The practical mystic; or, How to make perfection appear

Front matter

THE GIFT OF

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Preface

In the history of thought, the truly religious Mystics of all times have been idealists, but of a distinct type. It has been of interest to define this type again, that we may be quite sure of the modern mystic's place in the spiritual development of mankind. The experiences of the spiritually intuitive are of interest; but the laws underlying such experiences are of the utmost moment to us, and should be formulated.

Especially at this time do these laws merit our attention, and for very practical reasons we are urged to their investigation. Indeed, to-day the Christian Scientists and other types of the modern mystic declare that they are consciously working in accordance with these laws and, at will, are able to arrive at definite spiritual realisations which make for the overcoming of evil and for the increase of good.

An individual expression of spiritual truth and Its application is given in chapters Xlli and xiv as an aid to those who may wish to avail themselves

PREFACE

of it. This expression began to shape itself after about eight years of exclusive devotion to the study of the subject. The thought gradually assumed the form in which it is here presented during seven additional years in which it was being practically applied to everyday problems.

For the mystic to attempt in detail to describe his heavenly vision and to point out to others a path leading to it, is at once to become aware of the impossibility of conveying the pure meaning of spiritual thought in terms of the human understanding. So compelling, however, was the beauty of the vision, and so practical have been the benefits which it bestowed, that the author has dared attempt to mark out a way to the spiritual experiences whence it is secured, and that in spite of the inconsistencies to which verbal language renders one liable.

It will, of course, be obvious that my purpose has been, not to construct a philosophy upon a logical basis, but to give to a definite experience the support of philosophic analysis, and thereby disclose the way of its attainment. As an aid in the statement of my position, I have occasionally quoted from authors whose philosophy, as a whole, differs widely from my own. I have used the word mystic in its true.

PREFACE

technical sense/ and have applied it to that consciousness which knows the spiritual, to one who knows this truth through spiritual aspiration and intuition, and who ultimately understands it.

It is with much appreciation of their helpfulness that I acknowledge my indebtedness to Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; to Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy; also to Science and Health and other Christian Science literature.

1 By which I mean the sense in which the word is used by William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures XVI and XVII; and by Evelyn Underbill, TAe Mystic Way.

CONTENTS I

Introduction

CHAPTER PAGE

I General Outline 3

II Outline Continued, and Reasons for

Doubt 12

III Spiritual Knowledge and Material Be-

lief 27

IV The Finite 32

V The Mystic 47

VI The Unfolding of the Mystic Consciousness 64

II Idealism

VII A General Statement of Idealism . . 79 VIII Two Types of Idealists 87

III THE SPIRITUAL IDEALIST

IX The Way of the Spiritual Idealist . . 97 X Nature of Unreality as Conceived by the

Spiritual Idealist 113

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

XI The Spiritual Idealist's Remedy for the

Illusion Called Evil ii8

Chapter I General Outline

Many experiences through which we pass are so dark, their waters are so deep, that the old statements of spiritual truth comfort and strengthen us no longer. Such experiences bring us to a new realisation of evil, — a realisation of its asserted power, of its presence In every life, of the constant fear and dread of it which has possessed all of us In one form or another. And with this new and added realisation of the nature of evil, its seeming power to hurt and almost overcome us, our natures have awakened from a sleep, and powers hitherto dormant are rising up as though to save us, with a determination that will not be denied.

When thus awakened, one has a vision that to the questions of life there must be right answers; that one can know these answers, these truths, and that the remedy for evil, as well as the maintenance of good, lies in such knowing. Moreover, this newly awakened self, — born again and of the Spirit, catching glimpses of the kingdom of heaven, and feeling itself, if ever so little, yet akin to the Divine, — ■ longs for a knowledge and a power which is commensurate with the stature of which it has become even dimly aware. Therefore, not only would it overcome for itself and others the recognised evils and limitations of the material mind and body, but it would put off the material altogether, and know itself as perfect and spiritual, even unto " the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," that it may perform the works of Christ and his followers, and may experience his resurrection, his transfiguration and ascension, proving itself to be like the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased.

When once this longing for and assurance of divine understanding and power is awakened, it will not be put by. It demands the sacrifice of all lesser claims upon us. It leads us out of conventional highways, hammers through the walls of old prejudices, and breaks down our reliance upon ancient statements of Truth.

" Glad Truth's yet mightier man-child Leaps beneath the Future's heart." ^

^ Lowell.

GENERAL OUTLINE 5

And yet there seems always to be building for our use a new foundation upon which not only our future understanding, but our early faith, is quite secure. The stones of this new structure are the answers which come to us unfailingly in response to our earnest search for Truth. Thus a new birth may come to each one of us, — a new ideal of Truth, of Being.

How many of us have ever thought of Being, much less filled it with any definite content? But could we make our conception of Being conform to that which is Being, we should find the secret of life, — hitherto so elusive that, disheartened, we have ceased to look for its solution, accepting it as a mystery.

Our life has been thought to be physical and mental as well as spiritual, but Being has been put into the crucible again, and, as a result of the assay, a new formula for life has been written, in which the old supposed ingredients, matter and mortal sense, are left out. The new formula now reads: "Life is perfect consciousness," or, " Being is Spirit." Beings, therefore, are spiritual.

One who defines Being in such a way, — thus holding Spirit to be all in all, and any so-called thing outside of it, as untrue and therefore as unreal, — must.

of necessity, feel that the spiritual in all of us has not only received but slight recognition, but has been much underestimated. In the moral life the spiritual has been given a place, but hardly more than as an ethical principle. In the world of affairs, few men are aware that it is their mind of Christ which brings them success. In the world of art the spiritual has, perhaps, received even less recognition as the secret of all creative power, and scientists must still define life in terms of what it does, because they do not know what it Is. An article by M. G. Seelig gives us a quotation from Professor Ward which illustrates such a definition.^

The " additional something " of the scientist

^"Between living and non-living matter there is the fundamental difference that in living matter there is always something else present in addition to the properties found in non-living bodies. This additional something endows living bodies with a tendency to disturb existing equilibria, to reverse the dissipative processes which prevail throughout the inanimate world, to store and build up where they are scattering and pulling down; the tendency to conserve individual existence against antagonistic forces; to grow and to progress, not inertly taking the easier way, but seemingly striving for the best, retaining every vantage secured and working for the new ones." — Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. CLXIII, No. 22.

GENERAL OUTLINE 7

which makes the difference between " living and non-living bodies," and which the vitalists call " vital force," we believe, as we have said, to be a spiritual force. This spiritual or life force is neither physical, chemical, nor mechanical, and it does not appear as such to those who truly see it. It is not resident in matter. It is the manifestation of Spirit, infinite Mind, or God, and it has a spiritual appearance of its own.

If this conviction be true, it follows that one possesses real life, real knowledge, real love, the beautiful, the good, only in so far as he is spiritually minded. Should one succeed, therefore, in any direction, it is by virtue of his mind that loves, that knows the good, the absolute truth. Should one fail in any direction, he does so through a lack of that " inward and spiritual grace " which underlies all power.

Whatever the form, then, of our failure or success, our essential failure or success lies in the realm of the spiritual, and whoever wishes to achieve in any direction is consciously or unconsciously seeking for an increase in spiritual power.

This spiritual conception of man's true being and activity is gradually taking the place of the so-called normal, as conceived by material thought. And, in consequence, the old remedial and educational agencies adapted to the old Ideas are giving way, and new ones are coming to light, adapted to the new. If the real man Is spiritual, material means, — neither physical nor mental, — can help him in unfolding and maintaining his spiritual selfhood.

Those who have caught a glimpse of the beauty of this new Ideal no longer wait until they are defective from the world's point of view; but realising the somewhat low standard of Its so-called normal, — at any point hardly above the material, — they reach out, before they are sick, for the substance which is always well; seek, before they are ugly and deformed, for that beauty which will not fade ; and strive for a realisation of the sinless self before they fall. Their love for others also expresses itself in new ideals of service and in new forms of charity, based upon raising those who are " normal " above the accepted standards.^

° Many mothers and fathers no longer feel that a young girl just out of college must needs dip down among the more degraded and unfortunate in order to render social service. Work among the so-called normal offers ample opportunity for all our youth to serve, and, moreover, in ways and under conditions where they run no danger of

GENERAL OUTLINE 9

No one should be satisfied until he can express himself in some form of art, and yet friends who are already well and prosperous look indifferent as well as incredulous if one hints of their obligation to study the spiritual laws of thought In order to sing or paint. And those who have already attained to the level of expressing themselves in beautiful forms should study the higher laws that through their conscious operation they may achieve even greater things than before were possible to them.

God, the Father, our teacher, is giving us. His pupils, questions, to which he demands correct, — that is, spiritual, — answers. Every act of our lives is the answer we give Him to one of His questions, and these answers make up the whole of the life of each one of us: poor (material) answers, poor lives;

arresting their own development. There is such danger in surroundings which present problems too difficult for them to solve, and thus tend to make them either superficial or morbid. If our young people will work among our children, using all the forms of art to unfold their natures upon spiritual levels and keep them there, such efforts will reveal in the children hidden spiritual treasures which in later years will assert themselves and help to lift the material " yoke " and lighten the burden of " earthly freight " which inevitably awaits men in a seemingly material environment like ours.

lo THE PRACTICAL MYSTIC

right (spiritual) answers, rich lives. Many of us barely pass our examinations and so just get into life, and all through the course we fail and fail.

Why do others get through with honours ? Right answers, or wrong ones quickly corrected, tell the story. Spiritual insight gives us right (spiritual) answers, with their happy, successful lives. For this reason, training to enter more consciously and more fully into spiritual states of mind must be undertaken by all, and most of all by those who, by their constitution, seem to be incapable of experiencing them. Such training brings into service an hitherto unused thought plant. Our mental output has not stood the test; its quality has been inferior and could not compete, perchance, with that of others. It is necessary, therefore, to improve our mental equipment and raise our standard to the plane of the spiritual in order to meet the daily demands upon us for more satisfactory results.

If another man's answers to life's questions be of such quality as to graduate him with honours, while our thoughts or answers, like base coin, can be exchanged for little in God's kingdom, let us see quickly that the fault lies within us. We can make our own thought product such as to compete with the best;

GENERAL OUTLINE ii

but to do so we must cultivate a thought territory which is going to waste in us. It is the mystic's spiritual territory which we must reclaim. Its fallow tracts, full of promise of great yields, lie in every man's mind. The richness stored away in them may be made available through use, — spiritual use. We will plant the right thought seeds there, for only spiritual seeds will grow in this hitherto unused soil of our minds. We will bring the freedom of tolerance, the stimulus of sympathy, the great nursing agencies of love, to the seeds down there in the dark. We will brood over this long neglected garden, protect it from ridicule, and be patient with its unpromising first appearances ; so shall we reap its spiritual harvest for ourselves and for others, a harvest that will supply our daily bread. Moreover, we need no longer be forced by suffering, but may. If we choose, by seeking, enter at will into these truth-revealing states of mind, for the technique by which we arrive at such states is being made clear.*

* By technique we mean a specific kind of right thinking.

Chapter II Outline Continued, And Reasons For Doubt

What are the experiences which are strong enough to drive us to this belief in the spiritual as the only real, as the only right answer to all questions ; transcending, as it does, the material, visible, and so-called substantial order of things?

There are petty tyrannies that bind us. There are aimless moments when we cease to know our way and cease to care. How and why the vision fades ^ we do not know, nor how to bring it back, but are only

^ " There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparell'd in celestial light.

The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; — Turn wheresoe'er I may.

By night or day.

The things I have seen I now can see no more.

aware of the utter weariness and fruitlessness of existence.^ Sometimes care may come too early in life, leaving no room for childhood's flowers, the natural

Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy; But he beholds the light, and whence it flows.

He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended ; At length the man perceives it die away. And fade into the light of common day."

Wordsworth: Ode on Immortality.

^ " Why did they kill themselves?" Una asked, her chin in her hand. " Because they were heathen. When they grew tired of life (as if they were the only people) they would jump into the sea. They called it ' going to Wotan.' It wasn't want of food always, by any means. A man would tell you he felt grey in his heart, or a woman would say that she saw nothing but long days in front of her; and they'd saunter away to the mud-flats and — that would be the end of them, poor souls, unless one headed them off." — Kipling: Conversion of St. Wilfrid; Rewards and Fairies.

fruits of which are joy and hope. Without knowing why, there are many of us who never feel at home, — the bitter fruit, perhaps, of our transplanted nation, in a country where families are frequently made up of uncongenial members, springing, as they do, from different races and cherishing ideals rooted in many and alien lands. During the travail of its birth our nation amalgated these differences in race and ideal, and dominated by the common passion for freedom, felt itself a unit ; but in its secure maturity subordinated traits and desires come to light, and we hunger for an earlier people, an earlier home.^- *

There are the unconscious defects In us all, making us fail those who love and trust us, — the pride and obstinacy or mere lack of humour whereby we

* Many of us can recall a member of his family who kept himself aloof, whom even his parents failed to understand. In one family, a far away Scotch ancestor appeared in such a boy. He might have been sent abroad to school; but no one realised how Scotch he was until it was too late. What had a New England city full of material prosperity to offer to him, who all unconsciously was dreaming of Scottish lake and hill, seeing their purple bloom, feeling the mystery of their dark places, listening to the call of romance and story, of Benledi and Roderick Dhu!

miss the rare nearness reserved for those who love ; and that dark, dissatisfied spirit lurking about, making us never happy in ourselves, jealous of the happiness of others. There are the patient hopes that never are fulfilled, dull resignation to a bare existence, love grown cold in middle age, friends estranged, and the loneliness of old age. There are the musicians whose sqngs will not finish themselves,* and those artists whose colour eludes them at times, and whose dreams will not come.®

If to these less obvious and perhaps minor ills of life one adds poverty and its benumbing effects, actual sin, pain, sickness, and death, with the darkness, grief, and suspense attending them, what further spur is needed to make one long to break through and reach beyond this so-called order of things, and see if there may not be an interpretation of evil and a truth con-

^ Wolf's life illustrates this : — the times of inactivity when he feels himself as dead, followed by phenomenal creative periods, then further lack of inspiration, finally ending in insanity." — ■ Romain Rolland, Musicians of Today.

° " In a fortnight I have had more phantasies than in four months before." While the mood was on him he gave it full sway, but presently he said, " Now I am stuck fast again, and no dreams come." — Memorials of Edward Burne- Jones.

cerning good whose significance he has failed to discern, or, discerning, to realise?

Whoever begins to rebel against the " actual," often with his heart first, and afterwards consciously with his reason, will rarely cease in his rebellion until he reaches that point where he doubts the reality of the whole natural order. He will then question the right of the intellect '' to explain the universe from a purely physical standpoint, thus trying to reduce to nothing that which it cannot weigh and measure.

He will go further, and in spite of the enforced limitation of his intellect, — which prevents it from testifying to a world in which it is superfluous, — he will not be deterred, when he once is awake, from making excursions into that same world and so reassuring himself daily of the presumption of a physical standpoint which takes corporeal objects and physical forces for the only realities.

When one thus begins to wonder about, and then to challenge, the old, material ways of thinking, he

' The word " intellect " is used throughout the book to signify that which seemingly presents the material world to us.

See Kant's Empirical Ego.

is shaking off a mental chrysalis, and unfolding powers for knowing which he has hitherto used but little, and of which he has been comparatively unaware. He then has a great joy in store for him, a large field of undreamed of knowledge, a new companionship. In the beginning, he enters into unseeing communion with the geniuses of the Spirit; in the end, he arrives at that Paradise where all eyes are opened to the same vision. He rejoices, and feels himself no longer alone as he reads his own thoughts in the illuminating words of others.*

Henceforward the searcher stands for " the in-

* " The unsatisfactory nature of the present world, the conflict of the natural order of events with the irrelinquishable demands of the Spirit, is the strongest motive to transcend the visible order and seek an invisible one. The fact that in the natural course of events, as observation shows, the good and great are often oppressed and perish, while the vulgar and the wicked triumph, is the goad that drives us to deny the absolute reality of nature. It is and remains the final and indestructible axiom of the will that reality cannot be indifferent to good and evil. If, then, nature is indifferent, it cannot be the true reality. Then only behind and above nature, as mere phenomenon, can the true world be discovered, and in it the good is absolutely real, i.e., in God, who is the absolutely real and the absolutely good." — Paulsen : Immanuel Kant, His Life and Doctrine, page 318.

adequacy of common knowledge to attain the idea of true knowledge," and for the truth of the old idea that the senses deceive us. Henceforward, for him, the intellect or the knowing power of the natural man, which testifies to the reality of the world of the flesh, does not tell the truth. And he believes that God " forged that other influence, that heat of inward evidence, by which one doubts against the sense," and knows the Truth.

It is with a feeling of new birth that we realise the truth of a vital idea. We see a new heaven and a new earth; unto us a Son is born; and a pent up joy overflows the waste places and fills the bare inlets of our hearts. The dark is drowned in a golden flood of light, while a glad song mingles with the inflowing tide. This true idea seems new, and like a clear flame it bursts from the smouldering fires deep down in us, and holds itself free and triumphant above the embers of our past.

Such a vital idea is born in us when we realise that the intellect is not the only knowing power, but is, at best, only one side of that apparent mental duality which may seem to present itself wherever a mind appears.

One side of this seeming duality consists of that consciousness which may be called the mortal sense, — or, philosophically, the empirical ego, — whose knowing power is called the intellect. It involves material bodies and all material conditions which to the higher mind appear as limitation, poverty, sickness, sorrow, and sin. These are but the appearances of the mortal sense belief in matter as substance, in law as physical, and in itself as truth-knowing. It has no idea of God as Spirit, or of law as moral. Discontent, irritability, fault finding, unhappiness, pain, sickness, and death are typical signs of the seeming activity of the finite, so-called "mind."

The other side of this mental dualism consists of that consciousness which we will characterise as the immortal mind or the spiritual ego, the essence and nature of which is to be conscious of, and to express. Truth and Love. To it substance is Love (Spirit), and law is spiritual. It knows only the truth. It knows itself to be perfect, one with the Father or Spirit. It, too, has an appearance, visible to the pure in heart; but since a belief in the physical universe is not a part of this consciousness, its appearance is never material, and therefore is forever invisible to the carnal mind. This spiritual knowing power is always active, and we are conscious of this activity when we are happy, well, and efficient.

It is plain, therefore, that there appear to be not only two knowing powers, — one the mortal and the other the divine, — but that what is true to the one cannot be known to the other. In the words of Paul, " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Corinthians 2: 14).

If by any unhappy chance we should become so asleep to the truth that we should fail to realise this antagonism, this house divided against itself; and should also cease to see that the material order as a whole is antagonistic to the divine, — men and women would cease to be discriminating in their morals, and would submit with a so-called Christian spirit to physical inability, poverty, chance, and sorrow. If this gulf between the two opposing parts of our nature and of the world in general should seem to be obliterated, and their apparent fusion should be so complete that no seam could be found.

— the " false and true meeting with a kiss across the bound-mark where their realms confine," — men and women would foster and cherish the so-called normal appetites and desires of the flesh. They would look indulgently upon their excesses, considering them different not in kind, but only in degree, from that which is popularly deemed their " perfectly natural and therefore right " satisfaction. From the standpoint of a higher mind, the devil would then be included in the angelic circle. And this is just what is happening; for now the brain of man " claims equal suffrage " with Spirit, and while, theoretically, the existence of the two sides of a man is to-day popularly recognised, yet, as a matter of fact, many of us do not classify the material as apart from and antagonistic to the Spiritual.

In allowing our vision thus to become blurred we should seem to have mislaid the key to the solution of our problems, for to become unconscious of the distinction between the divine origin of good thoughts and the alien origin of evil thoughts is apparently to cease to distinguish between the claims of our various thoughts to validity and authority. And since an inquiry into the pedigree of a thought no longer saves us from evil,® — it having been crowded into our conception of God's universe, — sins are apparently innocently committed; children are brought into the world thoughtlessly; the good of those whom we ought to love is sacrificed for those whom we happen to love ; immorality is applauded in the name of art: and all this with a plea as pure as snow, — God made the natural, the material. Each of us to-day, in some form, is presented with the idea that he ought to obey that which is material, and therefore immoral, on the ground that God made it. In spite of our theories, however, we have never fought evil more industriously than now. Yet upon what grounds can we consistently fight, while maintaining that the lower side of our nature and the finite side of things in general is of divine origin? In declaring the natural and spiritual to be of equal birth, and therefore of equal rank and having equal rights, do we not, in reason, cut ourselves off from any rational basis for successful resistance?

^ Margaret's plea:

" I myself am guilty of sin,

But all that drove my heart thereto

Was oh, so good, oh, so dear."

Goethe : Faust.

If the " spiritual spins the natural as the spider his web," death, the last enemy, will never be overcome, to say nothing of lesser ones. If spirit is the " principle of our involuntary movements, of our involuntary nutritive functions upon which the nourishment, growth, and origin, and consequently the whole existence, of the material body depends," we have no source from which to derive the weapons with which to fight the evils of body and mind. We have no appeal if, in this realm in which we live, a " rigid order of nature is one with the most miraculously divine truth " ; and although " man has sprung from an animal ancestry," yet is he " the embodiment, the organ, of the absolute reason." If the material is God made, and therefore it is true that man has a physical, structural body, and is subject to it and to physical law, — then man must have pain, be sick, and die ; and having a physical brain upon which his thoughts are conditioned, he will inevitably be liable to pettiness, ignorance, wickedness, and even insanity. If nature is lying in wait for man, seeking whom she " may devour " with various evil forces, he cannot fight against such odds with any assurance of success. In a word, if the universe is as it appears to be to finite sense, there will never be a time when " God shall wipe away all tears," never an age when " there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying."