The strenuous life spiritual and The submissive life

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Strenuous Life Material 9

II The Universe, Its Laws, Its Destiny, and the

Chapter I The Strenuous Life Material

The twentieth century is destined to be a century of strenuous work and accomplishment. The centuries past have been centuries of preparation, of development, and of the formation of elements. The present century has for its special task to gather those elements, many seemingly heterogeneous, to assort them and to assign them to functions in the social, civic and spiritual fabric, where they can work in harmony with their neighbor elements, and be of greatest service for the betterment of man's material welfare and spiritual development.

Theodore Roosevelt, the first citizen of our land,*

*This was first written when Mr. Roosevelt was President of the United States. Our work was interrupted by the great holocaust which turned San Francisco into a heap of ruins.

Las inaugurated this forward movement of earnest work. In his grand book, entitled "The Strenuous Life," he has detailed with a masterly hand, the duties of the citizen. No man could indicate in a more forcible way, or I should say in a more strenuous manner, the duties good citizenship demands and should obtain. The book is a compendium of good practical common sense throughout — of duties plainly but eloquently set forth — and so convincing are his arguments that no honest reader can peruse this book without feeling in his heart a warmth akin to that which the patriot feels when his country is in danger and calls upon him for help. In this case the warmth goes toward good citizenship, the very basis of patriotism. The reader easily realizes that pn the quality of citizenship depends absolutely the good or bad status of the country itself, its real worth through good government, or its degradation through corruption.

Mr. Eoosevelt has placed this alternative before his readers in a masterly manner, with a zeal derived from a deep-rooted conviction, and an enthusiasm which only the highest aim a noble soul and a deep love of country can inspire. !No other book need be read — no treatise on moral and mental philosophy be consulted — all is here a grand, complete, but yet simple and plain catechism of good and noble citizenship.

This is then the first work the twentieth century must undertake, the grand task which confronts us, a supreme duty toward our country, an incessant striving toward the accomplishment of good citizenship. Mr. Roosevelt has laid the foundation and planned the structure in all its details. Let us, one and all, lend him a vigorous helping hand, and set to work with an unswerving strenuous will. May God be with us all in our task, bless our efforts and bless him, Theodore Roosevelt !

The second line of work now outstretching before the American citizen, yes of all lands — facing every man and woman — is the strenuous life spiritual. Innumerable materials have been gathered for centuries past, in all countries, for the accomplishment of this strenuous spiritual life. Many of these materials, however, are desperately heterogeneous, their classification difficult, and to assign them to a place where they may prove of greatest service will require faithful and unremitting efforts.

This "strenuous spiritual life" the twentieth century must inaugurate in all earnestness, and as we have determined upon citizen Roosevelt's suggestion, to make strenuous efforts to become good citizens in the life material by truthfully fulfilling all our civil obligations and moral duties toward the country and toward one another so must we make strenuous efforts to attain to high citizenship in the life spiritual. The two lives or worlds are, however, so closely interwoven, that good citizenship in the one.

especially in the higher one, leads directly to good citizenship in the other, or in the one below.

Mr. Roosevelt writes: "I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.

"A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack, either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual."

If the above emphatic statement is true of the life material, how much more is it true of the life spiritual, the life of paramount importance.

The spiritual life of slothful ease is met with everywhere ; it is all around us. The faithful churchgoer attends regular services on Sunday, reads regulation prayers in a regulation prayer book, joins in hymns sung out of a regulation hymn book, listens kindly to a sermon confined within the regulation limits of each particular creed, goes home, and his spiritual endeavors have terminated for the week. The spiritual life of this goodly church member is a life of spiritual peace, undoubtedly; but it is also a life of slothful spiritual ease, lacking both in desire and in the power to strive after greater spiritual achievement.

The soul of this good man sleeps in a slothful dolce far niente, while his material life, very likely, continues its strenuous efforts to gather unto himself riches and means of which he is in no need. This goodly churchman, although his lips may, on Sunday, pronounce His name in a feeble, automatic invocation, "is as little worthy" of God as he is of himself spiritually speaking. This man may, however, be an exemplary good citizen in the material life.

Kext comes the class of unbelievers. Their awakening intellects, forced by continual practical observations in every-day life, have caused them to grow above the stereotyped exactions of the common creeds, and to discard their cold dogmas which no longer command either their respect or sympathy. These unbelievers often enclose themselves in the strait- jacket of stern moral ethics, which they endeavor to find sufficient to guide their daily actions ; and indeed, they very often constitute a class of excellent men, performing faithfully the duties of wordly citizenship. Their lives are, however, cold, without sunshine, deprived of high ideals, and consequently they lack either the desire or the power to lift themselves above the common atmosphere of the earth; hence, they remain intensely material. They are spiritually dead.

The higher intellectual classes come next in the evolutionary series. It is useless to try to conceal the fact that these classes are laboring under the pang of an invincible spiritual disappointment. For them the past with its illusory beliefs is fleeting fast into oblivion. Our new acquisitions in the moral, intellectual, philosophical and scientific fields, have made havoc of the creeds which for many centuries have given satisfaction, hence peace of soul, to our ancestors.

The mind of the modern intellectual man, ever active, has become relentless in its search after the "whence, why and whither" of existence, the grandest problem now agitating humanity. Naturally enough, psychological science has been applied to for help, in solving this momentous riddle, and this science has now certainly become the absorbing subject of contemporaneous thought.

Our increasing sensibility; our ever-developing faculty to sense, to perceive, to apprehend through the intellect, or through some higher attribute, is growing every day more complex, as M. Baie,* a

*At the time I was writing this essay, over a half dozen years ago, a copy of a Belgian evening paper, "Le Soir," came to my notice. I perused therein the literary review of a book the title of which I forgot. Soon I became interested in the reading, as it described in a masterly manner, the psychological conditions obtaining then, and yet to-day, in the world of advanced thought. I took several notes of the ideas put forth therein, but these notes have been lost during the change and confusion which accompanied the earthquake and fire

Belgian literary critic so truthfully and eloquently relates, and is rendered more acute by the vast knowledge we possess in the multiple branches of human attainments. These latter constitute reservoirs into the depths of which the mind may delve at will, as it endeavors to discover a rational basis for the ideals it never ceases to create.

Psychological research and analysis are prone to give rise to vistas of infinite possibilities, to forebodings, and deep-seated presentiments which extend this faculty to sense into the invisible, into the mysterious worlds. The very depths of long past civilizations are questioned in zealous efforts to extort from them the secret of their undeniable greatness, and of the mysterious powers wielded by their sacerdotal hierarchies.

We would fain possess titanic arms, and in a gigantic embrace rescue humanity from the materialistic quagmire in which the majority of men wallow, and place it at once upon the pedestal of happiness and enlightenment.

We vibrate ever, like the cells of a prodigious brain, the custodian of many centuries of culture, of suffering, of stupendous dreams. Never sated in our limitless outreachings, we feel a thrill of happiwhich destroyed the city of San Francisco. I am thus confined to crediting M. Baie with a fine comprehension and thorough analysis of the dangers and also of the beauties afforded by psychological science.

ness in our perpetual soarings after the unattainable; unafraid and hopeful, the mind delves into the abyss of the unfathomable; we delight in the dizziness of our endeavor to grasp the great unknowable, and still hope against hope while contemplating with an eagle mind the vastness of the realm over which these elusive fairies of the intellect reign supreme.

These desperate efforts, however praiseworthy they may be, conceal a danger, the danger of exhausting the resources of an energy however immeasurable it may appear, and of a sensibility which may become morbid through very acuteness.

Moreover, these violent desires to know, disproportioned to the means of satisfying them, impress upon the soul certain scars, deformation perhaps, which render the mind incapable of any action, or continued effort at action, thereby paralyzing any attempt at the realization of its giant dreams, those poems endowed with a supreme energy, but which a positive personal character and a strenuous determination alone can chisel or mould into shape or usefulness.

In this particular disposition of mind the will, instead of forming into homogeneous groups ideas begotten by logical deductions, often accomodates itself with themes picked up at random, furnished merely by circumstances or passing suggestions. The will, then, may lose itself in capricious creations of its own, in thoughts replete with vague notions, in memories of fleeting forms, which lead in the end to vertigo, the vertigo, it is true, of a grand and sublime reverie.

"Fiery steeds of thought," says Selestor in "The Scribe of a Soul," by Clara Iza Price, "have brought man to that realm where stoppeth all investigation; yet the mind is supple in its leaps as a hungry tiger, and stoppeth not at barriers, but beateth against bars and breaketh the bonds down.

"Such is the symbol of the great motive power in man, which goeth on and on and ceaseth never, but buildeth and rebuildeth, and thus souls are wrought." Yes, and thus souls are wrought. If the soul laboring under the vertigo of a grand and sublime reverie, has arrived at those dizzy heights by mere intellectuality, has had no other aim than to gain mental knowledge, no other motive power than the one furnished by the brain and the desire to learn the secrets of the psychic world — and perhaps through this knowledge enhance its own personality — then disappointment is sure to follow. In the inaptitude of conciliating the laws of the world with its ever-expanding inclinations, the weakness of the poor soul will only become too apparent. "Its hopes, however," continues M. Baie, "never lessen; they increase in proportion to the very hopelessness of the realization of its dreams."

We can easily surmise the depth of a sentiment thus originated, and how much it is disposed to feel the crying insufficiency of our social laws and reforms. The early ushering into the intellectual life, the excitation of the brain, the abundance of refined ideas, and of ambiguous dreams, have, for a long time, filled the soul with immoderate desires, which unfortunately must fall at the threshold of the real.

Unable to find happiness at the end, the poor dear soul gets unnerved through perpetual tension, fruitless in its results, and finally may settle down in a cold skepticism, deprived of all energy or inclination to continue the struggle. This mental state is the most depressing as it is superinduced by a long series of disappointments. This soul, after many years of ardent study and intellectual effort, has landed, perhaps, on the shore of reality a pitiful spiritual wreck. It then styles psychology a sad and disappointing science and may bury itself finally in absolute incredulity, the lamentable result of long ill-controlled, misdirected hyper-sensibility. This is one of the sad results to which the study of psychological science may lead.

The majority of those students who delve into the mysteries of that science are endowed with a nature more or less emotional, and their endeavors mainly center in trying to discover laws, or ways and means, by the aid of which they may attain certain psychic powers and thereby place their personality upon some high pedestal of more or less material usefulness.

Generally, however, and it is consoling that it is so, the sensibility of the investigator or student of psychical science gradually spiritualizes itself as it ascends the summits of abstraction. But there also lurks a danger, the soul may be absorbed and lost in those transcendental dreamings with which it identifies itself, for our new acquisitions, alluded to before, in the moral, intellectual, philosophical and scientific worlds, are reluctant to substitute a new creed for the one from which their revelations have just released us. Furthermore, science itself seems inclined to abandon us at the threshold of unexplored avenues, fearing its powerlessness to accompany us in the investigations of new territories perceived by a sensitive and cultured consciousness, albeit these territories may hold forth the promise of discoveries of transcendent import, yea, of eternal verities vouchsafing infinite joys to those who dare to venture beyond their border line.

The poor soul, thus abandoned, is left alone to trace its own pathway, to build its own credo, to work out its own evolution, guided solely by that same sensitive and cultured consciousness acquired by deep study and profound meditation.

And now, when the soul has come to be fully conscious that solely upon its own efforts it must depend for its salvation, that it alone must plan and build the path that may lead it, in its own judgment, to a transcendental knowledge and truth, to eternal life, then it must inaugurate in earnest the strenuous life spiritual. It must take hold of the practical spiritual life with a determined will. It should not abandon by any means its beautiful dreams, but descend to earth to realize these dreams here and now. It should be fully armed for the battle and equipped with coat of mail, helmet and sabre, ready to slash right and left, to clear the upward spiritual highway of all obstacles, to eradicate the brambles and briars which would assuredly render the road one of painful ascent.

Theodore Roosevelt writes: — "The creed which each man in his heart believes to be essential to his own salvation is for him alone to determine; but we have a right to pass judgment upon his actions toward those about him."

Mr. Roosevelt is right. The good or bad result of a man's belief is always determined by his actions in everyday life.

In our Western civilization we cannot and we should not endeavor to lead the life of abstraction which characterizes the life of the spiritual leader in the Orient. We cannot proceed to the jungle, abandon wife and children, live with the beasts, or stand on a column for months, in order to spiritualize ourselves or gain strength of will against evil. The disciple must stay in the midst of his fellow men, live with them, intermingle with them, be an exemplary citizen, and thus by his daily actions prove the true value of his creed, which is a test as necessary to himself as it is to his fellow man.

Mr. Eoosevelt again states: — "The cloistered virtue which timidily shrinks from all contact with the rough world of actual life, and the uneasy, self-conscious vanity which misnames itself virtue, and which declines to co-operate with whatever does not adopt its own fantastic standard, are rather worse than valueless, because they tend to rob the forces of good of elements on which they ought to be able to count in the ceaseless contest with the forces of evil."

No man in good health and vigor is justified in isolating himself for life from his fellow men, however high his purpose for the attainment of spiritual efficiency may be.

Our country is a country of solidarity and interdependence of its citizens. The enormous and glorious facilities for obtaining a general education, the comparative ease with which every well-balanced citizen may obtain a livelihood for himself and family, are powerful instruments to obliterate class lines, to bring high and low within hearing — within calling distance. Our work, then, in the spiritual field must be a work performed among men and for others as well as for our individual selves.*

^Reviewing this essay a last time before delivering it to the publisher — this being in the month of November, 1911 — I feel it impossible to dismiss Mr. Roosevelt without giving, in conclusion, a short thought concerning him and his career.

To Mr. Roosevelt is certainly due the inauguration of that era of political and social purification now sweeping in a mighty wave over the entire area of the United States. Of his achievements in that line, and of the immensely beneficent influences he has sown with plentiful hands all over the land, emphasizing the necessity, in all justice and in all honor, of according a square deal to every man, woman and child in all their activities of life we will not speak. These achievements, glorious as they are, are known and duly appreciated, not only in our land, but in all civilized countries of the whole world. This appreciation has been proven by royal receptions granted him by emperors, kings, and other ruling heads of the countries of the world, after the conclusion of his long term as President of this Republic.

Since Mr. Roosevelt has resumed the duties of the plain, common citizen he is continuing his good work, the pen having replaced the rapier. The criticisms which had continually assailed him during his career as President have not been abandoned; but, on the contrary, have at times grown to greater vehemence. It has been steadily brought forward that Mr. Roosevelt, instead of descending anew in the seething arena of politics, ought to have retired to private life immediately after his triumphant return from Europe, where all possible consideration and honor had been bestowed upon him. "He should have rested upon his laurels," it was suggested on every side, and these laurels were pronounced abundant enough to have formed a comfortable couch for him to rest upon in peace, glory and contentment all the remaining days of his life!

Not he, Theodore Roosevelt ! Honors, glory, peace, while duly appreciated by him, and while acknowledging, with his good natured broad smile, the little halo they threw around him, he will never submit to their caresses and go to sleep under their soothing influence. Duty ! Duty ! ! Duty ! ! ! is Theodore Roosevelt's watchword. Duty to his fellow men, duty to his country, duty to his God. Helping him to rescue the children of earth, his beloved children, from the thraldom under which they are now hopelessly groaning.

The inner urgings of his soul, the mysterious energy constantly impressing his consciousness with the necessity of working for the rescue of his fellow men, are the impelling forces directing Mr. Roosevelt's life. Over these forces he has no control ; their urgings he must obey, toward the redemption of his fellow men on earth; he must labor devoutly, endlessly, for he has been chosen and declared a faithful servant of the Lord. And what may his reward be? The same reward accorded to all faithful servants as indicated by the angel "Selestor" "The Submissive Life," forming the second part of this book. He said to the young prophet : "Crowns of Light, Crowns of Glory, Crowns of Suffering, and Crowns of Joy I see for thee."

CHAPTEK II

THE UNIVERSE, ITS LAWS, ITS DESTINY, AND THE ROLE MAN IS ASSIGNED TO PLAY IN IT

To understand the role man is designed to play in the grand drama of creation it becomes indispensable that he should have a fair comprehension of the laws of the universe in which he lives and has his being. Thus only may he be enabled to conform to those laws, learn what is required of him and why, and thus work out understandingly the purpose of his existence; yea, his very destiny.

To convey to the reader a preliminary insight to the mighty processes of divine involution and evolution, these basic facts and eternal foundation of all that is and of all that will be forever, we will cite here as an illustration, easily apprehended, the instructions imparted by a high priest of the Himalayan brotherhood to one of his initiates*: —

To make you readily and thoroughly understand this great mystery of involution and evolution, let us take, by way of illustration, a piece of ice, which we will call inert matter. Apply to it a higher tempera-

*On the Heights of Himalay." Fenno & Co., New York.

ture and it becomes water. In this state the ice will have undergone a change and advanced a step in its evolutionary process ; will, in consequence, have higher qualities. It can be utilized as drink for man, beast and plant; for motive power, and is a solvent of matter, which the piece of ice could not be.

"A step further in its evolution, and under a still higher temperature, the ice becomes steam. This steam has more potentialities than either ice or water; it is invisible, it has greater mobility than water ; is capable of expansion, has more properties, and is possessed of more of the attributes of force. One step higher and we have what, for a lack of a more suitable phrase, is called superheated steam. This, man has not, as yet, been able to control. Itis completely invisible. Its potentialities are immense, incomprehensible; so much so that some of our most terrific earthquakes are believed to be caused by the water of the ocean coming in contact with subterranean fires and producing superheated steam in large quantities, thereby uplifting the crust of the earth for hundreds of leagues.

"Another stage in the evolution of that piece of ice and it becomes the ether of the scientist, filling all interplanetary space. This ether is identical with the Akasa of the occultist, contains the essential elements of everything in existence, and is one of the organizing and life-giving forces of the universe.

"Still another step, and this piece of ice becomes celestial essence, or an atmosphere in which creatures near to God have their being. A few steps more in the evolutionary process and it has become the essence of Parabraham or God himself.

"In this grand laboratory of God, the brain of man is the first apparatus on earth which can convert matter into thought-force; and that power, everlasting in its effect, is a very potent factor in the evolutionary process of all things, either a baneful, thwarting force, or helpful and sublime, the very handmaid of the Heavenly Father in the fulfilment of His designs."

The foregoing example of the block of ice becoming finally an integral part of the Cosmic Energy, of the Absolute himself, is an illustration given by the high priest of the evolutionary process in nature, or the attainment to supreme potential, through the acceleration of vibratory motion. Reversing the process, through involution, or decreasing the rapidity of vibratory motion and consequent lowering of the Supreme Potential, the God essence or Pure Spirit gradually descends into materiality, assumes successive forms of matter, ending in the block of ice in which the God essence and pure Spirit are still immanent.

To obtain a more thorough understanding of these transcendental processes of involution and evolution, the real basic cause of all that is, the reader will permit us to refer to a masterly expose of the spiritual cosmogony of the universe as given by Balthazar the Magus to his disciples.*

"The primal cause of all that is, the first principle of the universe and all that it contains, is the incomprehensible, inscrutable, unmanifested, an unsolvable and eternal mystery — the ABSOLUTE! 'Ko human mind, however high it may have mounted on the steps of the throne, can apprehend the idea of the Absolute. It is beyond the reach of intellect, intuition, clairvoyance itself. He, the Absolute, is the origin of all creation, of all life. He is Omniscience, Omnipotence, all that was, is, and shall be. He is, eternally, Himself and unchangeable. He is Life, Motion, Existence ! All that is is of Him and from Him ; yet, although always giving, He is never depleted, for He is forever receiving and throbbing from very fulness. The Absolute is the Principle, the core of all Force, the Origin of all Motion, the Primal Cause of all Manifestation, the center and sphere of supreme POTENTIAL. From this center, his great heart, pulsing and vibrating with life, flow into space emanations which form a second sphere encircling the first like a halo. This is the Aura of the ABSOLUTE and constitutes the zone of PUEE SPIRIT. This zone is impregnated with all the attributes and potentialities of the Absolute himself, for it is HIMSELF.

*"Balthazar the Magus." Fenno & Co.. New York.

28 TKe Strenuous Life Spiritual

"From this sphere of pure spirit, as a first differentiation, emanate primarily the Spiritual Ions which are the initial units and principles of all soul-formation ; secondly, the ions of force, and thirdly the ions of substance. Although differentiated, these three series of ions are one, constituting as an aggregate the source of all creative force of the universe. They represent the first phase of Voluntary Involution of the Absolute in his descent into matter. They are the general parent of all existences, the occult ultimates of the ions that are already recognized by modern science. The spiritual ions, the first radiations from the zone of pure spirit, are, as I have stated, the units and initial principles of soul-formation; they are potentially supreme. Next in power come the Ions of force. They are the occult messengers of the ABSOLUTE, the unquestioning executors of his never-varying laws. The Ions of substance are also ultimates, the ultimates of those ions that have replaced the atoms of science. They are infinitesimal, beyond the reach of any invented or ever imagined microscope, yet they are REAL SUBSTANCE— the first cosmic matter in its highest condition of etherealization or sublimation. These three series of Ions are the first emanations from the sphere of pure spirit, which sphere is a zone of secondary emanations from the Absolute himself. Therefore these Ions are still HIMSELF.

"The spiritual Ions, inseparably united in the past with the Ions of force and substance, must remain so united throughout the scons of future ages.

"Through countless peregrinations in the accomplishment of their multifarious destinies, the ions must, fatally, obey the dictates of the Absolute during his voluntary descent into matter — His Involutlon; and this involution is eternal. These Ions exist and perform their mission in perfect but passive harmony until involution has attained the extreme limit of materialization, when matter has reached its lowest potential of vibration. Then, the Absolute has offered himself in divine holocaust to the countless existences presently to spring from his bosom.

"Matter is now king ! Matter holds the Omnipotent a prisoner in its embrace. From supreme Unity, the Absolute has now diffused and disseminated himself into the infinitude of the infinitesimal. His sacrifice of himself is now complete. In divine abnegation he is totally absorbed into matter ; yet matter is still Himself.

"With the total absorption of the Absolute in matter, with his renunciation of active will, comes chaos. Fiery elements combat in violent efforts to form planets; lurid flames shoot up for incalculable distances in mid-space ; terrific electric disturbances circle around them, they are the last throes of warring matter approaching its lowest potential. Gradually these disturbances subside; the fiery elements confine themselves to zones or burning spots, and vaporous bands form around them. Gradually, slowly, during ages, their temperature lessens until finally the lowest potential of energy in matter is attained, followed by glacial epochs or apparent immobility and stagnation.

"At this point Involution is complete; and as there can be no cessation in cosmic motion (the supreme law of the universe being continuous activity), evolution has here its beginning. The Divine Essence henceforth gradually divests itself of matter, or rather, it spiritualizes matter, that it may return to the bosom of the Absolute from which it was a direct emanation.

"The process of the evolution of animate and inanimate nature is conducted by the occult workings of the spiritual Ions, whose activity is the never-ceasing energy of the Absolute immanent in them. Accelerated vibration is produced, constituting a call to life and action. The spiritual Ions are no longer content to remain passive and buried in a shroud of matter. They begin to vibrate forcibly; they have a work to accomplish, they must free themselves from the domination of the Ions of substance, with which they are, however, indissolubly united. In the awakening to life they find allies in the ions of force also immanent of the Absolute, and acting by his influence. Together they wage war against the ions of substance, knowing instinctively that the victory will award them a high destiny. This victory will also benefit matter by elevating and purifying it, for MATTER IS ALSO GOD. From this moment, evolution will proceed on its infinite journey, developing slowly and by infinite transformations, creations of constantly ascending types. This process operates first in the mineral, then in the vegetable, last in the animal kingdom. Animate nature gradually tends toward perfection in the moral, intellectual and spiritual worlds; in overcoming matter and liberating the ABSOLUTE from its bonds, it gradually incorporates more and more of the divine. So, the evolutionary process will continue until the sphere of pure spirit is again attained. There the great souls who have labored to lives of all with whom they are brought in contact — they, the higher products of spiritual evolution — shall dwell in everlasting bliss."