita, Trans. A. W. Ryder.

To consider mankind otherwise than brethren, to think favors are
peculiar to one nation and exclude others plainly supposes a darkness
in the understanding. For, as God's love is universal, so where the
mind is sufficiently influenced by it, it begets a likeness of itself, and
the heart is enlarged towards all men.

John Woolman, 1720-1772. American Quaker.
Journal, Whittier Edition.

My idea of nationalism is that my country may become free, that
if need be the whole of the country may die, so that the human race
may live. There is no room for race hatred here. ... I do want to
think in terms of the whole world. My patriotism includes the good
of mankind in general. . . . Isolated independence is not the goal
of the world States; it is voluntary interdependence. The better mind
of the world desires today not absolutely independent States, warring
one against another, but a federation of friendly, interdependent
States. The consummation of that event may be far off. I want to
make no grand claim for our country. But I see nothing grand or
impossible about our expressing our readiness for universal inter-
dependence rather than independence. I desire the ability to be
totally independent without asserting the independence.1 *

Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1869-. Indian statesman.

When Oberlin first came to the Valley of Stone in 1767, which
was a little Protestant island in a Roman Catholic ocean—Catholics
and Protestants were fighting each other carrying on the old Thirty
Years War, no longer of course, with torch and sword, but with petty
persecutions.

1 As quoted in The Discovery of India, by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Outward Creativity 411

In the course of time Oberlin discovered as he went about the
Valley, that the chief barrier between himself and the Roman
Catholic residents was the name "Protestant." This word was looked
upon with superstitious horror. Was not a "Protestant" an opponent
of the Holy Church ? The chief adversary of the Church was Satan,
therefore the Protestant, as an antagonist of the Church, must be
a minion of the devil himself.

Oberlin thought the matter over. "Martin Luther," he explained
to Catholics who were puzzled that a good man like himself could
belong to such an evil party, "protested against the public sale of
indulgences by an extravagant Pope. We do not now protest against
the public sale of indulgences, because hawkers are no longer going
about our village offering indulgences for sale. Martin Luther did
well to fight against that evil, and the reform he effected has benefited
even Roman Catholics today. But we are called, not to follow Martin
Luther or any other person than Jesus himself. So, my friends, why
should we let words stand between us ? I am working to spread the
Gospel— so I am an "evangelical." The gospels, although they do not
mention the word "Rome," do command us to spread their religion
throughout the world— it is a universal or "catholic" religion— so I
can also call myself a "Catholic."

Oberlin would then hand his Roman Catholic friend a copy of
the New Testament, from which he could see for himself that the
fruits of religion were "love, joy, peace, long suffering." Yes, that
was what they both were seeking. So, having reached this point of
mutual understanding, Oberlin removed the word "Protestant" from
the Valley churches, naming them instead "Catholic Evangelical."

At the close of the French Revolution, the fact that Oberlin had
remained in his parish when most of the clergy were in hiding or
fleeing for their lives, gave the Waldsbach minister immense prestige.
There had been a number of years during which any person in the
Valley of Stone who was in need of the consolations, either of
religion or of charity, could go to Oberlin, since there was no other
religious counsellor or helper to be found. As soon as the churches
were allowed to reopen their doors, both Catholics and Protestants

412 The Outcomes

began to crowd into the churches where Oberlin preached. Both
Lutherans and Roman Catholics recognized that the Waldsbach
minister belonged in a class by himself. The Lutherans refrained,
therefore, from summoning him to appear before the consistory to
answer for his heresies; and, on the other hand. Catholic priests who
had found Oberlin's home a house of refuge in their day of danger,
could hardly tell their parishioners that if they crossed the threshold
of the Waldsbach church they would risk the safety of their souls.
An English clergyman, Rev. F. Cunningham, who visited the
Valley of Stone, was astounded to find that Oberlin was administer-
ing the sacraments to Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists, at the
same time. Because the members of these different organizations
would not eat the same bread, the Waldsbach minister had, on the
plate, bread of different kinds — wafer, leavened and unleavened.
"In everything the same spirit appeared," said this amazed visitor,
"and it extended not only to his Catholic, but also to his Jewish
neighbors, and made him many friends among them all." *

Marshall Dawson, 1880-. American writer.
Oberlin: Protestant Saint?

After long study and experience I have come to these con-
clusions: that (i) all religions are true, (2) all religions have some
error in them, (3) all religions are almost as dear to me as my own
Hinduism. My veneration for other faiths is the same as for my own
faith. Consequently, the thought of conversion is impossible. . . .
Our prayer for others ought never to be: "God! give them the light
Thou hast given to me!" but: "Give them all the light and truth they
need for their highest development!"8

Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1869-. Indian statesman, mystic.

LOVE

Imagine a circle and in the middle of it a center; and from this
center forthgoing radii-rays. The farther these radii go from the
center, the more divergent and remote from one another they be-

2 John Frederick Oberlin, 1740-1826 — French minister, educator, founder of the first
Infant Schools.

3 As quoted in The Discovery of India, by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Outward Creativity 413

come; conversely, the nearer they approach to the center, the more
they come together among themselves. Now suppose that this circle
is the world: the very middle of it, God; and the straight lines
(radii) going from the center to the circumference, or from the
circumference to the center, are the paths of the life of men. And
in this case also, to the extent that the saints approach die middle
of the circle, desiring to approach God, do they, by so doing, come
nearer to God and to one another . . . Reason similarly with regard to
their withdrawing— when they withdraw from God, they withdraw
also from one another, and by so much as they withdraw from one
another do they withdraw from God. Such is the attribute of love;
to the extent that we are distant from God and do not love Him,
each of us is far from his neighbour also. If we love God, then to the
extent that we approach to Him through love of Him, do we unite
in love with our neighbors; and the closer our union with them,
the closer is our union with God also.

Abba Dorotheas, seventh century. An Eastern orthodox mystic.

If anyone says, "I love God," and yet hates his brother, he is a
liar; for whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen can-
not love God whom he has not seen. This is the command that we
get from him, that whoever loves God must love his brother
also.

From The First Letters of John.
New Testament, Trans, E. J. Goodspeed.

By love, I do not mean any natural tenderness, which is more or
less in people, according to their constitutions; but I mean a larger
principle of the soul, founded in reason and piety, which makes us
tender, kind, and benevolent to all our fellow-creatures. It is this
love, that loves all things in God, that becomes a holy principle of
all great and good actions.

If I hate or despise any one man in the world, I hate something
that God cannot hate, and despise that which he loves. And though
many people may appear to us ever so sinful, odious, or extravagant
in their conduct, we must never look upon that, as the least motive

414 The Outcomes

for any contempt or disregard of them; but look upon them with
the greater compassion, as being in the most pitiable condition that
can be.

Hatred of sin, which does not fill the heart with the softest, ten-
derest affections towards persons miserable in it, is the servant of
sin. A man naturally fancies that it is his own exceeding love of
virtue that makes him not able to bear with those that want it. And
when he abhors one man, despises another, and cannot bear the name
of a third, he supposes it all to be a proof of his own high sense of
virtue, and just hatred of sin.

Now we are to love our neighbour, that is, all mankind, not be-
cause they are wise, holy, virtuous, or well-behaved. For if their
virtue or goodness were the reason of our being obliged to love peo-
ple, we should have no rule to proceed by; because though some
people's virtues or vices are very notorious, yet, generally speaking,
we are but very ill judges of the virtue and merit of other people.

Let us farther consider what that love is which we owe to our
neighbour. It is to love him as ourselves. Now that self-love which
is just and reasonable, keeps us constantly tender, compassionate, and
well-affected towards ourselves; if therefore you do not feel these
kind dispositions towards all other people, you may be assured that
you are not in that state of charity, which is the very life and soul of
Christian piety. You know how it hurts you, to be made the jest and
ridicule of other people; how it grieves you to be robbed of your
reputation: if therefore you expose others to scorn and contempt in
any degree; if it pleases you to see or hear of their frailties and in-
firmities; or if you are only loth to conceal their faults, you are so
far from loving such people as yourself, that you may be justly
supposed to have as much hatred for them, as you have love for
yourself.

But now, if the want of a true charity be so great a want, that, as
St. Paul saith, it renders our greatest virtues but empty sounds, and
tinkling cymbals, how highly does it concern us to study every art,
and practise every method of raising our souls to this state of charity?
It is for this reason, that you are here desired, not to let this hour of
prayer pass, without a full and solemn supplication to God, for all

Outward Creativity 415

the instances of an universal love and benevolence to all mankind,
for no love is holy, or religious, till it becomes universal.*

William Law, 1686—1761. English clergyman, mystic.
Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

Duty versus Love

The substitution of duty for a living creative love has drained
all meaning from the precept "bear ye one another's burdens." The
law of Christ was a law of joyous giving and receiving in human
relationships. Here we see the danger of letting a living word crystal-
ize into a Mosaic law. Every sacrifice must be newborn of a fresh
and creative impulse. Wherever one sacrifices life for another through
a desire for self-righteousness or for sterile duty, there are piled up
conscious virtue and buried resentment which leave one with a sense
of loss and futility instead of a revivifying feeling of attainment.
Where the sacrifice is consciously accepted because of a realization
of new values, deeper relationship, greater consciousness, fuller life,
the result is a release of energy.

Frances G. Wickes, 1882-. American psychotherapist.
The Inner World of Childhood,

It is easy for us to love those close to us— "What father among
you, if asked by his son for a loaf will hand him a stone?" Even the
evil behave differently from that. The point which Jesus makes about
love is its inclusiveness — inclusive of those who think differently
from you, belong to a different class (especially those regarded as
social outcasts), the people of different race from you. These are
the ones with whom we are to deal as equal with ourselves.

But how can we? It is one of the most arresting facts about the
love preached in the Bible that it is not something which can be
manufactured. We cannot make ourselves love. How then are we
able to behave like this, or is the impossible asked of us? Love, like
peace, is a product, a result in the Bible. Peace is the product of jus-
tice; love is the result of an identification— the identifying of our
wills with the will of God, and our fate with that of all men, how-
ever obscure, fallen and needy. To love God with the totality of
devotion called for by Jesus is to commit one's self to God and his

4*6 The Outcomes

purpose. To love your neighbor as yourself is to stand equal, with
no claims of special privilege, with every living creature. Hence Jesus'
shocking behaviour in eating and drinking with publicans, harlots,
and those racially unacceptable as equals in the best Jerusalem society.
The point about the story of the Good Samaritan which must have
been very surprising and challenging to its hearers was that a Samari-
tan, who was racially and religiously an outcast, was more accept-
able in the sight of God than a priest or Levite, because he behaved
toward an unknown person as if he were a member of his own
family. Unfortunately, we have tended to interpret the story in
Christian circles as meaning that to love is to help the needy. The
fact that the Jews had a magnificent system of helping their own
needy, would have robbed such a statement of any point. Nor does
it explain Paul's statement that if you give everything you have in
charity, it avails you nothing unless you have love. . . .

Interdependence, the acknowledgment that we all desperately
need each other, is one of the most important contributions Chris-
tianity has to make to social and economic problems. In his letter
to the Corinthians, Paul says (in the part immediately preceding his
statement about love) : "If the foot were to say 'because I am not the
hand I do not belong to the body/ that does not make it no part
of the body. If the ear were to say, 'because I am not the eye, I do
not belong to the body,' that does not make it no part of the body.
If the body were all eye, where would hearing be? ... The eye
cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you/ quite the contrary."
(I Corinthians 12:15-21). We are inescapably all members of one
another. A modern expression of this same truth is contained in
Vincent Sheean's magnificent estimate of Rayna Prohme in Per-
sonal History.4" "She felt a genuine relationship to all forms of
human life. That was the essence of it. To her the Chinese coolie
was another part of the whole life, rich, various, cruel and immense,
that she shared to the extent of her limits in space and time. She
could not see a Chinese coolie beaten and half starved, reduced to
the level of the beasts, without feeling herself also beaten and half
starved, degraded and oppressed; and the part of her that rebelled

4 P. 270.

Outward Creativity 417

against this horror (her mind and spirit) was inflexibly resolved, by
now, never to lie down under the monstrous system of the world.
She was— to use Gerald Heard's word— "co-conscious" with all other
parts of the human race. Man's inhumanity to man seemed to her
a great deal more than that; it was an inhumanity of one part of the
same body to another. The Shanghai entrepreneurs who employed
thousands of Chinese men, women and children at starvation wages
for twelve and fourteen hours a day were, to her, like the hands of
a body cutting off its legs."

This is love — not saving your own skin, but hungering and thirst-
ing after righteousness; knowing that you cannot have real security
yourself while others are insecure.*

Rose Terlin, contemporary American, editor, writer.
Christian Faith and Social Action.

In Christian love one can allow the interests of the enemy and
the alien to enter appreciative apprehension. This intuitive awareness
and sympathetic understanding of the concerns of the other, across
the barrier of hate, alienation, foreign culture, and racial difference,
is a gift of God's grace. Only when the demands of creativity are
sovereign over all other demands in one's life can one be sufficiently
open, receptive, and responsive to permit this kind of love.

With this interpretation, not only is Christian love unendurable,
it is destructive and evil to anyone who does not first love God with
heart and soul and mind and strength. Only then can he love his
neighbor as himself, however alien the interests of the neighbor may
be. The distinctive mark of Christian love is precisely this duality
and conflict of interests which it alone can tolerate. If others than
Christians display this kind of love, we can only rejoice and say that
this is what we mean by "Christian love," even though the label is
not always accurate. Certainly, this kind of love is rarely found among
professing Christians.

Only by loving persons who stand in radical contrast to all that
I have ever been can I gain access to the wide area of value yielded
by this diversity of interests added to my own. In time, if I am
sufficiently committed to the creative power in life, these alien

4*8 The Outcomes

interests may be integrated positively or negatively into the scope of
my personality and its world. If integrated positively, I and my
world are so transformed that these interests and persons previously
so destructive to my personal organization become in some way
sustaining. If integrated negatively, I and my world are so trans-
formed that these interests and persons are deeply imbedded in my
concern but are forever opposed to me and all that I would support.
One may ask: What good is Christian love under such circum-
stances ? To be sure, it yields suffering and struggle and can never
bring harmony under the circumstances mentioned. But it is not
nonsensical on that account, and it is not without its own glorious
good, tragic to the uttermost though it be. The good it yields is that
magnificent spread and vividness of qualitative meaning, only possible
with such love, connecting persons and strivings into a single glow-
ing web of mutual reference, where cold indifference or instrumental
connection alone could otherwise prevail. This suffering glory yields
a vividness of contrast between extremes beyond the compass of any
other outreach of the human spirit.*

Henry Nelson Wieman, Contemporary philosopher and educator.

The Source of Human Good.

If you love only those who love you,, what merit is there in that?
For even godless people love those who love them. And if you help
only those who help you, what merit is there in that? Even godless
people act in that way. And if you lend only to people from whom
you expect to get something, what merit is there in that? Even god-
less people lend to godless people, meaning to get it back again in
full. But love your enemies, and help them and lend to them, never
despairing, and you will be richly rewarded, and you will be sons
of the Most High, for he is kind even to the ungrateful and the
wicked. You must be merciful, just as your Father is.

Jesus of Nazareth.
New Testament, Trans. E. J. Goodspeed.

The cynic, who goes into the world determined to trust men no
further than he can see them and to use them as pawns in his own

Outward Creativity 419

game, will find that experience confirms his prejudice; for to such a
man men will not shew the finer sides of their nature. The Chris-
tian, who goes into the world full of love and trust, will equally
find that experience confirms his "prejudice," for to him men will
shew the finer and more sensitive sides of their nature, and even
where there was no generosity his love and trust will, at least some-
times, create it. But though each finds his view verified, the latter
has the truer view, for he sees all that the other sees and more
beside.

William Temple, 1881-1944. Archbishop of Canterbury.
Readings in St. John's Gospel.

Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good ;
let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth!

Attributed to Gautama Buddha — 600 B.C.
The Dhammapada, Trans. F. Max Miiller.

If one forsakes love and fearlessness,
forsakes restraint and reserve power,
forsakes following behind and rushes in front,

He is dead!

For love is victorious in attack,

And invulnerable in defense.
Heaven arms with love

Those it would not see destroyed.

Laotzu, Born about 604 B.C. Chinese philosopher.
The Bool( °f ^ao, Trans. Lin Yutang,

SENSITIVITY

But if someone who is rich sees his brother in need and closes
his heart against him, 'how can he have any love for God in his
heart? Dear children, let us love not with words or lips only but in
reality and truth.

From The First Letters of John.
Testament, Trans. E, J. Goodspecd,

420 The Outcomes

Sensitiveness to Inequalities

We live in a society which is shot through with a major tension
between owner and worker. "Had we deliberately planned/' says
Professor Slichter of Harvard, "an industrial system which would
create intense conflict between capital and labor, we could scarcely
have devised one which would have established this result more
completely than does the existing economic order."

Yet this same economic order seems to take every precaution to
isolate these two classes. They live in different parts of the city. They
go to different clubs, political meetings, churches, schools. They do
not meet, except by accident.

An average group in an average church had just listened to one
who had spent a good deal of time in a Canadian relief camp. He
described in some detail the conditions: the absence of home life;
the dullness of the daily routine; the emptiness of the future ahead;
the increasing pressure toward cheap diversion in drugs or perver-
sions. At the end of his talk questions are in order. Up speaks a
worthy matron, kindly, dignified, well-fed. "Well, after all, these
men have food, clothes, shelter, light, and twenty cents a day. What
more can we do for them? What more do they want?"

She is a great worker in the church. She "kills herself" making
sandwiches for church picnics. She is a great believer in missions,
and spends many a winter afternoon cutting out dolls and clothes
for the Fiji Islanders who are served by the church missionary.
Her concern excludes the seven hundred men beaten into vice and
despair three miles from her door.

Now it is no use blaming this woman's personal morality for her
insensitiveness. It is the conditions of her life, not her hard-hearted-
ness, which account for her self-righteousness. . . .

Sensitiveness is not a matter of mere intention; it is a matter of
community of life. Jesus was sensitive to the publican and the prosti-
tute, as the Pharisee was not. He achieved that sensitiveness in sharing
their life, eating at their table, moving freely in their company. . . .

Community of life, as Jesus practiced it, and as we must find it
today, was not charity. Charity does not enlarge our experience; it
only confirms our preconceptions. It cannot create sensitiveness.

Outward Creativity 421

Sensitiveness demands a lurking disquiet, an openness and willing-
ness to learn, bred of humility. It is killed by self -righteousness. And
charity makes for self -righteousness. I keep my economic superiority,
if for no other reason, at least because of my "responsibility" to the
poor.

Like the capitalist who feels something of a public benefactor in
"giving employment," so every one who contributes to charity finds
a social justification for his privilege. Charity establishes a relation
of generous contributor and grateful recipient which is both socially
and morally false. It is socially false, because in a healthy economy
the pauperism which makes this relation necessary would not exist;
every one would have the right to work, and no one the right to
gratuities. It is morally false, because only between equals can there
be generosity without condescension and gratitude without servility.
Only one thing can meet the demands of religious sensitiveness
in a society of economic castes: participation of members of all classes
on a common footing, in common protest against the present separa-
tions, and the system which creates them; in the struggle for civil
liberties, for peace, for the rights of organized labor, for the rights of
the unemployed. Even diere the old distinctions will trail us, and
economic differences of language, manner, and social standing will
mar our perfect togetherness. But as comrades in the same cause we
can do penance for our father's sins which have divided us from
our brothers; we can be humble, eager to learn from those whose
suffering has taught them many things from which our own
privilege has spared us. As we work together we shall learn the trust
and respect, without which there can be neither love nor under-
standing.

Sensitiveness is the receptive side of religious character. It is the
openness of one's spirit, the largeness of one's vision, the practical
steps one is willing to take to maintain the growth of that awareness.*

Gregory Vlastos.
From Planning the Future with Youth.

And yet, the life of an honest man must be an apostasy and a
perpetual desertion. The honest man must be a perpetual renegade;
the life of an honest man must be a perpetual infidelity. For the man

The Outcomes

who wishes to remain faithful to truth must make himself con-
tinually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable
renascent errors. And the man who wishes to remain faithful to
justice must make himself continually unfaithful to inexhaustibly
triumphant injustices.

Charles Pe"guy, 1873-1913. French writer.
Charles Peguy. Trans. A. and }. Green,

Now when some who have never experienced hard labour them-
selves live in fulness on the labour of others, there is often a danger
of their not having a right feeling of the labourers' condition and of
being thereby disqualified to judge candidly in their case, not know-
ing what they themselves would desire, were they to labour hard
from one year to another to raise the necessaries of life. ... It is
good for those who live in fulness to think seriously with them-
selves. Am I influenced by true charity in fixing all my demands ?
Have I no desire to support myself in expensive customs; because
my acquaintances live in such customs ?

To see their fellow-creatures under difficulties to which they are
in no degree accessory tends to awaken tenderness in the minds of
all reasonable people, but if we consider the conditions of those who
are depressed in answering our demands, who labour for us out of
our sight while we pass our time in fulness, and consider also that
much less than we demand would supply us with things really
useful, what heart will not relent, or what reasonable man can
refrain from mitigating that grief of which he himself is the cause?

They who enter deeply into these considerations and live under
the weight of them will feel these things so heavy and their ill effects
so extensive that the necessity of attending singly to divine wisdom
will be evident; and will thereby be directed in the right use of things
in opposition to the customs of the times; and will be supported to
bear patiently the reproaches attending singularity.

He who hath been a stranger among unkind people, or under
the government of those who were hard-hearted, has experienced
this feeling; but a person who hath never felt the weight of mis-
applied power comes not to this knowledge but by an inward

Outward Creativity 423

tenderness, in which the heart is prepared to sympathise with
others.*

John Woolman, 1720-1772, American Quaker.

Journal.

Sensitiveness to Our Common Liability

We civilised people have been spoilt. If any one of us is ill the
doctor comes at once. If an operation is necessary, the door of some
hospital or other opens to us immediately. But let every one reflect
on the meaning of the fact that out here (Africa) millions and
millions live without help or hope of it. Every day thousands and
thousands endure the most terrible sufferings though medical science
could avert them. Every day there prevails in many and many a far-
off hut a despair which we could banish.

Believing it, as I do, to be my life's task to fight on behalf of the
sick under far off stars, I appeal to the sympathy which Jesus and
religion generally call for, but at the same time I call to my help
also our most fundamental ideas and reasonings. We ought to see
the work that needs doing not as a mere "good work," but as a
duty that must not be shirked.

Ever since the world's far-off lands were discovered, what has
been the conduct of the white peoples to the coloured ones? What
is the meaning of the simple fact that this and that people has died
out, that others are dying out, and that the condition of others is
getting worse and worse as a result of their discovery by men who
professed to be followers of Jesus? Who can describe the injustice
and the cruelties that in the course of centuries they have suffered
at the hands of Europeans ? Who can measure the misery produced
among them by the fiery drinks and hideous diseases that we have
taken to them. If a record could be compiled of all that has happened
between the white and the coloured races, it would make a book—
which the reader would have to turn over unread, because its
content would be too horrible.

We and our civilization are burdened, really, with a great debt.
We are not free to confer benefits on these men, or not, as we please:
it is our duty. Anything we give them is not benevolence but atone-

424 The Outcomes

ment. For every one who scattered injury some one ought to go out
to take help, and when we have done all that is in our power, we
shall not have atoned for the thousandth part of our guilt. That is
the foundation from which all deliberations about "works of mercy"
out here must begin.*

Albert Schweitzer, M.D., 1875-. German musician, missionary, author.
On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, Trans. C. T. Campion.

FORGIVENESS

And so throughout eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me;
As our dear Redeemer said,
This is the Wine, this is the Bread.

William Blake, 1747-1827. English poet, artist, mystic.

The Christian story is that, whatever the inadequacies of for-
giveness and love may be in the operations of human justice, men
ultimately face divine forgiveness as well as divine wrath. The Christ
upon the cross is the point of illumination where the ultimate mercy
is apprehended. It is not a mercy which cancels out the divine jus-
tice; nor does it prove the divine justice to be merely love. There is a
hard and terrible facet to justice which stands in contradiction to
love. It is not for that reason evil Justice is good and punishment is
necessary. Yet justice alone does not move men to repentance. The
inner core of their rebellion is not touched until they behold the
executor of judgment suffering with and for the victim of punish-
ment. This is the meaning of "atonement" as apprehended by faith.
It is the final meaning and the final mystery of the relation of God
to man.

Reinhold Nicbuhr, 1892-. American theologian, educator, author.
Discerning the Signs of the Times.

Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they
are not good, who feel themselves in need of divine mercy, who live
in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel

Outward Creativity 425

themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy
God and know that the differences between the good man and the
bad man are insignificant in his sight. When life is lived in this
dimension the chasms which divide men are bridged not directly,
not by resolving the conflicts on the historical levels, but by the
sense of an ultimate unity in, and common dependence upon, the
realm of transcendence. For this reason the religious ideal of for-
giveness is more profound and more difficult than the rational virtue
of tolerance.

Rcinhold Niebuhr, 1892-. American theologian, educator, author.
Interpretation of Christian Ethics,

It is not easy to step from a higher position to a lower, and be
one with that position in the -act of forgiveness. It is much easier
to act as judge and keep one's own invulnerable position. God takes
no position, and who is man to say that he speaks and acts for God ?
And they who judge do it in order to escape the thrusts of Reality.
Perhaps they climb the citadel of judgment in order to denounce
that which in themselves is a need, a desire, a frustration, or a fear.
How much more profitable it would be to deal with the evil within
themselves honestly. One knows only of a few instances where the
judged became the forgiver, for usually pressure begets pressure.
Where this forgiveness is possible God surely is at work.*

L.M.N.

And the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in
adultery; and having set her in the midst, they say unto him,
"Teacher, this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act,
Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such: what then
sayest thou of her?"

And this they said, trying him, that they might have whereof
to accuse him.

But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground.
But when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and
said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first
cast a stone at her." And again he stooped down, and with his fingers

426 The Outcomes

wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it, went out one
by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus
was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the midst. And
Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, "Woman, where are they ?
did no man condemn thee?" And she said, "No man, Master." And
Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth

sin no more."

From the Gospel According to John.
New Testament.

Forgiveness and Counter-forgiveness

Saints are men who permit God's forgiveness to come into them so
fully that not only are their sins washed out, but also their very
selves, their egos, and the root of their self-will. And again, we see,
the intensity of their power really to forgive is in exact proportion
to the degree that they have permitted themselves to be forgiven and
so brought back to God. Look for a moment at the quality of their
forgiveness, what they have accepted from God and so may pass on
to man. I forgive to the level that I have been forgiven, and if that
level is moderate (because I made reservations in what I declared,
because I only wanted to lose my vices and not myself), I can forgive
only people who have offended moderately and my forgiveness helps
them only moderately. If I try forgiving people who have wronged
me or others intensely, I find either I can't do it at all or the quality
of my forgiveness is so weak that it is either resented (as the maniac
became more fierce as the disciples tried to cure him) or more often
dismissed with contempt. We have not power on earth to forgive sins
because we are not forgiven to that degree — to that degree that God
is our sole end and our ego is no more.

Therefore we must scale the second curve of the great spiral way
of forgiveness if we would ever save our social order. Only people
who are still quite kindly at heart want my forgiveness, for it is still
so full of self— self-complacency and self-appreciation— that it is
perhaps ten per cent the love of God and ninety per cent patronage
and superiority. No wonder people don't want it, resent it. What
help is it to them? How does it in any way rehabilitate them and
make them capable of wishing to lose themselves^ make them able

Outward Creativity 427

to believe that there is a God Who will help them both lose and find
themselves in Him? Yet, we must repeat, saints do arise; their power
is in exact proportion to their power to accept God's forgiveness of
their whole selves — of their social being as much as of their private
acts— and such men by this their acceptance of social responsibility
and guilt have power really to forgive sin. They can forgive wrongs
done not only to themselves but to others just because they accept
as their own the guilt of others, the wrong-doing and the wrong-
suffering of the entire community.

And their forgiveness can really forgive the wrong-doer because
it brings him back into the current and circulation of the Eternal
Life from which he cut himself off by his wrong-doing and from
which the resentment of the wronged, quite as much as his own guilt,
is now driving him farther away. The saints' forgiveness has the
power of reaching the banished wrong-doer and salvaging him
because that forgiveness has in it two real elements which grapple
him. The first element is the saints' acknowledgment of a common
guilt. When anyone fails, their spontaneous reaction is to point to
themselves, saying in the depths of their hearts, "Lord, if thou hadst
been here my brother had not died." The constant recognition of
commonality with every human life builds a bridge from them to
the isolated wrong-doer. The second element which grasps hold
of the abandoned is that the quality of their goodness is dynamic.
It goes for the sinner, not to immobilize him but permanently to
mobilize his ingrown energy; not to protect a status quo but to build
a city of God. The saint can show the dynamic sinner a way of life
far more daring, unconventional, enterprising than any border-raid
on the swag of smug and timid respectables. The saint is making an
attack on the very center and citadel of the thoughtlessly secure. He
aims at capturing society itself.

If, then, we are to save our social life, we must produce men so
deeply forgiven that they can at least forgive, creatively discharge
with a renewed will, give the conviction of new unlimited kinship
and friendship to those extreme types of public enmity which our
social system is producing.*

Anonymous.

428 The Outcomes

BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
IN INFLUENCE AND ACTION

INFLUENCE

We can influence and direct others as we desire their good, but
only when they are convinced, with the shrewd sense that all crea-
tures have, that our motives are clean, our statements true, that we
do seek their good, and not our advancement and elevation as their
essential benefactors. All of us are individual spirits created to evolve
into a common union. If we have made ourselves to grow, so that
we are advanced some stages beyond the average intensity of indi-
vidualism, we can directly influence those who wish to grow, and
who are feeling the natural need to grow, in that direction. The
spirit and character which is already advanced in constant creative-
ness, in wide compassion and unceasing illumination, knowing
what life means and how to attain that meaning— such a spirit not
only influences those among whom it is— but its influence spreads
radioactively, telepathically, and the limits of its force cannot be
set, because the source on which it is drawing is itself illimitable.
Being, therefore, is all, and doing merely the symptom and sign of
being, as body is the appearance of spirit.*

Anonymous.

Perfectly to have given up one's own is to be merged with God,
and then anyone who will touch the man must first touch God, for
he is wholly within God and God is around him, as my cap is
around my head, and to touch me one must first touch my clothing.

Similarly, when I drink, the drink must first pass over my tongue
and there be tasted; but if my tongue is covered with a bitter coating,
then however sweet the wine, it will taste bitter, because of the
coating through which it reaches me. This is how it is with the
person who, having given up all that is his own, is coated with God,
so that no creature can touch him without first touching God, and

Outward Creativity 429

whatever reaches him must reach him through God. Thus it gets
its flavor and becomes divine.

Mcister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327. German scholar, mystic.
Meister Ec\hart, Trans. R. Blakney.

The religious man is not the attractive personality. He does not
draw men to himself. He is the transparent personality: a window
to something beyond himself. He does not make admirers. He
does not dazzle men with a fascinating individuality. He challenges
them to a supreme loyalty.

Gregory Vlastos, 1909-. Canadian Professor of Philosophy.
The Religious Person in the World Today.

ACTION

What the mystic will do with his life after he has seen, after he
has been organized and -fortified and has been made a lover, we need
not stop to ask. It will depend on what is specifically there to be
done in his day and generation. But we can take it for settled that
he will be a hundred-horsepower person in his world.

Rufus Jones, 1863-. American philosopher, author.

One early February morning in 1209, while hearing mass at the
Porziancula, the aged priest read from the Gospel of St. Matthew—
for it was St. Matthew's Day— the words of Jesus to the twelve as
He sent them forth to preach. In a moment of inspiration God's will
was made known to Francis, and the seed of the Order of the Bare-
foot Friars was sown in his bosom. He too would go forth, with
neither gold, nor silver, nor wallet, nor shoes, nor staff, and with
but one coat, to call men to righteousness. He began to preach,
disciples joined him— Bernard of Quintavalle, Peter Catani, Giles
of Assisi. A forsaken traveller's shelter near the leper hospital at
Rivo Torto, so small and mean that Francis had to chalk the name
of each friar over his narrow sleeping-place, became the first settle-
ment of the Franciscan friars. A simple Rule, based on the teachings
of their divine exemplar, was drawn up by Francis, and one sum-

430 The Outcomes

mer's day in 1210, the little band of disciples set forth from Rivo
Torto to obtain its confirmation at Rome. They received the tonsure,
and went their way rejoicing. Calling themselves the minores, or
poor little folk, as distinguished from the majores, or upper classes,
they began their wondrous mission.

Of the success of the movement, the rapid increase of the friars
and of their settlements, of the wanderings of Francis and his soli-
tary wrestling with the Spirit in Umbria, in the Marches, in the Vale
of Rieti, at La Verna, space forbids a detailed treatment. His power
as a preacher was marvellous. As soon as the news ran that Francis
was coming, the whole life of the community was at a standstill.
Bells rang, the merchant left his desk, the trader his counter, the
workman his tools, women and children crying "ecco il santo!"
went forth to meet him ; men strove to touch the hem of his tunic,
and women bent down to kiss his footprints on the ground. Such
was the consuming passion of his eloquence that he spoke not so
much with his tongue as with the whole body, and at times, in the
vehement fervour of his pleading for souls, he seemed to dance like
David of old. He had the supreme wisdom of the simple and pure
in heart; he possessed that piercing insight into the very core of
things that comes from absolute sincerity and undeviating truthful-

ness.*

Saint Francis, 1182-1226. Italian monk, preacher.
Lit fie Flowers of St. Francis, Trans. T. Okey.

To be a seer is not the same thing as to be a mere spectator. Once
the contemplative has fitted himself to become, in Lallemant's
phrase, "a man of much orison," he can undertake work in the world
with no risk of being thereby distracted from his vision of reality, and
with fair hope of achieving an appreciable amount of good. As a
matter of historical fact, many of the great theocentrics have been
men and women of enormous and beneficient activity.

The work of the theocentrics is always marginal, is always started
on the smallest scale and, when it expands, the resulting organization
is always subdivided into units sufficiently small to be capable of a
shared spiritual experience and of moral and rational conduct.

Outward Creativity 431

The first aim of the theocentrics is to make it possible for any
one who desires it to share their own experience of ultimate reality.
The groups they create are organized primarily for the worship of
God for God's sake. They exist in order to disseminate various
methods (not all of equal value) for transforming the "natural man,"
and for learning to know the more-than-personal reality immanent
within the leathery casing of selfhood. At this point, many theo-
centrics are content to stop. They have their experience of reality
and they proceed to impart the secret to a few immediate disciples,
or commit it to writing in a book that will be read by a wider circle
removed from them by great stretches of space and time. Or else,
more systematically, they establish small organized groups, a self-
perpetuating order of contemplatives living under a rule. In so far
as they may be expected to maintain or possibly increase the number
of seers and theocentrics in a given community, these proceedings
have a considerable social importance. Many theocentrics, however,
are not content with this, but go on to employ their organizations to
make a direct attack upon the thorniest social problems. Such attacks
are always launched from the margin, not the centre, always (at any
rate in their earlier phases) with the sanction of a purely spiritual
authority, not with the coercive power of the state. Sometimes the
attack is directed against economic evils, a '. when the Benedictines
addressed themselves to the revival of agriculture and the draining
of swamps. Sometimes, the evils are those of ignorance and the
attack is through various kinds of education. Here again the
Benedictines were pioneers. It is worth remarking that the Benedic-
tine order owed its existence to the apparent folly of a young man
who, instead of doing the proper, sensible thin^, which was to go
through the Roman schools and become an administrator under the
Gothic emperors, went away and, for three years, lived alone in a
hole in the mountains. When he had become "a man of much
orison/' he emerged, founded monasteries and composed a rule to
fit the needs to a self-perpetuating order of hard-working contempla-
tives. In the succeeding centuries, the order civilized northwestern
Europe, introduced or re-established the best agricultural practice of
the time, provided the only educational facilities then available, and

432 The Outcomes

preserved and disseminated the treasures of ancient literature. For
generations Benedictinism was the principle antidote to barbarism.
Europe owes an incalculable debt to the young man who, because he
was more interested in knowing God than in getting on, or even
"doing good/5 in the world, left Rome for that burrow in the hill-
side above Subiaco.

Aldous Leonard Huxley, 1894-. English writer, literary critic.

Grey Eminence.

The more a man becomes conscious of himself through self-
knowledge and its corresponding effect upon action, there is an
increasing tendency for that layer of the personal unconscious that
has overlaid the collective unconscious to disappear. In this way a
conscious function is born, that is no longer imprisoned in the petty,
over-sensitive, and personal world of the ego, but participates freely
in the wider world of objective interests. This extended consciousness
ceases to be a knot of personal wishes, fears, hopes, and ambitions
that have always to be compensated or corrected by unconscious,
personal counter-tendencies. Instead, it now becomes a function of
relation that is linked up with the world of objects, and by which the
individual is pledged to an unconditioned, responsible, and indis-
soluble intercourse with the world. The complications that belong to
this stage are no longer egoistic wish-conflicts, but difficulties that
concern others just as much as oneself.

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychotherapist.
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Trans. H. G. & C. F. Bayncs.

The winter of 1:930-31 was one of the darkest which the city of
Tokyo has expei.enced. The whole nation was in the throes of a
financial slump. The poor were in a pitiful plight.

Disregarding precedent, the mayor turned to Kagawa, urged him
to become Head of the city's Social Welfare Bureau and help him and
the city to cut their way through the crisis. The salary would be
$9,000 a year and an automobile for his own use.

The mayor's action caused a sensation. It raised a row in the City
Council — because of the appointee's views on political and social

Outward Creativity 433

questions. The conservatives and reactionaries attacked him because
of his socialistic views. The socialists and radicals attacked him be-
cause of his religious idealism. Within the Bureau itself he was
called an idealist, an impractical dreamer, and intrigue against him
was rife.

Kagawa at the time was engaged in a nation-wide evangelistic
crusade. He could not see his way to accept the headship of the
Bureau. He, however, never turns a deaf ear to a call of distress, and
acceding to the mayor's second proposition, became the Bureau's chief
adviser.

The mayor's offer of a salary he absolutely refused. With the
money he could have supported for an entire year the three social
settlements which he personally conducts in Kobe, Osaka, and
Tokyo. These institutions desperately needed those funds. But
Kagawa never chooses the easy way. Tokyo was in distress. He would
not add one iota to the city burdens. He would serve only on the
condition that there be no salary.

He appeared at his office in the stately City Hall in the $1.85
laborer's suit which he wore in the slums. His first official act was to
visit the centers of poverty and distress. He secured shelter for those
exposed to the cold of winter. He fed the hungry. He preached to the
masses.

Tokyo has a modern system of street railways and transportation,
but the bulk of its food supplies is still distributed by means of
r r,ooo house-boats which ply on 218 miles of canals running like
arteries into every section of the city. Thirty-one thousand people are
employed on these boats, half of whom live in the boats* six-by-nine-
foot holds. Often a family of twelve is crowded into the boathold.

He found the living conditions among these boatmen to be un-
speakably bad. Being constantly on the move, they had no ad-
vantages. He provided visiting nurses, established dormitories for the
children of school age, and places for the parents to sleep.

He started eleven new social settlements in as many sections
where the need was the greatest.

In five months after assuming office he prepared and put through
the City Council a scheme of unemployment insurance by which the

434 The Outcomes

city's civic unemployed are registered at the Municipal Employ-
ment Bureaus and guaranteed work or given a grant every third
day during the period of their enforced unemployment. It also
provides that available labor under the city shall be equally dis-
tributed among these registered unemployed.

To Kagawa belongs thus the credit not only of initiating the
movement for wiping out the slums in six cities of the Empire, but
in inducing its chief city to take the second step in solving the
problem of poverty by adopting a scheme which guarantees its own
workers protection while unemployed. In the field of social legislation
this was a pioneer step not only in Japan, but throughout the Orient.*

William Axling, M.D., 1873-. American missionary.

Kagawa.

Three Levels of "Action"

Every person has a choice of three levels on which to live. He can
be childish, ego-centric, and soft in mind, fondly imagining that the
world revolves around his small desire. The cruelty and injustice
from which others suffer cause him no pang: "Why should I go
forth to battle in their behalf?" If such a one ventures outside the
warm comfortable nest, it is only to dash feverishly over the surface
of things. He may seem to be whole-hearted and free; actually he
is irresponsible and naive. That is the lowest level.

Against this shallow innocence those on the second level energetic-
ally rebel. Some go fascist; others go communist or Pharisee. For the
sake of future order or brotherhood, let there be violence now. That
the Kingdom of Heaven may come according to my specifications,
away with anybody who chooses a method different from that of my
party.

Doesn't the end justify the means? These second Jevelers make
an impressive show. But peace they can find neither within nor
without, and they are almost wrecking the world. Like all adolescents,
they are not really sure of themselves. As a result, they make an issue
of their maturity; or overemphatically protest their realism; or
solemnly look down upon everybody else.

On the third level move those athletes of the spirit who are

Outward Creativity 435

fundamentally effective and aware. The fascists call them "com-
munists"; the communists call them "social fascist"; the Pharisees
dismiss them as "sinners." Level number three is always patronized
by level number two as though it were only level number one. The
communist brushes Kagawa aside as a peddler of religious opium;
the sword-fondling nationalist labels Gandhi as a sentimentalist who
only turns the other cheek; the half-baked intellectual mutters that
Schweitzer is a fool for leaving the popular lecture room to bury
himself in Africa. Yet Kagawa, Gandhi, and Schweitzer are more
poignantly aware of ultimate reality than inhibited atheists are.
They cherish a deeper attachment to native land than arrogant na-
tionalists can feel. They have a wider grasp of philosophy, by being
brotherly, than the inhibited intellectuals in their ivory towers ever
reach.

Those who have climbed to the second level are preoccupied
with their growing pains. The gaiety and gusto of the great souls
are literally over their heads. They see no point in sitting at the feet
of children. But Kagawa, Gandhi, and Schweitzer do. Put either one
in the presence of youngsters and in five minutes they will all be
having a jolly and probably hilarious time. Theirs is the gift of
making others feel at home because they are themselves at ease with
life. Imagine yourself meeting the chubby Japanese in that funny
black, unpressed suit he wears in Tokyo; or the half -naked Hindu
after evening prayers in an outcaste village; or the stout-bodied
Alsatian in full dress emerging from a concert in Paris. At first you
might feel embarrassed in the presence of fame. But only for a
moment. You would soon be thinking of more important things
than the impression you were making. Before long they would be
sharing with you a sense of power that is overcoming the world.
And you yourself would be laughing with them.

These three have humor not because they have escaped but be-
cause they have embraced the sufferings of the underprivileged and
the tasks of social change. They are free and spontaneous because
they are conscripts of a terrible compassion. They are not insensitive
to evil. Indeed, they can tell you far more about it than can those
who are of as well as in the world. But the evil has no power to

436 The Outcomes

crush or sour them. They see through the intervening ugliness to
something just and lovely beyond.

What they see does not strike them dumb. They are amazingly
articulate. Kagawa bubbles over untiringly through microphones,
newspapers, magazines, and books. Gandhi addresses vast crowds,
issues innumerable articles, and writes one of the most self-revealing
autobiographies. Schweitzer forcefully lectures, preaches, and in-
terprets civilization to itself and himself to the world.

Do their hands produce so much because their hearts are serene ?
Or is their tranquillity the result of their creativity ? Neither is the
final cause of the other. But these qualities are the reward of that
most important of all human acts— commitment. These three live
for and by something infinitely higher than themselves.

Not every moment, but of tener than we, they breathe and dream
in union with the deepest law of human life. It is a law that Jesus
proclaimed again and again and embodied all the time: If any man
tries to defend himself he will be lost, but if he throws all of himself
into the cause of the Family of God he will find his soul.

Allan A. Hunter, 1893-. American minister, author.
Three Trumpets Sound.

For long generations our people had offered their "blood, toil,
sweat and tears." This process had eaten its way deep into the body
and soul of India, poisoning every aspect of our corporate life. . . .
And then Gandhi came. He was like a powerful current of fresh
air that made us stretch ourselves and take deep breaths; like a beam
of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from our
eyes; like a whirlwind that upset many things, but most of all the
working of people's minds. He did not descend from the top; he
seemed to emerge from the millions of India, speaking their language
and incessantly drawing attention to them and their appalling con-
dition. Get off the backs of these peasants and workers, he told
us, all you who live by their exploitation; get rid of the system that
produces this poverty and misery. . . .

The essence of his teaching was fearlessness and truth and action
allied to these, always keeping the welfare of the masses in view

Outward Creativity 437

The dominant impulse in India under British rule was that of
fear. ... It was against this all-pervading fear that Gandhi's quiet
and determined voice was raised: Be not afraid.

Was it so simple as all that ? Not quite. And yet ... suddenly, as
it were, that black pall of fear was lifted from the people's shoulders
— not wholly, of course-, but to an amazing degree. ... A sea change
was visible as the need for falsehood and furtive behavior lessened.
It was a psychological change — almost as if some expert in psycho-
analytical method had probed deep into the patient's past, found
out the origins of his complexes, exposed them to his view, and thus
rid him of that burden. . . .

Gandhi for the first time entered the Congress organization and

immediately brought about a complete change in its constitution

A new technique of action was evolved which, though perfectly
peaceful, yet involved nonsubmission to what was considered wrong,
and as a consequence, a willing acceptance of the pain and suffering
involved in this. . . . The call of action was twofold. There was of
course the action involved in challenging and resisting foreign rules;
there was also the action which led us to fight our own social evils.
Apart from the fundamental objective of the Congress— the freedom
of India — and the method of peaceful action, the principal planks of
the Congress were national unity, which involved the solution of the
minority problems, and the raising of the depressed classes and the
ending of the curse of untouchability. . . .

Gandhi influenced millions of people in India in varying degrees;
some changed the whole texture of their lives, others were only partly
affected, or the effect wore off, and yet not quite, for some part of
it could not be wholly shaken off. . . . Some might well say almost
in the words of Alcibiades: "Yes, I have heard Pericles and all the
other great orators, and very eloquent I thought they were; but
they never affected me like that; they never turned my whole soul
upside down and left me feeling as if I were the lowest of the low;
but this latter day Maryas (meaning Socrates), has often left me
in such a state of mind that I've felt I simply couldn't go on living
the way I did. . . . I've been bitten by something much more
poisonous than a snake; in fact, mine is the most painful kind of bite

438 The Outcomes

there is. I've been bitten in the heart, or the mind, or whatever you
like to call it " 5 *-**

Jawaharlal Nehru, contemporary Indian statesman.
The Discovery of India.

Freedom in Action

Freedom does not come from a series of emancipations from
external restrictions. Those we never quite escape. No matter what
our independence, we are only exchanging one tyranny for another.
Freed from the interference of domineering parents, a young man
may be left the slave of his friends, of his ambition, slave of his own
desire to be free. No one who has lived in one community for any
length of time can fail to notice the pathetic subservience of the
average man to public opinion; his dread lest he should lose that
which he never quite had— the esteem of those around him. There
is only one way of escape from this dread which follows most men
from adolescence to old age. It is the sense of belonging wholly to a
transcendent value. So long as one loves oneself, one will fear the
things which have power to hurt that self. Release comes only with
the self-transcendence of love.

There are two kinds of security: One, when the future is
guaranteed; the other, when the present is right. Men have often
looked to religion for that first kind of assurance: that it will protect
their health, their reputation, their worldly goods, their families,
their friends, and will reserve them a comfortable corner in the
world to come. It is the other kind of security that is the effortless
possession of the committed man. It does not rest on credulity, but on
the simple willingness to do the right, and follow it, so far as one
can see it. In the hour of danger one can only ask oneself: "What
else could I have done ? It was the only right thing that I could see.
Of course I shall stand the consequences, and would do it again, if
I had the chance. For the rest, I can only trust to the same power of
good that compelled me, and is now constraining others to the same
work." This is the sense of religious freedom and religious security:
Freedom, because one knows that one's own personality is ultimately

5 From The Five Dialogues of Plato. Everyman's Library, E. P. Dutton and Co.

Outward Creativity 439

unimportant; security, because one knows that the kingdom of love
is the only thing worth living for, worth suffering for, if need be,
worth dying for.*

Gregory Vlastos, 1909-. Canadian, Professor of Philosophy,
The Religious Person in the World Today.

"Do you not realize what an assignment to Molokai6 would
mean ?" Father Clement asked Damien gently. "It would mean worse
than exile. It would mean living daily with death and the dread of
death."

Damien replied, "Do not be fearful for me. I have known many
lepers and I have no fear of them. Their tragedy is that, through no
fault of their own, they are despised by man. Do not let us allow
them to believe that God has deserted them, also!"

The Bishop looked past the eager, flushed face of the young
priest. He had had other plans for Damien. He needed such a young
man with courage and decision near him. Finally he grasped the edge
of the table. "It shall be as you desire, my son," he said quietly. "And
since it has been decided, a boat leaves the harbor here for Honolulu
in an hour's time. You and I will sail on this boat. It will be my
privilege to accompany you to your new home,"

When the steamer dropped anchor in the deep waters off the
shore of Molokai and Damien and Bishop Maigret were taken ashore
they found a large crowd of people— lepers of Kalawao and Kala-
paupa, the two settlements on Molokai.

"Here is one who has come to live among you, my children,"
the Bishop said. "He will care for you and be a father to you. From
this day forward you are not alone."

All around Damien was a world of pain and horror beyond any-
thing he had imagined. The huts of invalids lay in such a state of
foulness and filth that a few times it was all he could do to keep
from rushing out into the sunshine. Clothing was in rags and very
dirty. The dying lay on foul mats of rushes. He prayed silently,

6 From Man of Molotyti, Copyright 1943, by Ann Roos, published by J. B. Lippincott
Co. This selection was chosen from several different sections of the book and is a condensed
version of those sections.

440 The Outcome*

desperately— heaven sustain him through these first terrible hours-
let no sign of revulsion or fear be on his face.

Food was scanty and not suited to the desperately ill. Huts were
tottering and there were no tools and little lumber for better ones-
There was work to do here! He must not delay a moment. Decency
would never flourish where there was no interest and no hope. And
hope could not be born until there was human dignity. He would
write at once to the authorities in Honolulu — to the Board of Health
— to Bishop Maigret — to Belgium, even!

Life took on a changed aspect for the lepers in the few years of
Damien's occupation of the colony. Physically they were more com-
fortable. The squalid huts in which the priest first found the lepers
gave place to simple but sturdy wooden cottages. He discovered a
natural reservoir in the Waihanau Valley, a few miles distant. His
importunings to the Hawaiian officials had been ceaseless, with the
result that miraculous cold water finally burst forth from the central
taps in the settlement of Kalawao and its neighboring village, Kala-
paupa. It seemed more than mere water to Father Damien. He stood
watching the childlike amazement and delight of the women as they
held their children's dusty feet under the taps or filled rude pails
and gourds with the precious liquid, and felt that here was surely
being washed away some of the old apathy and despair.

No leper was too repulsive in body nor too abandoned in spirit for
Father Damien to shrink from him. And this lack of fear or re-
pugnance was the golden key to the lepers' confidence and even love.
As he was dressing their wounds, Damien would talk with the lepers
intimately. He treated them all as whole men capable of taking their
places in the community. He praised and chided them. He joked
with them until the tight misery around their hearts had relaxed a
little. He remonstrated sternly with those who had been careless.
To Catholic and non-Catholic alike he gave his care and attention.

After years of transforming service there arrived a Sunday which
no one on the Island of Molokai ever could forget. Father Damien
went to church as usual, mounted the pulpit and read the text: "Be

Outward Creativity 441

not anxious, therefore, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we
drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed ? For after all these things
the heathen seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all these things."

After hearing the text, the people followed him through the well-
known preamble of the sign of the cross and settled back to listen.

The voice of Father Damien went on evenly.

"Our Heavenly Father knoweth," he was repeating, "that we
lepers have need of all these things."*5-**

Ann Roos, contemporary American writer.
The Man of Molofai.

His going on foot in England had nothing to do with the Negro
slave trade, except in that remote sense in which all evil is inter-
related. Nor was it a personal asceticism; nor due to those good
Quaker reasons, so soothing to hear, about a "stop in his mind" or
"a leading." No, it was plainly and simply because he would not by
one penny support die stagecoaches. The stagecoaches, concentrating
on transport of passengers, were only about ten years old. In order
to compete with the waggons, which carried both goods and pas-
sengers at first, the coaches had to aim at speed. . . . Woolman, an
expert in horses, observed these vehicles on the road. He saw them
reharnessed at the inns. He saw the postilion boys — young, so as to be
light— lifted stiff from the leader, staggering into the inn, white-
faced and sick, for poor food and insufficient rest. And his heart
burned again for the world's cruelty. He watched the horses, too,
foaming at the mouth, red in the eyes, breathing hard, being led to
their stalls for just the minimum of food and rest that would enable
them to keep up the killing pace, under the whip, when their turn
came round again. And this was summer weather, conditions were
at their best. How would things be in the winter, when snow drifted
in the hollows, and ice made roads slippery, and the bitter night
wind met that unprotected boy upon the leader?

"As my journey hath been without a horse," says Woolman,
"I have had several offers of being assisted on my way in these stage-
coaches, but have not been in them, nor have I had freedom to send

442 The Outcomes

letters by these posts in the present way of their riding, the stages
being so fixed and one boy so dependent on another as to time, and
going at great speed, that in long cold winter nights the poor boys
suffer much. I heard in America of the way of these posts, and
cautioned Friends in the General Meeting of Ministers and Elders at
Philadelphia, and in the Yearly Meeting of Ministers and Elders in
London, not to send letters to me on any common occasion by post.
And though on this account I may be likely not to hear so often
from my family left behind ... yet for righteousness sake I am con-
tent Stage-coaches frequently go upwards of one hundred miles

in twenty-four hours; and I have heard Friends say in several places
that it is common for horses to be killed with hard driving, and that
many others are driven till they grow blind. Post-boys pursue their
business, each one to his stage, all night through the winter. Some
boys who ride long stages suffer greatly in winter nights, and at
several places I have heard of their being frozen to death. So great
is the hurry in the spirit of this world that in aiming to do business
quickly, and to gain wealth, the creation at this day doth loudly
groan."

Here again that ounce of action which Woolman supplied spoke
more loudly and was longer remembered than any of his words.*

Janet Whitney, English writer.
John Woolman: American Quaker.

Oberlin became instinctively the protector of ill-treated people of
Jewish faith. A Jew who was crossing the mountain heights above
the Valley of Stone was robbed and murdered. For some years after
this even Oberlin passed on to the widow, each year, the sum of
50 francs. The woman, astonished at receiving such a rich gift from
the pastor of so poor a parish, asked what had drawn him into the
affair. Oberlin replied that since the murder had been committed
in his parish, he felt that not only the villagers but himself as well,
were blood-guilty, and that so far as he had the power he wished to
atone for the crime and help to avert the curse resting upon the place
where innocent blood had been shed.

Outward Creativity 443

A Jewish peddler, who had for many years made trips through
the Valley of Stone and who sold goods on credit to the villagers,
died leaving his widow in great destitution. When Oberlin heard
of this, he sent for the list of the Jew's debtors who lived in his parish,
collected from those who were able to pay, and paid himself for those
who could not do so.

One morning, as Oberlin was at work in his study, he heard a
great noise in the village. Rushing out, he saw a foreigner in the
midst of a howling, threatening mob. Oberlin dashed into the crowd.
On all sides the cry was raised, "A Jew! A Jew!" With the greatest
difficulty, the pastor at last commanded silence. When he could make
himself heard he exclaimed: "Those who treat so cruelly one who is
not a Christian, are themselves unworthy of that name." Then, lifting
the peddler's pack upon his own shoulders, he took the man by the
hand, led him to the manse, and sheltered him from the mob's blind
fury.

That evening, the peddler sat down at the dinner-table with the
Oberlin family, the little curtsying maids, and the pensionnaires. In
answer to the reluctant stranger's protest, Oberlin had said: "The pot
will not know the difference, since there are already so many mouths
to share the feast." As the two men were sitting together talking,
when the dishes had been cleared away, a neighboring Catholic priest
who had found the Waldsbach manse a cozy place to visit, joined
them, and they drew their chairs together before the fire.

The priest was in a mellow mood. He beamed upon the Jewish
peddler. Then laying his hand on Oberlin's shoulder, he said: "How
I wish, my good friend, that you and I were of the same religion."

The Waldsbach minister was silent a moment before he spoke.
He looked first at the priest, then at the Jew. Putting one arm upon
the priest's shoulder, while the other circled the man he had rescued
from the mob, he said: " Love is the religion of Jesus Christ. The
Savior is love personified."

The eyes of the Jew were moist with tears. Bowing his head, he
murmured: "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

444 The Outcomes

The priest said, softly: "He who loves his fellow-man, whom he
has seen, loves God whom he has not seen/' **-*

Marshall Dawson, 1880-. American writer.
Oberlin: Protestant Saint?

"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

If a shift in underlying assumptions is basic to large-scale changes
in values, it may be that the chief significance of the prophet is his
refusal to accept current assumptions. By living counter to what
everyone else accepts as inevitable, he shows that another way is
possible. Kodanda Rao (Secretary of the Servants of India Society)
once observed that Gandhi— by undertaking the detested sweeping
work of untouchables— had so changed the thinking of India that no
one would any longer justify untouchability, though the old tabus
may continue for a generation. John Woolman led many to free their
slaves, not by words only but by his dramatic refusals to live as if
slavery were justified. Similarly today people who maintain a pro-
letarian standard of living and share the "dirty work" wherever they
go — especially in rich homes! — are challenging the right of anyone
to leisure or luxury at the price of others' labor and hunger.

One has to do manual work for some time before one comes to
recognize the insidious power of the half-conscious rationalizations
by which we justify our not taking our share of the cleaning, the coal-
digging, the elevator-running.

Some of these half-conscious rationalizations are:

"Don't they get paid for it?" (as if the workers should be grateful
for the job, instead of the bourgeois being dependent on them!)

"My time is more valuable than theirs" (this comes up surprisingly
to consciousness, and makes one shamefully aware of the extent of
one's unconscious pride, until at last one comes to see what is really
meant by the equality of all souls in the sight of God.)

"Why should I work if I don't get paid for it?" The sheer
astonishment provoked by an intellectual's efforts to carry water for
miners' wives or groceries from pushcart markets for overloaded
Bowery grandmothers, to mend socks for truck-drivers* children,

7 John Frederick Oberlin, 1740-1826 — French minister, educator, founder of first Infant
Schools.

Outward Creativity 445

sweep union halls,— "for nuttin'?" shows how deeply embedded is
this contemporary prejudice. It prevents people without a paid job
from doing work simply because it needs to be done; it prevents
others who have extra food and clothing from giving it to those who
need it — "for nothing." As long as America believes that men will
not work except for profit, merely political action for a new social
order is likely to continue to meet insuperable obstacles. But when
she sees men and women actually working "for nothing" (some are
trying to carry this out in an ordinary position by not receiving a
salary but taking enough for their bare needs from a drawing ac-
count) and refusing to be above anyone else, the new society will be
already in our midst.

Anonymous. Quoted from Inward Light.

Philanthropy is a field in which many men and women of the
margin have laboured to the great advantage of their fellows. We
may mention the truly astounding work accomplished by Father
Joseph's contemporary, St. Vincent de Paul, a great theocentric, and
a great benefactor to the people of seventeenth-century France. Small
and insignificant in its beginnings, and carried on, as it expanded,
under spiritual authority alone and upon the margin of society,
Vincent's work among the poor did something to mitigate the
sufferings imposed by the war and by the ruinous fiscal policy which
the war made necessary. Having at their disposal all the powers and
resources of the state, Richelieu and Father Joseph were able, of
course, to do much more harm than St. Vincent and his little band
of theocentrics could do good. The antidote was sufficient to offset
only a part of the poison.

It was the same with another great seventeenth-century figure,
George Fox. Born at the very moment when Richelieu was made
president of the council and Father Joseph finally committed him-
self to the political life, Fox began his ministry the year before the
Peace of Westphalia was signed. In the course of the next twenty
years the Society of Friends gradually crystallized into its definitive
form. Fox was never corrupted by success, but remained to the end
the apostle of the inner light. The society he founded has had its ups

446 The Outcomes

and downs, its long seasons of spiritual torpor and stagnation, as
well as its times of spiritual life; but always the Quakers have clung
to Fox's intransigent theocentrism and, along with it, to his con-
viction that, if it is to remain at all pure and unmixed, good must be
worked for upon the margin of society, by individuals and by
organizations small enough to be capable of moral, rational and
spiritual life. That is why, in the two hundred and seventy-five years
of its existence, the Society of Friends has been able to accomplish a
sum of useful and beneficent work entirely out of proportion to its
numbers. Here again the antidote has always been insufficient to
offset more than a part of the poison injected into the body politic
by the statesmen, financiers, industrialists, ecclesiastics and all the
undistinguished millions who fill the lower ranks of the social
hierarchy. But though not enough to counteract more than some
of the effects of the poison, the leaven of theocentrism is the one
thing which, hitherto, has saved the civilized world from total self-
destruction.*

Aldous Leonard Huxley, 1894-. English writer, literary critic.

Cjcy Eminence.

There was, then, no self-pity mingled with the implacable
economy to which Oberlin subjected himself in order to enlarge his
resources for advancing the public good. This man was a lover of
the arts, of music, travel, beauty and the concourse of rare minds.
His tastes were refined; he could have spent a fortune pampering
them; But he had set before himself work which committed him to
a different program. The task was enormous; his resources were in-
significant. He pursued unflinchingly the strategy essential to achiev-
ing his object: unsparing personal economy; systematic accounting;
boundless generosity in gifts to the public good.

But however complete his consecration, if he alone had pursued
this course, he would have failed. The load was too great to be lifted
by a single pair of hands. Oberlin's power to awaken in others
sacrificial zeal for the public welfare made success certain. Where
generosity for the public good becomes a community characteristic,
prosperity is inevitable.

Outward Creativity 447

"Money is power/' especially in a region where destitution had
been so acute and chronic that the gift of a copper coin would bring
tears of gratitude into the eyes of an impoverished widow. Oberlin
constantly studied ways and means of enlarging his generosity. He
made himself three boxes. In the first box he deposited one-tenth of
his earnings as a gift for maintaining public worship. In the second
box he deposited another tenth of his earnings, as a source of gifts
toward community improvements, prizes for school children, enter-
taining strangers, redressing injuries done to any person by male-
factors in his parish, and for other purposes. The contents of the third
box, in which he deposited the third tenth of his income, were to
be used for the poor.

One listens willingly to a discourse on generosity when it is
delivered by a person who has himself set an example of unselfish-
ness so great there is nothing left to say.

The size of the collections in the churches of the Valley of Stone-
considering the modest earnings of the people — astonished visitors
from the outside world. These people who had been so greatly
helped by Oberlin and his friends in Strasburg or London, grew eager
to help one another and even those who, in distant places, were in
need.

Did a villager lose a cow? A collection was taken, and the cow
was replaced. Was the home of a poor widow destroyed by fire?
A collection was taken; the entire valley came to her rescue. When
the Revolutionary administration neglected the foundlings in the
Strasburg hospital, a collection was taken for them, and many of
these unfortunate children were adopted by the mountaineers. Such
a spirit chased the wolf of destitution from the Valley of Stone.
Self-respecting poverty remained, in many quarters, but mendicancy
disappeared.

Marshall Dawson, 1880-. American writer.
Oberlin: Protestant Saint.

The American Friends Service Committee

Cromwell's wise saying that "no man ever goes so far as when
he doesn't know where he is going," applies in a striking way to the

448 The Outcomes

unfolding and enlarging activities of the American Friends Service
Committee.

No one dreamed in the sharp crisis of 1917, when the first steps
of faith were taken, that we should feed more than a million German
children, drive dray loads of codliver oil into Russia, plough the fields
of the peasants and fight typhus in Poland, rebuild the houses and
replant the wastes in Serbia, administer a longtime service of love
in Austria, become foster parents to tens of thousands of children in
the coal fields in West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio,
inaugurate plans for the rehabilitation of the stranded soft coal
miners, carry relief to the children on both sides of the warring forces
in Spain and create new types of Peace activity which have brought
this supreme issue of these times vitally home to the minds and con-
sciences of people in all parts of America.

We verily went out in those days of low visibility not knowing
whither we were going, but we were conscious of a divine leading,
and we were aware, even if only dimly, that we were "fellow-laborers
with God" in the rugged furrows of the somewhat brambly fields of
the world.

The Quakers had always from the time of their rise in the period
of the English Commonwealth been sensitive to the ills of humanity
and ready as occasions arose to take up the burden of the world's
suffering, but in the early and middle periods of Quaker history
experiments in the service of love were apt to be spontaneously
entered into as the individual concern of a tender heart who followed
a leading that seemed to be divinely given to him. John Sellers, John
Woolman, William Allen, Elizabeth Fry, Anthony Benezet, and
Joseph Sturge are characteristic champions of the Quaker faith. They
saw a task that needed to be done. They were recipients of a vision,
an inward leading, and they were not disobedient to what seemed to
them their heavenly vision. They had a certain amount of corporate
backing and support, but in the main they walked a solitary path
and went forward on their own uncharted way.

The American Friends Service Committee, as its name implies,
was from the beginning, and has all along continued to be, a
corporate activity. Many of its undertakings originated in the inward

Outward Creativity 449

insight of a single individual, and some of its most important con-
cerns had their birth in a sensitive person's soul, but all its decisions
have been arrived at through corporate action. Its thirty years of
history have given many glowing verifications of the wisdom of
arriving at decisions by taking "the sense of the meeting." Nothing
in this long period has been settled by a majority vote which over-
rode the judgment of a strong minority opposed to it. All matters of
importance have been luminously presented to the whole group,
corporately considered, looked at from many angles, threshed out in
clear, open light and decided by unanimous judgment; or referred
to a small group to be further studied, matured and brought again
to the whole Committee, to be there reconsidered in fuller light and
with enlarged wisdom, which usually has resulted in a final unani-
mous decision.*

Rufus Jones, 1863-. American philosopher, author.
From Introduction to Swords into Ploughshares by Mary Hoxie Jones.

BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
WITHIN THE BELOVED COMMUNITY

And his mother and his brothers came. And they stood outside
the house and sent word in to him to come outside to them. There
was a crowd sitting around him when they told him,

"Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you."

He answered,

"Who are my mother and my brothers?"

And looking around at the people sitting about him, he said,

"Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of
God is my brother and sister and mother."

The Gospel According to Mark
New Testament, Trans. E. J. Goodspeed.

The New Community

I want you to form the nucleus of a new community which shall
start a new life amongst us— a life in which the only riches is
integrity of character. So that each one may fulfill his own nature

450 The Outcomes

and deep desires to the utmost, but wherein tho', the ultimate satis-
faction and joy is in the completeness of us all as one. Let us be
good all together, instead of just in the privacy of our chambers, let
us know that the intrinsic part of all of us is the best part, the
believing part, the passionate, generous part. We can all come crop-
pers, but what does it matter ? We can laugh at each other, and dis-
like each other, but the good remains and we know it. And the new
community shall be established upon the known, eternal good part
in us. This present community consists, as far as it is a framed thing,
in a myriad of contrivances for preventing us from being let down by
the meanness in ourselves or in our neighbours. But it is like a motor
car that is so encumbered with non-skid, non-puncture, non-burst,
non-this and non-that contrivances, that it simply can't go any more.
I hold this the most sacred duty — the gathering together of a number
of people who shall so agree to live by the best they know, that they
shall be free to live by the best they know. The ideal, the religion,
must now be lived, practised. . . .

After the War, the soul of the people will be so maimed and so
injured that it is horrible to think of. And this shall be the new
hope: that there shall be a life wherein the struggle shall not be
for money or for power, but for individual freedom and common
effort towards good. That is surely the richest thing to have now—
the feeling that one is working, that one is part of a great, good
effort or of a great effort towards goodness. It is no good plastering
and tinkering with this community. Every strong soul must put off
its connection with this society, its vanity and chiefly its fear, and go
naked with its fellows, weaponless, armourless, without shield or
spear, but only with naked hands and open eyes. Not self-sacrifice,
but fulfilment, the flesh and the spirit in league together, not in arms
against one another. And each man shall know that he is part of the
greater body, each man shall submit that his own soul is not supreme
even to himself. "To be or not to be" is no longer the question. The
question now is how shall we fulfil our declaration, "God is." For all
our life is now based on the assumption that God is not — or except
on rare occasions.

. . . We must go very, very carefully at first. The great serpent

Outward Creativity 451

to destroy is the will to Power: the desire for one man to have some
dominion over his fellow-men. Let us have no personal influence, if
possible — nor personal magnetism, as they used to call it, nor per-
suasion—no "Follow me"— but only "Behold." And a man shall not
come to save his own soul. Let his soul go to hell. He shall come be-
cause he knows that his own soul is not the be-all and the end-all,
but that all souls of all things do but compose the body of God, and
that God indeed shall BE.

I do hope that we shall all of us be able to agree, that we have
a common way, a common interest, not a private way and a private
interest only.*

D. H. Lawrence, modern English novelist, poet, essayist
From a letter8 to Lady Ottoline Morrell — Feb. 1915.

Characteristic of the "Beloved Community"

"See how these Christians love one another" might well have been
a spontaneous exclamation in the days of the apostles. The Holy
Fellowship, the Blessed Community has always astonished those who
stood without it. The sharing of physical goods in the primitive
church is only an outcropping of a profoundly deeper sharing of a
Life, die base and center of which is obscured to those who are still
oriented about self, rather than about God. To others, tragic to say,
the very existence of such a Fellowship within a common Life and
Love is unknown and unguessed. In its place, psychological and
humanistic views of the essential sociality and gregariousness of man
seek to provide a social theory of church membership. The precious
word Fellowship becomes identified with a purely horizontal relation
of man to man, not with that horizontal-vertical relationship of man
to man in God.

It appeared in vivid form among the early Friends. The early
days of the Evangelical movement showed the same bondedness in
love. The disclosure of God normally brings the disclosure of the
Fellowship. We don't create it deliberately; we find it and we find
ourselves increasingly within it as we find ourselves increasingly

8 The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, edited by Aldous Huxley. Also see Notes on D, H,
Lawrence by W, H, Audcn, The Nation, April 26, 1947.

45- The Outcomes

within Him. It is the holy matrix of "the communion of the saints.5'
It was a tragic day when the Quakers ceased to be a Fellowship and
became a Society of Friends. Yet ever within that Society, and ever
within the Christian church, has existed the Blessed Community,
a little church within the church.

In the Fellowship cultural and educational and national and
racial differences are leveled. Unlettered men are at ease with the
truly humble scholar who lives in the Life, and the scholar listens
with joy and openness to God's dealing with the workingman. We
find men with chilly theologies but with glowing hearts. We over-
leap the boundaries of church membership and find Lutherans and
Roman Catholics, Jews and Christians, within the Fellowship. We
re-read the poets and the saints, and the Fellowship is enlarged,
With urgent hunger we read the Scriptures, with no thought of pious
exercise, but in order to find more friends for the soul. We brush
past our historical learning in the Scriptures, to seize upon those
writers who lived in the Center, in the Life and in the Power.
Particularly does devotional literature become illuminated. Time
telescopes and vanishes, centuries and creeds are overleaped. The
incident of death puts no boundaries to the Blessed Community,
wherein men live and love and work and pray in that Life and
Power which gave forth the Scriptures. And we wonder and grieve
at the overwhelmingly heady preoccupation of religious people with
problems, unless they have first come into the Fellowship of the
Light.

The final grounds of holy Fellowship are in God. Persons in the
Fellowship are related to one another through Him, as all mountains
go down into the same earth. They get at one another through
Him. .

The relation of each to all, through God, is real, objective, exis-
tential. It is an eternal relationship which is shared in by every stick
and stone and bird and beast and saint and sinner of the universe. On
all, the wooing love of God falls urgently, persuadingly. But he who.
having willed, yields to the loving urgency of that Life which knocks
at his heart, is entered and possessed and transformed and trans-
figured. The scales fall from his eyes when he is given to eat of the

Outward Creativity 453

tree of knowledge, the fruit of which is indeed for the healing of
the nations.

This community of life and love is far deeper than current views
based upon modern logic would suppose. Logic finds, beneath every
system of thought, some basic assumptions or postulates from which all
other items of belief are derived. It is said that those who share in a
system of thought are those who hold basic assumptions in common.
But these assumptions are of the intellect, subsequent products, efforts
to capture and clarify and make intelligible to ourselves and to others
some fragment of that immediacy of experience in God. Theological
quarrels arise out of differences in assumptions. But Holy Fellowship,
freely tolerant of these important yet more superficial clarifications,
lives in the Center and rejoices in the unity of His love.

And this Fellowship is deeper than democracy, conceived as an
ideal of group living. It is a theocracy wherein God rules and guides
and directs His listening children. The center of authority is not in
man, not in the group, but in the creative God Himself. Nor do all
members share equally in spiritual discernment, but upon some falls
more clearly the revealing light of His guiding will. "Weighty
Friends," with delicate attunement both to heaven and to earth, bulk
large in practical decisions. It would be a mistake indeed to suppose
that Holy Fellowship is chained fast to one political system, or bound
up inextricably with the fortunes of any one temporal structure of
society. It is certainly true that some temporal systems are more favor-
able than are others to the flowering of the Fellowship. But within
all groups and nations and creeds it springs up, smiling at differences,
for, existing in time, it is rooted in the Eternal One.*

Thomas R. Kelly, 1893-1941. American philosopher, educator.

A Testament of Devotion.

The Christian Community in the Dark Ages

John Buchan's description of the Dark Ages, points out that the
darkness was not total. He writes:

"There were many points of light in that darkness. There was
first of all the Christian Church which, behind all its political cap-
rices and theological pedantries, did preserve a continuous tradition

454 The Outcomes

of civilization and the spiritual life. Throughout those centuries it
produced saints and missionaries whose names we still honor. It
produced poets whose hymns we still sing, and in many a monastery
tucked away in the forests there were scholars who studied more
than the Church fathers. Much of the literature of Greece and Rome
survived in obscure places, Aristotle, or a part of him, was not for-
gotten, and men could get to Plato through St. Augustine. . . ."

Christians were numerous — vast hordes of them, in name! — but
those who cherished the memory and strove to follow the way of the
crucified Christ were hardly more than little communities of sancti-
fied souls hidden in such places of quiet refuge as could still be found.
In the murky spectacle of bloody kings, plundering warriors, starv-
ing peasants, and contentious churchmen they seemed to count for
little. But these Christians, the self-chosen among the great multitude
of conforming believers, were the custodians of all that was precious
in the world. They were the guardians of altars, far hidden from the
crowded ways of men, where burned the lights which were to bring
back the day after the long, cold night.

Out of this inner sincerity and sanctity of spirit, as from a living
spring, there flowed certain attitudes and interests which were
important.

These Christians refused to all earthly powers an allegiance an-
terior or superior to that which they pledged to God. There were no
nations in the Dark Ages as in our modern times. But there were
clans and tribes, kings and chieftains, and the early texture of loyal-
ties which was later woven into the elaborate fabric .of feudalism. But
none of these was allowed to interfere with, least of all to supersede,
the obedience which was given to God alone. It was true that this
obedience was transmitted through the Church, which later became a
very earthly institution indeed. The temporal powers of the Church
took on an importance over the spiritual powers which led to the
final tragedy of medieval Christianity. But in its essence the Church
was the mere agent and interpreter of the Most High.

As these Christians in the Dark Ages thus gave exclusive and com-
plete obedience to God, in defiance of all earthly powers, so they
lived primarily not for the world of present experience but for a

Outward Creativity 455

next world of future promise. This present world on earth was but
a manifestation of a preparation for this next world in heaven, which
was to be a pure realm of the spirit. It exacted certain elementary con-
ditions and duties, of course, which could not be avoided. For this
brief period of time man was living, whether or no, in the abode of
a physical body and amidst the scene of a material earth, as a kind of
discipline and training of the spirit which was within him.

It is in this sense that Christianity in the Dark Ages, as in later
ages, was an "other-world" religion. This in our time has become its
reproach—that men neglected the obligations and opportunities of
this present world in their absorption in the next! And in many ways
this is a just reproach. There is no question that there is a funda-
mental spiritual fallacy in this separation of this present life from
some kind of future life. But that there is a distinction between body
and soul, matter and spirit, temporal and eternal, is central to all
that we mean by religion. This is a dichotomy without which no
understanding of the religious life is possible. St. Augustine knew this
when, amidst the incredible catastrophe of the fall of Rome before
the sword of Alaric, he pointed to that "City of God" which, in con-
trast to even the most powerful city of men, lies quite beyond the
reach of fire and sword. The Bishop of Hippo may have located his
City of God by a theological geography which is no more acceptable
to our time than Ptolemy's charting of the heavens. But his vision of
the City was none the less real. The Christians of that day saw it and
made it the lodestar of their lives. Already, amidst the chances and
changes of this world, and even as they kept their place in the social
order of their time, they were citizens of God's City. Its laws were
their commandments and its labors their daily task.

This leads to a third distinguishing characteristic of these groups
of Christians in the Dark Ages. As their obedience was to God, and
their status that of citizens in His City, their interests were funda-
mentally spiritual, and thus inevitably apart from the prevailing activ-
ities of the times.

They tended more and more to withdraw from the blood-
poisoned currents of their day and generation. Some of these Chris-
tians became hermits, dwelling by themselves in a lonely and in many

456 The Outcomes

ways selfish quest of personal salvation. Other wiser and nobler
spirits established orders of social life, communities of mutual dedica-
tion and endeavor, and set up in forest clearings, or on mountaintops,
monasteries, as they were called, where they might live in peace and
preserve the precious things of life. In these monasteries they took
pledges of pure and simple living, and bound themselves to obedience
to the will of the Most High. Their interests of course were primarily
in ways of spiritual living; and in worship, prayer, and discipline of
hand and heart, they strove to realize among men the life of God.
Along with these central devotions went wholesome labor, that the
communities might have a self-sustaining economy and the intellec-
tual activities which alone availed to preserve such fragments of
classic literature and learning as have survived into our modern
time. In Biblical manuscripts, illuminated texts and priceless copies
of ancient Greek and Latin documents, we see monuments to the
culture and enlightenment which were not allowed to perish in
swirling floods of barbarism. When other men were fighting, and
saying that there was nothing to do but fight, they refused to fight or
even to be interested in fighting. They turned deliberately away from
these outward violences of the secular world to the inward peace of
die devout and loving soul. These Christians not only saved, in a
period of disruption and demoralization, the practice of culture and
religion, but the very knowledge and love of these realities.*

John Haynes Holmes, 1879-. American minister, author.

Out of the Darkness,

Saint Francis of Assisi and "The Third Order"

Thomas of Spalato relates that when he was a student at Bologna,
in the year 1222, he saw St. Francis preaching in the piazza in front
of the Palazzo del Podesta on the text, "Angels, men, and devils."
The whole city had assembled to hear him, and "he treated his theme
so well and so wisely that many learned men who were present stood
filled with admiration when they heard such words from the lips of
an untutored friar. The whole matter of his discourse was directed to
the quenching of hatred, and the establishment of peace. His dress
was mean, his person insignificant (contemptlbilis)^ his face without

Outward Creativity 457

beauty. But with so much power did God inspire his words that
many noble families, sundered by ancient blood feuds, were recon-
ciled for ever." Often whole populations were moved to declare
themselves his disciples and to mediate on some rule of life that
would allow his converts to attain the desire of their hearts without
wholly renouncing their family and secular duties. A certain rich
merchant of Poggibonsi named Lucchesio, and a former acquaintance
of Francis, being converted, had gathered around him a small group
of like-minded penitents who sought to live, so far as they might,
according to the Franciscan idea, being in the world but not of the
world; similar communities were soon formed in other Italian cities,
and lived under a Rule indited or inspired by Francis. Thus was
founded the Order subsequently known as the Third Order, but
which, at its inception, was called the Order of Continents or Peni-
tents. The earliest known foundation was at Faenza in 1221, and the
first extant Rule— a precious find by Sabatier— is dated August 18,
1228. The Penitent vowed to make restitution of all ill-gotten gains,
to become reconciled with his enemies, to live in peace and concord
with all men, to pass his life in prayer and works of charity, to keep
certain fasts and vigils, to pay tithes regularly to the Church, to take
no oath save under exceptional conditions, never to wear arms, to
use no foul language, and to practise piety to the dead.

Saint Francis, 1182-1226. Italian monk, preacher.
Little Flowers of St. Francis, Trans. T. Okcy,

The Third Order as a "Vital Cell"

The formation of the Third Order of Franciscans is one of the
most important events in the spiritual life of the Middle Ages. It was
an attempt to carry the gospel of love and the Franciscan way of life
into the domain of home and everyday life. It was a vital spontaneous
growth rather than a planned event. It grew up to meet the need of
the eager multitude. Whole villages or cities, like that for instance of
Cannara or Poggibons, or even Florence, came thronging round
Francis. It looked for a moment as though the whole world would
become Friars or Sisters of Clara. The very crowd of applicants for
his two Orders threatened to defeat his purpose. The members of

458 The Outcomes

this Third Order were not asked to give up houses or lands or home
or family. They were only asked to penetrate their lives with a pas-
sion for Christ, to live with joy and enthusiasm, and to make life a
radiant affair.

Whoever was free at heart from slavery to things and eager for
love and peace and truth was thereby a candidate for this Order. The
pure in heart, the meek, the humble, the poor in spirit, were in it and
of it. Those who labored and were heavy laden were members of it.
Those who caught Francis' spirit of passionate love and devotion
belonged to it, even before it was technically founded. It was thus a
movement rather than an organization. From the very first and all
through its history it was a vital cell within the larger life of the
Church, an ecclesiola in Ecclesia. It was throughout a nursery of
saints. It brought forth more than eighty canonized or beatified saints,
including St, Louis, King of France, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
Its list of artists and poets is a long one, including Giotto, Raphael,
Murillo, Dante, Petrarch, and Coventry Patmore. Among its mystics
were Angela of Foligno, St. Bridget of Sweden, Raymond Lull,
Vincent de Paul and Francois de Sales. It was always a nursery of
mystics, but the emphasis was on making one's life an organ of love
and service rather than straining after ecstasies.

The greatest explorer of all time, Christopher Columbus, was a
Tertiary and so too was Galileo. The list of martyrs is an extraordi-
nary one, with St. Joan of Arc at the top of the list. This movement
profoundly affected every walk and department of life, but above
everything else, it sanctified the home and it produced lives of beauty
in a dark world. It gave reality — the reality of experience — to religion
and it restored joy and radiance to a world that had largely lost them.

One of the most important aspects of this Third Order was its
attempt to follow Christ as a band of "peace-makers." It brought a
new Truce of God to a world forever at war. Its members were for-
bidden to bear arms in offensive warfare and until the Rule was
altered by Pope Nicholas V they might not bear arms at all. And
they were allowed, in case they were vassals, to refuse military service
to their suzerains. They had caught the spirit which Francis showed
to the Soldan as Housman has put it in his Little Plays. "I would show

Outward Creativity 459

the Christ, Soldan. Or if by that name thou know Him not, then by
His other name, which is Love, wherein also dwell Joy and Peace."

Hardly less important was the cultivation of the group spirit by
this Third Order. It formed a vital movement among artisans and
working men, which developed into one of the powerful forces that
finally led to the disintegration of the feudal system.

There is a charming legend in the Little Flowers which catches
the beauty of this group spirit, and which shows how the invisible
bonds of brotherhood bound together members, separated most
widely by station, into one spirit of fellowship. The story says that
once St. Louis, clad as a poor pilgrim, knocked at the door of a
Franciscan convent, and asked for Brother Giles. A hint from the
keeper of the convent, or, as other accounts say, a Divine revelation,
gave Giles the secret that his visitor was no less a person than the
King of France. Giles ran to meet his guest. They embraced and
knelt together in perfect silence. Then, without having broken the
silence, Louis arose from his knees and went on his journey. When
Giles came back to his cell, all the brothers reproached him for not
having said anything to his royal visitor. With fine simplicity Giles
answered: "I read his heart, and he read mine."

Such then, or something like it, was the Third Order of St.
Francis.*

Rufus M. Jones, 1863-. American philosopher.
Inward Light (Dec. 1941)

The Church of the Spirit

The Church of the spiritual Reformers (sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries) was a Fellowship, a Society, a Family, rather than a mys-
terious and supernatural entity. They felt once again, as powerfully
perhaps as it was possible in their centuries to feel it, the immense
significance of the Pauline conception of the Church as the continued
embodiment and revelation of Christ, the communion of Saints past
and present who live or have lived by the Spirit. Through this
spiritual group, part of whom are visible and part invisible, they held
that the divine revelation is continued and the eternal Word of God
is being uttered to the race. "The true religion of Christ," as one of

460 The Outcomes

these spiritual teachers well puts it, is "written in the soul and spirit
of man by the Spirit of God; and the believer is the only book in
which God now writes His New Testament." This Church of the
Spirit is always being built. Its power is proportional to the spiritual
vitality of the membership, to the measure of apprehension of divine
resources, to the depth of insight and grasp of truth, to the prevalence
of love and brotherhood, to the character of service, which the mem-
bers exhibit. It possesses no other kind of power or authority than
the power and authority of personal lives formed into a community
by living correspondence with God, and acting as human channels
and organs of His Life and Spirit. Such a Church can meet new
formulations of science and history and social ideals with no authori-
tative and conclusive word of God which automatically settles the
issue. Its only weapons are truth and light, and these have to be con-
tinually re-discovered and re-fashioned to fit the facts which the
age has found and verified. Its mission is prophetic. It does not dog-
matically decide what facts must be believed, but it sees and an-
nounces the spiritual significance of the facts that are discovered and
verified. It was, thus, in their thought a growing, changing, ever-
adjusting body — the living body of Christ in the World.

Rufus M. Jones, 1863-. American philosopher and author.
Spiritual Reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries,

The Rebuilding of "Modern" Society

Our social frame, our material and mental background, should
be rebuilt. But society is not plastic. Its form cannot be changed in
an instant. Nevertheless, the enterprise of our restoration must start
immediately, in the present conditions of our existence. Each indi-
vidual has the power to modify his way of life, to create around him
an environment slightly different from that of the unthinking crowd.
He is capable of isolating himself in some measure, of imposing upon
himself certain physiological and mental disciplines, certain work,
certain habits, of acquiring the mastery of his body and mind. But if
he stands alone, he cannot indefinitely resist his material, mental, and
economic environment. In order to combat this environment vic-
toriously, he must associate with others having the same purpose.

Outward Creativity 461

Revolutions often start with small groups in which the new tenden-
cies ferment and grow.

The dissenting groups would not need to be very numerous to
bring about profound changes in modern society. It is a well-estab-
lished fact that discipline gives great strength to men. An ascetic and
mystic minority would rapidly acquire an irresistible power over the
dissolute and degraded majority. None of the dogmas of modern
society are immutable. Gigantic factories, office buildings rising to the
sky, inhuman cities, industrial morals, faith in mass production, are
not indispensable to civilization. Other modes of existence and of
thought are possible. Culture without comfort, beauty without
luxury, machines without enslaving factories, science without the
worship of matter, would restore to man his intelligence, his moral
sense, his virility, and lead him to the summit of his development.*

Alexis Carrel, 1873-1944. French surgeon, biologist.
Man the Unknown.

Present Requirements of the "Beloved Community"

If evolution is to continue (for it cannot continue now unless we
consciously co-operate with this, its next step, the evolution of con-
sciousness), men who are forwarding that evolution must make for
themselves not merely personal and private ways of life but also a
new social pattern of living which permits and expresses their new
type of consciousness. They must create a manifest social pattern of
avowed intentional living in which the higher type of consciousness
can function. They must form a community which has the three func-
tions which make a society an organism capable of creative growth
—an effective psychiatry for uniting and expanding the individual,
an appropriate economy for sustaining and forwarding the like-
minded group, and an original policy— a message and a demonstra-
tion to the world that there is a way out of its tangle and a way ahead
for life, if people choose to take it and pay the price. . . .

To most people, unaware of modem technical progress, the
thought of a community which has predominantly psychological
aims, raises in the mind the picture of a society painfully inadequate
to supply sufficient resources to permit sufficient time for psycho-

462 The Outcomes

logical advance. ... A relapse into toil-dulled peasanthood is, how-
ever, no longer necessary. Man need not choose between being a
social parasite and an agricultural drudge. If it is necessary for
psychological advance, if it is required for further evolution that we
make a directly productive society, a self-subsisting community, then
it is not economics which any longer questions the feasibility of such
a plan. . . .d

What then prevents intelligent people availing themselves of this
way of deliverance ? Nothing but the fact that society is, and must
always be, based on psychology and have as its consequence and
symptom of that psychology, an appropriate economics. We have
tried to maintain that this is not so, that in fact the reverse is true,
that economics is basic, and psychology the resultant. In actual fact
what we have is nothing of the sort. We simply endure a diseased
economics inevitably springing from an evil psychology. . . .

Only those who have discovered the path of evolution, what is its
next step and how we are to co-operate with that development, can
know themselves as part of a self-transcending purpose. Only such
as have this experience will possess the mutual social sanction which
will hold a community together in an organic relationship. Such
people and such only will have and cannot fail to have a sane eco-
nomics, the sane economics which will give them the physical inde-
pendence required in order that they may be free to advance to
further consciousness.

The level of economic requirement, the standard of life, is then
settled by the stage of psychological advance. The two must emerge
together and balance. . . .*

Gerald Heard, 1889-. English author, religious philosopher.

Pain, Sex and Time,

Slowly, through all the universe, that temple of God is being built
wherever, in any world, a soul, by free-willed obedience, catches the
fire of God's likeness. When, in your hard fight, in your tiresome

9 "Such authorities as Borsodi (School of Living, Sutfern, New York) have shown
that with the rise of the small power plants a community can become self-sufficing — and
under a decentralized plan can thus actually live more plentifully than under the present
economic system." See Mr. Heard's text, pages 219-223.

Outward Creativity 463

drudgery, or in your terrible temptation, you catch the purpose of
your being, and give yourself to God, and so give him the chance to
give himself to you, your life, a living stone, is taken up and set into
the growing wall. . . . Wherever souls are being tried and ripened,
in whatever commonplace and homely ways, there God is hewing out
the pillars for his temple,*

Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893, American clergyman.

Unto what is the kingdom of God like? And whereunto shall I
liken it? It is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in
three measures of meal, till it was all leavened. It is like a grain of
mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be
less than all the seeds that are upon the earth, yet when it is sown,
groweth up, and becometh greater than all the herbs, and putteth
out great branches; so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under
the shadow thereof.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in
the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and
selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear.

And take heed how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be
given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even
that which he thinketh he hath.**

Jesus of Nazareth.

APPENDIX

The Object of Devotion

Men must be ruled by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.

WILLIAM PENIST

I am in every religion as a thread through a string of pearls.

THE BHAGAVAD GITA

And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for
me with all your heart.

JEREMIAH

APPENDIX

Ihe Object of Devotion

While no uniform concept of the Object of Devotion is requisite to
progression on the Way, a conviction of the fact of an ultimate reality
obviously is necessary. Insofar as concepts contribute to that conviction, they
are important. They can furnish the toehold needed to start the process
of clarification. It is not as important what the beginning idea of God is,
as that it is, and that it develops sufficiently to awaken the degree of
devotion necessary to penetrate those levels of consciousness wherein lie
the major obstacles to the perception and experience of Reality.

We have seen that there are several fields of knowledge x which provide
evidence pointing toward the existence of a transcendent, immanent
Reality. An approach to a conviction concerning this Reality can be made
through the postulates of reason, the processes of history, the implica-
tions of science, the mystical insight into nature and art, or through actual
personal manifestations of God in history. The material assembled in this
appendix gives only the barest hint of what some men have glimpsed by
means of these various approaches. Obviously each selection presents only
a small portion of the author's full insight. Limitation of space prevents a
more complete presentation of each. It is hoped that the selections will serve
to illustrate the range in starting points toward a conviction of the Reality
of God. The reader is urged to follow up whichever approaches seem real
to him through supplementary reading.

For some readers these statements on the Object of Devotion may seem
meaningless. Others may find them confusing. Such reactions need not
bar the sincere aspirant from the Way, for as Henry Nelson Wieman
writes, "People who live this Way have very diverse ideas of God, and
some seem to have scarcely any idea of God at all" Those who are con-
ditioned against all ideas of God as such should concentrate on whatever
seems worthful to them, whether it be "Truth," "Love," "Simplicity,"

1 See General Introduction.

467

468 Appendix

"Integrity/' or any attribute that speaks to them of permanency and value.
Such value can provide the opening wedge to devotion.

There were four major advices discovered in our research concerning
the Object of Devotion, (i) That no idea, nor yet all ideas of God, can
approximate the actual Reality which men seek— that ideas are mere
fragments of a Whole, mere clues to the infinite nature of the Good. That
in this area more than in any other the words used to express ideas should
be considered as symbols only and kept distinct from the actual Reality
which they attempt to describe. (2) That no idea should be held or clung
to as final, but rather that one should be ready to have his particular idea
of God "smashed to bits ... in order to, in an instant, find God ... for
God is the destroyer of gods." (3) That some ideas, particularly of
anthropomorphic implication, block expanding cosmology and thus
handicap a growing perception of God. (4) That those who progress
beyond conviction through purgation to real Illumination and beyond,
dismiss all ideas of God as such, for their experience transcends any
rational concept. As Meister Eckhart preached: "To tell the truth, the
intellect is no more content with (the idea of) God than it would be with
a stone or a tree. It can never rest until it gets to the core of the matter,
crashing through to that which is beyond the idea of God and truth, until
it reaches the in principle*, the beginning of beginnings, the origin or
source of all goodness and truth." And as a modern philosopher expresses
it: "No matter how true an idea of God religion may hand on, the true
idea may constitute a wall which keeps God out, if it is adopted as an
idea simply — that is to say, as a repetition of other men's insights, as a
universal idea. God, who is truly said to explain man to himself, must
explain me to myself. What I require to find in a god is that 'This is
what I have wanted; this is what I have been meaning all the time; the
world as I now see it is a world in which I as a primitive, various,
infinitely discontented will, can completely live and breathe,' This is what
the mystic is trying to make plain — that the idea, as a universal, is not
sufficient for any man to live by.

"Hence the chief burden of his revelation (as if of the idea's own
never-resting conscience) is that religion must exist as experience and not
as idea only. There is nothing in sensation which physical science cannot
exhaust, except the experience of having sensations: in the same way,
there is nothing in the mystic experience not expressible in idea, except the
experiencing itself. This is the chief part of the mystic knowledge which
cannot be otherwise known, namely that the mystic experience is possible.

The Object of Devotion 469

Monotonously and age after age, men rediscover and reannounce this
invariant truth, as if they were calling on men to exist, to live, to save their
souls. And what is it to save one's soul, if not to be original in this sense
(and in what follows from it) ? From this point of view the reiteration of
the mystic is justified."2

All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
And those who find would bind Thee
To gesture and to form.

But I would comprehend Thee
As the wide Earth enfolds Thee.
Thou growest with my maturity,
Thou art in calm and storm.

I ask of Thee no vanity

To evidence and prove Thee.

Thou wert in aeons old.

Perform no miracles for me,
But justify Thy laws to me —
Which, as the years pass by me,
All soundlessly unfold.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875—1926. German poet.
The Book of Hours, Trans. JeSvSie Lemont.

SOME MODERN IDEAS OF GOD

God as the Completed Ideal Harmony

The order of the world is no accident. There is nothing actual
which could be actual without some measure of order. The religious
insight is the grasp of this truth: that the order of the world, the depth
of reality of the world, the value of the world in its whole and in its
parts, the beauty of the world, the zest of life, the peace of life, and
the mastery of evil, are all 'bound together — not accidentally, but by

a The Meaning of God in Human Experience — pp. 450-51, by William Ernest Hocking.

470 Appendix

reason of this truth: that the universe exhibits a creativity with infi-
nite freedom, and a realm of forms with infinite possibilities; but that
this creativity and these forms are together impotent to achieve actu-
ality apart from the completed ideal harmony, which is God. . . .

The limitation of God is his goodness. He gains his depth of
actuality by his harmony of valuation. It is not true that God is in all
respects infinite. If He were, He would be evil as well as good. Also
this unlimited fusion of evil with good would mean mere nothing-
ness. He is something decided and is thereby limited.

He is complete in the sense that his vision determines every pos-
sibility of value. Such a complete vision coordinates and adjusts every
detail. Thus his knowledge of the relationships of particular modes of
value is not added to, or disturbed, by the realization in the actual
world of what is already conceptually realized in his ideal world.
This ideal world of conceptual harmonization is merely a description
of God himself. Thus the nature of God is the complete conceptual
realization of the realm of ideal forms. . . . God is the one system-
atic, complete fact, which is the antecedent ground conditioning every
creative act.

The depths of his existence lie beyond the vulgarities of praise or
of power. He gives to suffering its swift insight Into values which can
issue from it. He is the ideal companion who transmutes what has been
lost into a living fact within his own nature. He is the mirror which
discloses to every creature its own greatness.

The kingdom of heaven is not the isolation of good from evil. It
is the overcoming of evil by good. This transmutation of evil into
good enters into the actual world by reason of the inclusion of the
nature of God, which includes the ideal vision of each actual evil so
met with a novel consequent as to issue in the restoration of good-
ness.

God has in his nature the knowledge of evil, of pain, and of
degradation, but it is there as overcome with what is good. , . .
Every event on its finer side introduces God into the world. Through
it his ideal vision is given a base of actual fact to which He provides
the ideal consequent, as a factor saving the world from self-destruc-

The Object of Devotion 471

tion of evil. The power by which God sustains the world is the power
of himself as die ideal. He adds himself to the actual ground from
which every creative act takes its rise. The world lives by its incarna-
tion of God in itself.

God is that function in the world by reason of which our purposes
are directed to ends which in our own consciousness are impartial as
to our own interests. He is that element in life in virtue of which
judgment stretches beyond facts of existence to values of existence.
He is that element in virtue of which our purposes extend beyond
values for ourselves to values for others. He is that element in virtue
of which the attainment of such a value for others transforms itself
into value for ourselves.

He is the binding element in the world. The consciousness which
is individual in us? is universal in him; the love which is partial in
us is all-embracing in him. Apart from him there could be no world,
because there could be no adjustment of individuality. His purpose in
the world is quality of attainment. His purpose is always embodied
in the particular ideals relevant to the actual state of the world. Thus
all attainment is immortal in that it fashions the actual ideals which
arc God in the world as it is now. Every act leaves the world with a
deeper or a fainter impress of God. He then passes into his next rela-
tion to the world with enlarged, or diminished, presentation of ideal
values,

He is not the world, but the valuation of the world. In abstraction
from the course of events, this valuation is a necessary metaphysical
function. Apart from it, there could be no definite determination of
limitation required for attainment. But in the actual world, He con-
fronts what is actual in it with what is possible for it. Thus He solves
all indeterminations.

The passage of time is the journey of the world towards the
gathering of new ideas into actual fact. This adventure is upwards
and downwards. Whatever ceases to ascend, fails to preserve itself
and enters upon its inevitable path of decay.*

Alfred North Whitehcad, 1861-1947. English philosopher, mathematician.

Religion in the Making

472 Appendix

God as Benevolent Power

I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever-
changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that change a Living
Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dis-
solves, and re-creates. That informing Power or Spirit is God; and
since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will
persist, He alone is.

And is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely
benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of death, life persists; in
the midst of untruth, truth persists; in the midst of darkness, light
persists. Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love.
He is the supreme Good.

But He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect, if He ever
does. God, to be God, must rule the heart and transform it He
must express Himself in every smallest act of His votary. This can
only be done through a definite realization more real than the five
senses can ever produce. Sense perceptions can be, and often are, false
and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is
realization outside the senses it is infallible. It is proved, not by ex-
traneous evidence, but in the transformed conduct and character of
those who have felt the real presence of God within.

Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken
line of prophets and sages in all countries and climes. To reject this
evidence is to deny oneself.

This realization is preceded by an immovable faith. He who would
in his own person test the fact of God's presence can do so by a liv-
ing faith. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear
determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to Truth and
Love." *

Mahatma K. Gandhi, 1869-1948. Hindu mystic, statesman.
Quoted in Gandhi's Ideas by C. F. Andrews,

God as Revealed in the Fundamental Contradictions within Science
Any effort to visualize God reveals a surprising childishness. We
can no more conceive Him than we can conceive an electron. We
forget that this incapacity is not, in itself, a proof of non-existence.

The Object of Devotion 473

We arc in the habit of juggling nowadays with electrons, protons,
neutrons, etc. Individually, they are rigorously inconceivable and
physicists, who inspire as much confidence today as did the priests in
the past, affirm that without these particles our material objects, the
forces we employ — in other words, our whole inorganic universe-
become incoherent and unintelligible. (Let us not forget that these
particles move in a world where time and space do not have the same
value as in ours.) Nobody questions the reality of these now familiar
though elusive and strange elements.

The agnostic and the atheist do not seem to be in the least dis-
turbed by the fact that our entire organized, living universe becomes
incomprehensible without the hypothesis of God. Their belief in
some physical elements, of which they know very little, has all the
earmarks of an irrational faith, but they are not aware of it. Some of
them have remained slaves to a naive verbalism. I had the proof of
this in a letter received after the publication of one of my books and
in which the writer bitterly reproached me for having substituted the
word "God" for the word "anti-chance." Now, the word "anti-
chance" cannot be entirely satisfactory to a cultivated, scientific mind,
for it simply signifies that the whole intellectual pattern which we
call our science is basically wrong and, at best, but a set of artificial
rules which, by a lucky chance, enables us to foresee a certain number
of events. Indeed, as we have seen, modern science rests ultimately
on statistical concepts and the calculus of probabilities. These laws
postulate the completely disordered distribution of the constitutive
elements of our universe. If we admit the possibility of an anti-chance
in a part of this universe (the living world which has led to thought),
the whole edifice crumbles unless we concede that Life obeys differ-
ent laws. In either case, this is tantamount to accepting an irrational
influence, foreign to our physical universe, as the determining factor
in living and evolutive phenomena.

It matters little what name we give this influence. Today the
study of life and evolution forces us to recognize that its action is
logically required and has apparently always manifested itself in a
"forbidden," ascensional direction finally to end in the thought and
conscience of man. We, therefore, see no reason for not giving this

474 Appendix

cause, which perturbs our intellectual pastimes and our ideas, the
name men have given since time immemorial to all the causes which
escaped them, causes exacted, but not explained, by our intelligence.

The idea of God is a pure idea, like the idea of force, or of energy,
and does not need to be visualized ; nor can it be. It develops either
spontaneously through intuition, unworded and irrational, and is
then called revelation; or else it emerges rationally from the contra-
dictions observed between the homogeneous but tentative pattern
proposed by science and objective reality which made the construc-
tion of this scheme possible. We have tried to emphasize these con-
tradictions in the preceding chapters.

Should we keep our blind confidence in human reason and intel-
ligence, we will attribute these contradictions to our momentary
ignorance and will say: "In a near or distant future, new facts or new
interpretations will enable us to shed light on these obscurities, due to
our imperfect knowledge of reality. Science is One and there can be
no real which escapes it." But in so doing we cease to think rationally,
scientifically. We simply express a hope based on a sentimental trust
in science. What is more, we completely lose sight of the fact that
when these contradictions deal, as in our example, not with details,
but with a set of fundamental concepts, which constitute the foun-
dations of our science, we have actually shaken the whole scientific
edifice in the name of which we have condemned Faith, and have
been driven, by an equally irrational faith in an unaccountable
abstractive intelligence, to demonstrate its failure.

It is natural and logical that the idea of God should emerge for
those who, according to the language of the Church, have not been
touched by grace, not only from such logical conflicts, but also from
the following contradiction: we observe the existence of an immense
number of facts, which for more than a thousand million years have
tended to assure the persistence of species, and all of a sudden we are
confronted with tendencies leading exactly in the opposite direction.
"So far, thou wast only concerned with living and procreating; thou
couldst kill, steal food or mates, and go to sleep peacefully after hav-
ing obeyed all the instincts put in thee to assure a numerous descend-
ance. From this day on, thou shalt combat these instincts, thou shalt

The Object of Devotion 475

not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt only
sleep peacefully if thou hast mastered thyself. Thou shalt be ready to
suffer and to give thy life, which yesterday thou wast forced to defend
at any price, if thou art but asked to believe no longer that the ideal
thou hast chosen is the only true one. To live, eat, fight, and pro-
create are no longer thy principal aims. Death, hunger, slavery, and
chastity endured for a high ideal are nobler ends. And thou must be
noble. It is the will of the new being who has risen in thee and whom
thou must accept as master even though he curbs thy desires."

Alas, this new being does not yet inhabit all hearts, or if it does,
its voice is still very feeble. It cannot grow unless it is clearly perceived
and freely desired. It cannot blossom without effort.*-**

Lecomte du Noiiy, 1883-1947. French bio-physicist.

Human Destiny.

Fundamental Component of Belief in God

Perhaps the fundamental component of a belief in God is the
expression in action of an attitude of faith or trust. Its opposite is an
attitude of fear. A man who is on the defensive in his attitude to life
does not believe in God, whatever his professions may be. Belief in
God necessarily delivers a man from fear and from self-centeredness,
because it is his consciousness that he is not responsible for himself
nor for the world in which he lives. It involves the recognition that
his own life is a small, yet an essential part of the history of mankind,
and that the life of mankind is a small but essential part of the uni-
verse to which it belongs. It involves the recognition that the control
and the determination of all that happens in the world lies in the
hands of a power that is irresistible and yet friendly. It is more than
the recognition of this; it is the capacity to live as if this were so. It
is the habit of living in the light of this faith. This is not all that is con-
tained in the belief in God, but it is a fundamental and necessary
element in it. Anyone who does behave in this way believes in God at
least so far, whatever he himself may say about it. The opposite atti-
tude, which is the core of real atheism, expresses itself in that individ-
ualism which makes a man feel alone and isolated in a world against
which he must defend himself. Such a man may often be over-
whelmed with a sense of his individual responsibility. He feels that

476 Appendix ' '

what happens to him depends upon himself. If he is responsible in a
smaller or a greater degree for other people he feels that what happens
to them depends upon himself. Consequently all that happens beyond
his own control in the world appears as a series of fortunate or unfor-
tunate accidents to which he must perpetually adjust himself. This is
to disbelieve in God. For belief in God, whatever else it may involve,
at least includes the capacity to live as part of the whole of things in a
world which is unified. If we believe in God we live as if the fortunes
of the world did not depend on us; we live as if the world could be
trusted to work out its own destiny and to use us, even through our
mistakes and our failures, for its own good purposes.

John MacMurray, 1891-. English Professor of Philosophy.

Creative Society,

God as Known by "Effects"

The further limits of out being plunge, it seems to me, into an alto-
gether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely
"understandable" world. Name it the mystical region, or super-
natural region, as you choose. So far as our ideal impulses originate
in this region (and most of them originate in it) we belong to it in a
more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world,
for we belong in the most intimate sense wherever our ideals belong.
Yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal for it produces
effects in this world. When we commune with it, work is actually
done upon our finite personality, for we are turned into new men,
and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world
upon our regenerative change. But that which produces effects within
another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had
no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal.

God is the natural appellation, for us Christians at least, for the
supreme reality, so I will call this higher part of the universe by the
name of God. We and God have business with each other; and in
opening ourselves to his influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
The universe, at those parts of it which our personal being consti-
tutes, takes a turn genuinely for the worse or for the better in pro-
portion as each one of us fulfills or evades God's demands. As far as
this goes I probably have you with me, for I translate into schematic

The Object of Devotion 477

language what I may call the instinctive belief of mankind; God is
real since he produces real effects.

William James, 1842-1910. American philosopher.
Varieties of Religious Experience.

God as in the Present Moment

Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind
the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity
there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and
places and occasions are now and here. God Himself culminates in
the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of
all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime
and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the
reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently
answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track
is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet
or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design.

Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862. American philosopher.

Walden.

God as the Spirit in Which Truth Has Its Shrine

We recognise that the type of knowledge after which physics is
striving is much too narrow and specialised to constitute a complete
understanding of the environment of the human spirit. A great
many aspects of our ordinary life and activity take us outside the
outlook of physics. For the most part no controversy arises as to the
admissibility and importance of these aspects; we take their validity
for granted and adapt our life to them without any deep self-ques-
tioning. It is therefore somewhat of an anomaly that among the
many extra-physical aspects of experience religion alone should be
singled out as specially in need of reconciliation with the knowledge
contained in science. Why should anyone suppose that all that mat-
ters to human nature can be assessed with a measuring rod or ex-
pressed in terms of the intersections of world-lines? If defence is
needed, the defence of a religious outlook must, I think, take the
same form as the defence of an aesthetic outlook. The sanction seems
to lie in an inner feeling of growth or achievement found in the

478 Appendix

exercise of the aesthetic faculty and equally in the exercise of the
religious faculty. It is akin to the inner feeling of the scientist which
persuades him that through the exercise of another faculty of the
mind, namely its reasoning power, we reach something after which
the human spirit is bound to strive.

It is by looking into our own nature that we first discover the
failure of the physical universe to be co-extensive with our experience
of reality. The "something to which truth matters" must surely have
a place in reality whatever definition of reality we may adopt. In our
own nature, or through the contact of our consciousness with a
nature transcending ours, there are other things that claim the same
kind of recognition — a sense of beauty, of morality, and finally at
the root of all spiritual religion an experience which we describe as
the presence of God. In suggesting that these things constitute a
spiritual world I am not trying to substantialise them or objectivise
them— to make them out other than we find them to be in our
experience of them. But I would say that when from the human
heart, perplexed with the mystery of existence, the cry goes up,
"What is it all about?" it is no true answer to look only at that part
of experience which comes to us through certain sensory organs and
reply: "It is about atoms and chaos; it is about a universe of fiery
globes rolling on to impending doom; it is about tensors and non-
commutative algebra." Rather it is about a spirit in which truth has
its shrine, with potentialities of self-fulfilment in its response to
beauty and right. Shall I not also add that even as light and colour
and sound come into our minds at the prompting of a world beyond,
so these other stirrings of consciousness come from something which,
whether we describe it as beyond or deep within ourselves, is greater
than our own personality?

Sir Arthur Eddington, 1882-1944. English physicist, astronomer.

New 'Pathways in Science.

God as Pervading All Reality

If God pervades all reality, He must pervade material reality. If
God is not in the material world, He is unreal or half-real Tradi-
tional theology is confused and confusing on this point. On the one
hand, it assures us that God made the heavens and the earth. On the

The Object of Devotion 479

other hand, it defines God as a purely spiritual being, and thus
politely banishes Him from the world that He has made. Thus many
Christians are atheists in their conception of the material world
and in their dealings with it.

Consider that all-important basis of our common life today: the
Machine. Our own period of world-history began with the Industrial
Revolution; any social revolutions, past or pending, would be un-
thinkable in this period without that mechanical revolution which
increased man's power over nature a hundredfold or more. What is
the religious meaning of the machine? Many Christians distrust
it on principle. They look upon it as inhuman, unnatural, not to say
diabolical, and godless. It figures in many sermons as a Franken-
stein's monster that enslaves man. This is not only atheism, but
nonsense as well. Only man can enslave man. Man can be enslaved
through the machine (as he can also be liberated through the
machine) ; never by the machine.

But there is nothing inhuman or unhuman about the machine.
Only man can make it. A machine is as distinctively and brilliantly
and expressively human as a violin sonata or a theorem in Euclid.
It is not just a bit of matter. It is matter transformed in the likeness
of a human thought. Indeed it is a human thought, projected from
men's brain in the external world, given body, so it can carry on an
independent existence. And it is not only man who expresses himself
through the machine. It is God. For with the one exception of
speech, the machine is the greatest instrument of human interde-
pendence yet discovered. If God be "the power that makes us one,"
the order of reality that forces us out of exclusive isolation into
creative unity with one another, then the machine is surely a divine
agency.

One cannot overestimate the importance of this point. For it
means that the command to love is written in the material structure
of our everyday life. Mutuality is not just a shiny ideal that catches
the eye of a few idealists. It is the demand of the historic process. It
is not merely a moral obligation, which can be set aside because of
more urgent practical necessities. It is the most urgently practical
need of our life. It is a moral obligation precisely because it is also a

480 Appendix

material necessity. For it is obvious that the machine is not a tool for
individual production but for co-operative production; that it is
essentially a public utility. It is created by co-operative scientific
thinking. It can function only by linking together immense numbers
of men as workers, managers, consumers. Take this public utility
and make it the property of one man? or a few men, who will use
it for their private profit, and what happens ? You are trying, once
again, to do the impossible. You try to turn an agency of co-opera-
tion into an agency of individual profit. You will not work it accord-
ing to its own nature. So it will not work at all. And so you get
closed factories, unemployed millions, and people suffering and
dying for lack of those very things that men and factories could
produce for the use of all, but cannot produce for the profit of a few.
And common folk look at it all, and shake their heads, and say, "It is
madness." That is just what it is. But the madness is not in the
machine. The machine is one of the most compellingly rational of
human discoveries. The madness is in those who would use a
rational thing to further the irrational ends of exploitation and
domination. It is the madness of trying to use an instrument of God
for the purposes of the devil.

And what will God do? What can He do ? He cannot change His
nature to make up for our stupidity, and make unworkable things
workable for our sake. The prophets discovered this long ago. They
found that, if men will not know willingly the God of love, they will
know unwillingly the God of wrath. There are not two gods. The
God of wrath is the God of love vindicating Himself in the death
of those who will not live in love. It is the laws of health that
destroy those who disobey them. There are no laws of disease other
than the laws of health. It is the laws of logic that condemn those
who ignore them to nonsense and self-contradiction. The identical
forms that show up the crookedness of illogical thinking prove the
straightness of logical thinking. It is God, not the devil, who rules
the world through the terror and desolation of unemployment and
concentration - camps and pogroms and air-raids, in Germany, in
Spain, in China, in Poland. The initiative lies with God, and the
judgment lies with God. The power of love perennially present in

The Object of Devotion 481

the structure of human life, now more urgent than ever in the
co-operative nature of the machine, is the power of God. It is press-
ing down upon human divisiveness and pride, crushing us in so far
as we will not obey, destroying the old order that will not yield
to the new.*

Gregory Vlastos, 1909-. Canadian Professor of Philosophy.
Christian Faifh and Democracy

God as Other Mind — as Eternal Substance

I shall always be more certain that God is, than what he is: it is
the age-long problem of religion to bring to light the deeper char-
acteristics of this fundamental experience. But the starting point of
this development is no mere That Which, without predicates. Sub-
stance is known as Subject: reality from the beginning is known as
God. The idea of God is not an attribute which in the course of ex-
perience I come to attach to my original whole-idea: the unity of my
world which makes it from the beginning a whole, knowable in
simplicity, is the unity of other Selfhood.

God then is immediately known, and permanently known, as the
Other Mind which in creating Nature is also creating me. Of this
knowledge nothing can despoil us; this knowledge has never been
wanting to the self-knowing mind of man.

We may find our thought of God following in arrear of the best
conception we have of ourselves; but it is only because we know that
whatever selfhood we have is an involution of the selfhood of the
Whole, and that our external relations to our fellows do but follow
and reproduce in their own more distant fashion the relation of
God to us which from his view is internal Hence the remark that
"Man is never long content to worship gods of moral character
greatly inferior to his own" may be accepted, with its sting drawn,
because of what we know of our relation to die Whole of which we
are natural parts.

The conception of God as Law has its right in destroying the
poverty of my thought of personality. I confess that this word "per-
son" has for me a harsh and rigid sound, smacking of the Roman

482 Appendix

Code. I do not love the word personality. I want whatever is acci-
dental and arbitrary and atomic and limited and case-hardened
about that conception to be persistently beaten and broken by what-
ever of God I can see in the living law and order of this Universe
until it also has all such totality and warmth.

But I see that personality is a stronger idea than law ; and has promise
of mutuality and intercourse that laws, even if living, cannot afford.
I see further that personality can include law, as law cannot include
personality. And I see, finally, that this deepening conception of
personality is not more an ideal than an experience. For God is not
falsely judged in experience to be both one and the other. The nega-
tion of any one such attribute by the other is only for the enlarge-
ment of the first, not for its destruction. Until I can perfectly con-
ceive personality, God must be for me alternately person and law;
with the knowledge that these two attributes of one being are not, in
truth, inconsistent, and that their mode of union is also something
that I shall verify in some moment of present knowledge, as by
anticipation of an ultimate attainment. Not only is God to be found
in experience, but whatever attributes are genuinely predicated of
him are to be found there also.

God is the Eternal Substance, and is known as such; God is also
the Eternal Order of things: but God is That Which does whatever
Substance is found to do. If it is the knowledge of God that first
gives us our human comradeship and its varied and satisfying respon-
siveness, the God who is the bearer of that responsiveness is not
himself without response. These comrades are in a measure God's
organs of response, even as Nature is God's announcement of his
presence and individuality: but God has also a responsiveness of his
own, and herein lies the immediate experience of the personality of
God. The relations between man and God have, in the course of reli-
gious history, become more deeply personal and passionate, with the
deepening sense of evil and spiritual distress. The soul finds at length
its divine companion. But as religion enters into these deeper and
more fertile strata of the knowledge of God, it becomes evident that
the development of religion falls increasingly upon the shoulders
of individual men, whose experience of God and its cognitive con-

The Object of Devotion 483

tent becomes authoritative for others. We find that religion becomes
universal at the same time that it becomes most peculiarly personal,
and takes its impetus and name from individual founders and
prophets. Buddhism and Christianity and Islam are religions of
redemption and of universal propagandism; and it is they, chiefly,
that willingly refer their character and revelation of God to one

person.*

William Ernest Hocking, 1873-. American philosopher.
Meaning of God in Human Experience,

God as Immanent and Transcendent

It is foolish to seek for God outside of oneself. This will result
either in idolatry or in scepticism. To seek God within oneself is
better, but there is danger lest this will result in egomania, in becom-
ing an opponent of order or a nihilist.

Therefore, he who truly seeks God should discover the unchange-
able laws which operate outside of himself and recognize within
himself a profound and mysterious purpose. Through being cog-
nizant of a power which pervades both within and without, cog-
nizant also of a world of growth which is common to both, recogniz-
ing, moreover, the immutability of the moral order and recognizing
the fact that God as life fills both the inner and the outer, that He
is the creator of absolute values, the preserver and unfolder of all
things— thus and thus only will one be able to cease going astray.

Kagawa, 1888-. Japanese social reformer, Christian evangelist.
As quoted in Kagawa by William Axling.

God as the "Self"— the Central Point of Personality

In the evolution of the personality, the aim is the attainment of
the central point of the personality. It may perhaps be not immedi-
ately intelligible as to what is meant by the concept of the "central
point of the personality." I will therefore try to sketch this problem
in a few words. If consciousness with the ego as the centre is thought
of as being placed opposite the unconscious, and if now the process
of assimilating the unconscious be added to the mental picture, this
assimilation can be thought of as a sort of approximation of the
conscious and the unconscious whereby the centre of the total per-

484 l Appendix

sonality no longer coincides with the ego, but with a point midway
between the conscious and the unconscious. This would be the point
of new equilibrium, a new centering of the total personality, a
virtual centre perhaps which, on account of its central position be-
tween the conscious and the unconscious, ensures the personality
a new and more solid foundation. I freely admit that visualizations
of this kind are never more than the awkward attempts of a fum-
bling mind to give some kind of form to inexpressible, and well-
nigh indescribable, psychological facts. I could even express the same
thing in the words of Paul: "Not I who live, but Christ who livcth
in me." Or I might invoke Laotzu and appropriate his concept of
Tao; the Middle Way and the creative centre of all things. Behind
all these sayings the same meaning lies. Speaking now as a psycholo-
gist with a scientific conscience I have to declare that these facts are
psychic factors of indisputable effect. They are not the discoveries of
an idle mind, but definite psychic events. They obey absolutely
definite laws, and have their own law-determined causes and effects,
which accounts for the fact that they can be demonstrated just as
well among the most varied peoples and races living to-day as among
those of thousands of years ago. As to what these processes consist in
I have no theory to offer. One would first have to know what the
psyche is. I am content merely to state the facts.

The dissolution of the mana* personality naturally leads us,
through the assimilation of its contents, back to ourselves as an exist-
ing, living something, stretched as it were between two worlds of
images, from which forces proceed that are only dimly discerned
but are all the more clearly felt. This something, though strange to
us, is yet so near; it is altogether ourselves, and yet unrecognizable,
a virtual middle-point of such a mysterious constitution that it can
demand anything, relationship with animals and with gods, with
crystals and with stars, without causing us to wonder, without even
exciting our disapproval. This something demands all that and more,
and therefore, with nothing in our hands which could fairly be op-
posed to these claims, it is surely wiser to listen to this voice,

3 The power from the collective unconscious which emerges during the process of
individuation and which must be assimilated. (Editors)

The Object of Devotion 485

I have called this middle-point the self. Intellectually the self is
nothing but a psychological concept, a construction that serves to
express an undiscernible essence, and which in itself we cannot grasp,
since, as its definition implies, it transcends our powers of compre-
hension. It might just as well be called "the God in us." 4 The begin-
nings of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricably rooted in this
point, and all our highest and deepest purposes seem to be striving
towards it. This paradox is unavoidable, for we always come to it
when we try to describe something which lies beyond our power
of comprehension.

The self has as much to do with the ego, as the sun with the earth.
They are not interchangeable factors. This idea is as little concerned
with the deification of man, as with the dethronement of God. What
lies beyond our human understanding is out of our reach. If, there-
fore, we use the concept of a god, we are using it to formulate a
definite psychological fact, namely, the independence and superiority
of certain psychic contents which become manifest in their capacity
to thwart the will, to obsess consciousness, and to influence moods
and actions.*

Carl G. Jung, M.D., 1875-. Swiss psychotherapist.
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Trans. H, G. and 0. F. Baynes.

God as a Paradox

Although the concept of God is a spiritual principle par excel-
lence, none the less the collective need will have it that it is at
the same time an intuition of the first creative cause, out of which
proceed all the forces of instinct that resist the spiritual principle.
Thus God would be not only the spiritual light, appearing as the
latest flower on the tree of evolution, not only the spiritual goal of
redemption in which all creation culminates, not only the end and
the purpose, but also the darkest, most primordial cause of nature's
black deeps. This is a tremendous paradox which manifestly

4 The reader is referred to Dr. Jung's selections on page 32 of this anthology. The
reader is also referred to Dr. Jung's original text for a more complete expression of his con-
cept of God, Also see Psychology and Alchemy soon to fee published in English by Kcgan,
Pa ul » Trench, Trubner and Company, London.

486 Appendix

corresponds to a profound psychological truth. For it asserts an
essential contradictoriness in one and the same being, a being whose
innermost nature consists in the tension between opposites. Science
calls this "being" energy, since energy is that something which is like
a moving balance between the opposites. For this reason, an intuition
o£ God, in itself impossibly paradoxical, may be so satisfying to
human needs that no logic, however apparently valid, can stand
against it. As a matter of fact, even the most profound contemplation
could scarcely have discovered a more appropriate formula for this
fundamental fact of inner perception.

Carl G. Jung, 1875-. Contemporary Swiss psychotherapist.
Contributions to Analytical Psychology,

God as Mystery and Meaning

A genuine Christian faith must move between those who claim
to know so much about the natural world that it ceases to point to
any mystery beyond itself, and those who claim to know so much
about the mystery of the "unseen" world that all reverence for its
secret and hidden character is dissipated. A genuine faith must
recognize the fact that it is through a dark glass that we see; though
by faith we do penetrate sufficiently to the heart of the mystery not
to be overwhelmed by it. A genuine faith resolves the mystery of
life by the mystery of God. It recognizes that no aspect of life or
existence explains itself, even after all known causes and conse-
quences have been traced. All known existence points beyond itself.
To realize that it points beyond itself to God is to assert that the
mystery of life does not dissolve life into meaninglessness. Faith in
God is faith in some ultimate unity of life, in some final comprehen-
sive purpose which holds all the various, and frequently contradic-
tory, realms of coherence and meaning together, A genuine faith
does not mark this mysterious source and end of existence as merely
an X, or as an unknown quantity. The Christian faith, at least, is
a faith in revelation. It believes that God has made Himself known.
It believes that He has spoken through the prophets and finally in
His Son. It accepts the revelation in Christ as the ultimate clue to
the mystery of God's nature and purpose in the world, particularly
the mystery of the relation of His justice to His mercy. But these

The Object of Devotion 487

clues to the mystery do not eliminate the periphery of mystery. God
remains deus absconditus.

Rcinhold Niebuhr, 1892-. American theologian, educator, author.
Discerning the Signs of the Times.

God as Revealed in Jesus Christ

The approach of Faith, this appreciation of the nature of God as
He has been unveiled in the ethical processes of history, especially in
the Person of Christ, and in His expanding conquest of the world
must always be one of the great factors of spiritual religion.

Once at least there shone through the thin veil of matter a
personal Life which brought another kind of world than this world
of natural law and utilitarian aims full into light. There broke
through a revelation of Purpose in the Universe so far beyond the
vague trend of purpose dimly felt in slowly evolving life that it is
possible here to catch an illuminating vision of what the goal of the
long drama may be — the unveiling of sons of God. Here the dis-
covery can be made that the deepest Reality toward which Reason
points, and which the mystical experience jeds, is no vague Some-
thing Beyond, but a living, loving Someone, dealing with us as
Person with person. In Him there comes to focus in a Life that we
can love and appreciate a personal character which impresses us as
being absolutely good, and as being in its inexhaustible depth of love
and Grace worthy to be taken as the revelation of the true nature of
the God whom all human hearts long for. And finally through this
personal revelation of God in Christ there has come to us a clear
insight that pain and suffering and tragedy can be taken up into a
self-chosen Life and absorbed without spoiling its immense joy, and
that precisely through suffering-love, joyously accepted, a Person ex-
pressing in the world the heart of God may become the moral and
spiritual Saviour of others.

Nowhere else in the universe— above us or within us— has the
moral significance of life come so full into sight, or the reality of
actual divine fellowship, whether in our aspirations or in our failures,
been raised to such a pitch of practical certainty as in the personal
life and death and resurrection and steady historical triumph of
Jesus Christ, He shows the moral supremacy, even in this imperfect

488 Appendix

empirical world, of the perfectly good will, and He impresses those
who sec Him— see Him, I mean, with eyes that can penetrate
through the temporal to the eternal and find His real nature — as
being the supreme personal unveiling of God, strong enough in His
infinite Grace and divine self-giving to convince us of the eternal
co-operation of God with our struggling humanity, and to settle our
Faith in the essential Saviourhood of God.

He who sees that in Christ has found a real way to God and has
discovered a genuine way of salvation. It is the way of Faith, but
Faith is no airy and unsubstantial road, no capricious leap. There is
no kind of aimful living conceivable that does not involve faith
in something trans-subjective — 3 faith in something not given in
present empirical experience. Even in our most elementary life-
adjustments there is something operative in us which far underlies
our conscious perceiving and the logic of our conclusions. We are
moved, not alone by what we clearly picture and coldly analyse, but
by deep-lying instincts which defy analysis, by background and
foreground fringes of consciousness, by immanent and penetrative
intelligence which cannot be brought to definite focus, by the vast
reservoirs of accumulated wisdom through which we feel die way
to go though we can pictorially envisage no "spotted trees" that mark
the trail.

This religious and saving Faith, through which the soul discovers
God and makes the supreme life-adjustment to Him, is profoundly
moral and, in the best sense of the word, rational. It does not begin
with an assumption, blind or otherwise, as to Christ's metaphysical
nature, it does not depend upon the adoption of systematically form-
ulated doctrines; it becomes operative through the discovery of a
personal Life, historically lived— and continued through the cen-
turies as a transforming Spirit — rich enough in its experience to
exhibit the infinite significance of life, inwardly deep enough in its
spiritual resources to reveal the character of God, and strong enough
in sympathy, in tenderness, in patience, and in self-giving love to
beget forever trust and confidence and love on the part of all who
thus find Him.

The God whom we learn to know in Christ— the God historically

The Object of Devotion 489

revealed— is no vague first Cause, no abstract Reality, no all-negating
Absolute, He is a concrete Person, whose traits of character are
intensely moral and spiritual. His will is no fateful swing of
mechanical law; it is a morally good will which works patiently
and forever toward a harmonized world, a Kingdom of God. The
central trait of His character is Love. He does not become Father,
He is not reconciled to us by persuasive offerings and sacrifices. He is
inherently and by essential disposition Father and the God of all
Grace. He is not remote and absentee — making a world "in the
beginning," and leaving it to run by law, or only occasionally inter-
rupting its normal processes— He is immanent Spirit, working al-
ways, the God of beauty and organizing purpose. He is Life and
Light and Truth, an Immanuel God who can and does show Him-
self in a personal Incarnation, and so exhibits the course and goal
of the race.*

Rufus M. Jones, 1863-. American philosopher, author.
Spiritual Reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries.

He is the Way.

Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;

You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.

Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;

You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years,

He is the Life.

Love Him in the World of the Flesh;

And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

W. H. Audcn, 1907-. English poet.
From For the Time Being, a Christmas Oratorio.

SOME GENERALIZED MYSTIC IDEAS OF GOD

It is striking to note the remarkable similarity in the ideas of the
Object of Devotion as expressed by the great mystics in all religions.
Their ideas lose specific content, and launch into greater and greater

490 Appendix

abstractions regarding their beloved. Their experience of God seems so
much greater than any conceptual knowledge of Him that they are
forced to leave all ideas as such, and can only express the weight of their
new knowledge through such generalizations as "the ground of the soul/*
"the deepest abyss," "the inner motive force," "That which is," "the inner
Voice," and "the inner Light." They seem to agree with Olier, who
writes: "It is better to make a complete and perfect sacrifice of meta-
physical speculation, and simply to adore the unknown mystery of God's
grace. You cannot believe how profitable is intellectual silence in regard
to these things, and how well it holds the soul in freedom, humility and
simplicity."

NEO-PLATONIC EXPRESSION

Those divinely possessed and inspired have at least the knowl-
edge that they hold some greater thing within them, though they
cannot tell what it is; from the movements that stir them and the
utterances that come from them they perceive the power that moves
them: in the same way, it must be, we stand towards the Supreme
when we hold intellect pure; we know the Divine Mind within, that
which gives Being and all else of that order; but we know, too, that
it is none of these, but a nobler principle than anything we know as
Being— fuller and greater; above reason, mind and feeling— con-
ferring these powers.

Plotinus, 204-270, Greek philosopher, mystic,
JEWISH EXPRESSION

O Lord, thou hast searched me, ana known inc.

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,

Thou understandest my thought afar off.
Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,

And art acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word in my tongue,

But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.
Thou hast beset me behind and before,

And laid thine hand upon me*

The Object of Devotion 491

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is high, I cannot attain unto it.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me,

And thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall overwhelm me,

And the light about me shall be night;
Even the darkness hideth not from thee,

But the night shineth as the day:

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
Search me, O God, and know my heart,

Try me, and know my thoughts;
And see if there be any way of wickedness in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.

From the 139th Psalm, Old Testament.

CHRISTIAN MYSTIC EXPRESSIONS

Thou calledst, and shoutedst, and burstest, my deafness. Thou
flashedst, shonest, and scatteredst iny blindness. Thou breathedst
odours, and I drew in breath and pant for Thee. Thou touchedst me,
and I burned for Thy peace. For Thou hast created us for Thyself,
and our heart is restless until it find rest in Thee.

Not with doubting, but with assured consciousness, do I love Thee
Lord, Thou hast stricken my heart with Thy word, and I loved
Thee, Yea also heaven, and earth, and all that therein is, behold, on
every side they bid me love Thee. But what do I love, when I love
Thee ? not beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony of time, nor the
brightness of the light, so gladsome to our eyes, nor sweet melodies of
varied songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and
spices, not manna and honey, not limbs acceptable to embracements

492 Appendix

of flesh* None of these I love, when I love my God; and yet I love
a kind of light, and melody, and fragrance, and meat, and embracc-
ment, when I love my God, the light, melody, fragrance, meat,
embracement of my inner man: where there shineth unto my soul,
what space cannot contain, and there soundeth, what time beareth
not away, and there smelleth, what breathing disperseth not, and
there tasteth, what eating diminisheth not, and there clingeth, what
satiety divorceth not. This is it which I love, when I love my God.

And what is this? I asked the earth, and it answered me, "I am
not He;" and whatsoever are in it, confessed the same. I asked the
sea and the deeps, and the living creeping things, and they answered,
"We are not thy God, seek above us." I asked the moving air; and the
air with his inhabitants answered, "I am not God." I asked the
heavens, sun, moon, stars, "Nor (say they) are we the God whom
thou seekest." And I replied unto all the things which encompass the
door of my flesh, "Ye have told me of my God, that ye are not He;
tell me something of Him." And they cried out with a loud voice,
"He made us." (The invisible things of God speak to all; but they
only, understand, who compare the voice received from without,
with the truth within.)

What then do I love, when I love my God? By my very soul
will I ascend to Him. I will pass beyond that power whereby I am
united to my body. I will pass beyond this power of mine which is
called memory, desirous to arrive at Thee, and to cleave unto Thee.

How then do I seek Thee, O Lord ? For when I seek Thee, my
God, I seek a happy life. I will seek Thee, that my soul may live.
For my body liveth by my soul; and my soul by Thee. Nor is it I
alone, or some few besides, but we all would fain be happy; a happy
life is joy in the truth: for this is a joying in Thee, Who art the
Truth, O God my light, health of my countenance, my God. Happy
then will man be, when, no distraction interposing, he shall joy in
that only Truth, by Whom all things are true.

Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever
new! Behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched
for Thee. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. When I
shall with my whole self cleave to Thee, I shall no where have

The Object of Devotion 493

sorrow, or labour; and my life shall wholly live, as wholly full of
Thee*-**

Saint Augustine, 354-430. Latin church Father, Christian mystic.

Confessions, Trans. E. B. Pusey

Oh, who will give me a voice that I may cry aloud to the whole
world that God, the all highest, is in the deepest abyss within us and
is waiting for us to return to Him. Oh, my God, how does it happen
in this poor old world, that Thou art so great and yet nobody finds
Thee, that Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears Thee, that
Thou art so near and nobody feels Thee, that Thou givest Thyself
to everybody and nobody knows Thy name! Men flee from Thee and
say they cannot find Thee; they turn their backs and say they cannot
see Thee; they stop their ears and say they cannot hear Thee!

Hans Denck, 1495-1527. German mystic, spiritual reformer.

On the Law of God,

How inexhaustible God's resources, wisdom, and knowledge are!
How unfathomable his decisions are, and how untraceable his ways!

Who has ever known the Lord's thoughts, or advised him ?

Or who advanced anything to him, for which he will have to be
repaid ?

For from him everything comes; through him everything exists;
and in him everything ends! Glory to him forever!

Saint Paul, first century Christian Apostle.
New Testament, Trans. E. J. Goodspeed,

For silence is not God, nor speaking is not God; fasting is not
God, nor eating is not God; loneliness is not God, nor company is
not God; nor yet any of all the other two such contraries* He is hid
between them, and may not be found by any work of thy soul, but
all only by love of thine heart He may not be known by reason, He
may not be gotten by thought, nor concluded by understanding; but
He may be loved and chosen with the true lovely will of thine
heart. , . . Such a blind shot with the sharp dart of longing love may
never fail of the prick, the which is God.5

* The Ept/tt# of

494 Appendix

But now thou askest me and sayest, "How shall I think on Him-
self, and what is He?" and to this I cannot answer thec but this:
"I wot not."

For thou hast brought me with thy question into that same dark-
ness, and into that same cloud of unknowing, that I would thou wert
in thyself. For of all other creatures and their works, yea, and of the
works of God's self, may a man through grace have fullhead of
knowing, and well he can think of them: but of God Himself can
no man think. And therefore I would leave all that thing that I can
think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think. For
why; He may well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be
gotten and holden; but by thought never. And therefore, although it
be good sometime to think of the kindness and the worthiness of
God in special, and although it be a light and a part of contemplation :
nevertheless yet in this work it shall be cast down and covered with
a cloud of forgetting. And thou shalt step above it stalwartly, but
listily, with a devout and a pleasing stirring of love, and try for to
pierce that darkness above thee. And smite upon that thick cloud of
unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love; and go not thence for
anything that befalleth.6

Unknown author, English mystic, fourteenth century.

He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. . , .
God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and
God in him.

From The First Letters of John.
New Testament,

TAOIST EXPRESSION

There is a primal essence that is all-inclusive and undiflf erentiated
and which existed before there was any appearance of heaven and
earth. How tranquil and empty it is! How self-sufficing and change-
less! How omnipresent and infinite! Yet this tranquil emptiness
becomes the Mother of all. Who knows its name? I can only

6 The Cloud of Unknowing. Edited by Evelyn Underhill.

The Object of Devotion 495

characterize it and call it Tao. Though it is quite inadequate, I
will even call it the Great But how boundless is its Greatness! It
stretches away into the far distances (like a circle) only to return
again.

Tao is eternal but is unnamable. Its simplicity, though con-
sidered as of the humblest, is most independent. Nothing in the
world is able to bring it into subjection.

Great Tao is all pervading! It is available everywhere, on the
right hand and on the left. Everything is dependent upon it for
existence and it never fails them.

Tao is invisible but permeates everywhere; no matter how one
uses it or how much, it is never exhausted.

To common people Tao's principle of simplicity and humility
seems weak and insipid; they desire and seek music and dainties.
Indeed, Tao has no taste! When looked at, there is nothing to be
prized; when listened for, it can scarcely be heard; but its satisfactions
are inexhaustible,

Tao acts without assertion, yet all things proceed in conformity
with it.

The superior man, as soon as he listens to Tao, earnestly prac-
tices Tao] an average man, hearing of Tao, sometimes remembers
it and sometimes forgets it; an inferior man, hearing of Tao, ridicules
it. If it were not thus ridiculed, it would not be worth following as
Tao*

Laotxu, born about 604 B.C. Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism.
and Wu-Wei, Trans, by Bhikshu Wai-dau and D. Goddard.

HINDU EXPRESSION

Formless, that self-luminous Being exists within and without,
higher than the highest From Him issue life, and mind, and senses-
ether, air, water, fire, and the earth. ... He is the innermost Self
in all beings. He who knows him hidden in the shrine of his heart
cuts the knot of ignorance even in this life. Self-luminous, ever
present in the hearts of all, is the great Being. He is the refuge of all
In Him exists all that moves and breathes. Adorable is He. He is the
supreme goal. He is beyond the known3 and beyond the knowable.

496 Appendix

He is self-luminous, subtler than the subtlest; in Him exist all the
worlds and those that live therein. He is that imperishable Brahman.
He is the life-principle; He is the speech and the mind; He is the
truth; He is immortal. He is to be realized. Attain Him, O friend.

Vpanishad (Mundaka) The Old Testament of Hindu Scriptures.

Trans. Swami Prabhavananda.

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