FINAL RACE EXPERIENCE.
The fear of death--shared in by all created beings--is nature"s safeguard against a universal stampede from this life by physical death, when the miseries of existence on this earthly plane become too dreadful to be borne, when the tortures of the soul, in the tortured body drives out all reason, and all philosophy, and the consciousness senses only the demand for surcease of agony. Probably most people have experienced, for a moment, in a time of terrible crisis, a thought, if not an impulse, to seek thus to end all suffering by flinging off the bonds of life here, and thus pa.s.s out into--what?
Simply life in a changed environment, with exactly the same responsibilities and soul needs, and the same causes of their miseries, and unsatisfied desires still existing in their minds.
Life here is just one link in the endless, unbreakable chain of existence. It is all one, here, hereafter, anywhere. Caught in the web of life, there is no escape from its demands upon the individual soul. Somewhere along the way it has to decide its own fate, upward and onward, or downward into the purlieus of the crude beginnings of things. It is free to make its choice. It can pursue the hard and toilsome path of earning its right to eternal happiness, or it can flop around through all the h.e.l.ls of life unrelated to G.o.d, and resistant to Christ.
One by one all human beings must obey the call to march over into the border land, into nature"s infinite invisible realm; they cannot help themselves; no one can; on they go, an endless caravan, to the land of revelations, the place of reviews where the utterly selfish are fetched up with a "round turn" and made to realize that a real G.o.dliness is the only thing that can pa.s.s muster, that mere beliefs do not count, and only character tells. How swiftly, how inevitably their places are filled! Nothing stops; prince or peasant, it is all one; the will of the G.o.ds, the guardians of this planet, is being fulfilled.
RELIGIOUS PERFORMANCES.
"It is to laugh" to "see the heathen rage and devise a vain thing." No hierarchy of earth, no mult.i.tudinous howl of ignorance and stupidity that "having eyes that see not; and having ears that hear not" can block the wheels of progress. It has worked in the past, "quite some,"
routing out tortured souls and bodies by the millions, sending them flying off from this planet which was, and is their real home, turning rack and screw, and setting baleful fires on tender flesh, threatening further eternal h.e.l.l fires; all for what? Why, to prove that "tweedle dee," is greater than "tweedle dum," and this is the record of religion at the hands of the theologians and the priests! This is the story of accepted orthodox religion. Why, then, have a religion? Why not try the altruism taught by the great Master in a system of ethics that can never be superseded by one higher and more truth-inspiring, better adapted to the perfect unfoldment of the human race?
No more of these awful persecutions, and ma.s.sacres, and killings for the "glory of G.o.d;" for the amus.e.m.e.nt of devils, really! Practical common sense, and reason will surely be, in time, the salvation of this world.
OF TEACHERS.
The wisest teacher is the one who shows the gradual processes of unfoldment and growth in the mind and body, and in all the outworkings of the material world. He who breaks down arbitrary distinctions in every realm of life does the most toward liberating and enlightening the world. We are from infancy so accustomed to petty distinctions which have originated in ignorance, and from long use have been formulated into laws, fixed and binding, that were some person clear-sighted enough to the truth to show us our invisible bonds, and how to sever them with the scalpel of common sense, and reason, we would be amazed at our great freedom, and astonished to see the light coming through thousands of loopholes and windows of the mind which are now closed by an acc.u.mulation of dust and cobwebs of the petty superst.i.tions of ages.
Millions of beings are born so starved that no after nourishing can make up for it.
WISE USE OF MONEY.
The money that has been spent in building up blasphemous theologies would have rid the whole world of poverty, and ignorance, if it had been beneficently employed with the kind intention of doing the peoples of the earth good, in every way, instead of trying to fix upon them d.a.m.nation now, and also arrange for it in their life hereafter.
Here and there, scattered along the way, are souls who have escaped the "drag-net" of theology, but there are at this present moment great spirits that, even after having pa.s.sed through death"s dark crucible, are haunted by d.a.m.ning fears of bad results possible from too much freedom. The trail of the serpent is felt by them still.
GENIUS.
Genius means simply a high and true sympathy with inanimate and human nature, and the power to voice their various moods and tenses.
Paradoxes seem to run riot in all occult things. Extremes in all departments are rare. There are a far greater number of indifferently good and indifferently bad people than of the superlatively good or bad. So Nature everywhere keeps the equilibrium, and the eternal processes of evolution go on, and ever onward toward perfection.
All the pains of this human life come in consequence of the resistance of the souls of men to the law of progress which is always, and everywhere, laying hold of them to force them from the sod up to G.o.d.
They squirm, and wriggle, and howl, and make no end of fuss, because the Lord calls upon them to awake from their animalism, and sloth, and arise, and seek the kingdom.
"He knoweth our frame," no more comforting, or encouraging words than these have ever been spoken. "He," the great soul-Father, knoweth us as we are. He knows how to inspire with hope, and courage the most sorrowing and lost. The felon in his cell, the outcast from all that men call good, are, with those of superior spiritual attainments, subjects of this beneficence. Nearly every soul feels, at some period of existence, its subtle relationship to a something, a power outside of its material life and surroundings. The experiences of this life are calculated to strengthen and perfect that relationship. Jesus Christ is credited with saying, "Be ye lifted up even as I am lifted up." That is, in spirit, to a perception of the relationship of your souls to the great "Over soul."
Be ye, then, patient with yourselves, and with each other. Be sure that you are being taught, "lifted up" to a perception and knowledge of these things, as fast as it is lawful for you to be.
In G.o.d"s good time ye shall blossom and bear a goodly fruitage.
"THOUGHTS ARE THINGS."
But thoughts, as potent ent.i.ties, must pa.s.s from the formative, nebulous condition into a crystallized state by, and through some form of externalization of language, spoken or written.
Thoughts must be created--born--through the absolute form-creation of the human brain, in order to secure to them potentiality, and immortality.
The status of the individual brain, decides its products, the character of its brain children. Thoughts that are not caught, clung to, and crystallized, through the action of the external brain can have no place in the external life of this world, although they do have their power and influence in the incorporate, silent, ever-working world of cause.
The mind digs deep to bring forth the real.
The soul dreads the edicts of its ignorant prototypes. The ego comes forward with its battle-axe, and the spirit rejoices and exults. Body, Soul, and Spirit; Nature"s trinity.
As spirit _per se_, has no ent.i.ty, and only evolves individuality through its relationship with matter, and has no other conscious expression, the so-long-talked-of "fall of man" was not a fall downward, but a process upward, necessary to his being, to his existence as man.
UNFOLDMENT.
The persistence of the human soul after physical death proves only that it is a candidate for immortality. The race is just begun. The path that leads onward to the eternal heights is so long, so beset with difficulties, with pains and penalties, losses and crosses, and all the paraphernalia of evolution and growth that the stoutest heart, the strongest will would fail to respond to the call to "come up higher,"
were one to at once become aware of what inevitably lay before him.
When any individual soul has dwelt long enough in the spirit realm to begin to feel the unrest of the law of eternal progress, he senses the law of reincarnation, and his earthly home draws him by attraction. He is preferred the cup of "renunciation," and forgetfulness, and is shown the way to his next embodiment.
INVENTIONS.
The inspired thinker sends out a thought to the world, it is taken up and pa.s.sed through other brains, it becomes distorted or is recognized by them in its integrity according to the caliber of mind, or the idiosyncrasies of the one representing it. A thought or idea, once given to the world, becomes common property. It is not possible to put on mortgages or limit the use that may be made of it, or how it may be made to bring in returns to commercially-inspired minds. A woman devised a style of dress which she wore for her comfort at her own convenience. Another woman gave exactly the same pattern and details to the public, and is now living in elegance on the income derived from another. A man--a worker--invents an improvement, or a better method of doing things. The firm adopts and makes money out of it, and its originator is forgotten. There are, however, clever people who know how to protect their inspirations, and get the benefit themselves. The greatest disappointment comes to the originator when the thought is intended to indicate and outline action. So few people can achieve the same point of view, so few can be depended upon for united, harmonious action that the best organizing power is at times fetched up with a "round turn," and the progress of the good work intended becomes greatly impeded, or virtually lost.