GNANY YOGA/PART 9
THE NINTH LESSON
METEMPSYCHOSIS.
As
we have said in our last lesson, while the Yogi Teachings throw an important
light upon the Western theory of Evolution, still there is a vital difference
between the Western scientific teachings on the subject and the Eastern
theories and teachings. The Western idea is that the process is a mechanical,
material one, and that "mind" is a "by-product" of Matter
in its evolution. But the Eastern Teachings hold that Mind is under, back of,
and antecedent to all the work of Evolution, and that Matter is a
"by-product" of Mind, rather than the reverse.
The
Eastern Teachings hold that Evolution is caused by Mind striving, struggling,
and pressing forward toward fuller and fuller expression, using Matter as a
material, and yet always struggling to free itself from the confining and
retarding influence of the latter. The struggle results in an Unfoldment, causing
sheath after sheath of the confining material bonds to be thrown off and
discarded, as the Spirit presses upon the Mind, and the Mind moulds and shapes
the Matter. Evolution is but the process of birth of the Individualized Spirit,
from the web of Matter in which it has been confined. And the pains and
struggles are but incidents of the spiritual parturition.
In this and following lessons we shall consider the
"Spiritual
Evolution, of the race—that is the Unfoldment of Individualized Spirit—just as we
did the subject Physical Evolution in the last two lessons.
We
have seen that preceding Spiritual Evolution, there was a Spiritual Involution.
The Yogi Philosophy holds that in the Beginning, the Absolute meditated upon
the subject of Creation, and formed a Mental Image, or Thought-Form, of an
Universal Mind—that is, of an Universal Principle of Mind. This Universal
Principle of Mind is the Great Ocean of "Mind-Stuff" from which all
the phenomenal Universe is evolved. From this Universal Principle of Mind,
proceeded the Universal Principle of Force or Energy. And from the latter,
proceeded the Universal Principle of Matter.
The
Universal Principle of Mind was bound by Laws imposed upon it by the
mental-conception of the Absolute—the Cosmic Laws of Nature. And these laws
were the compelling causes of the Great Involution. For before Evolution was
possible, Involution was necessary. We have explained that the word
"involve" means "to wrap up; to cover; to hide, etc."
Before a thing can be "evolved," that is "unfolded," it
must first be "involved," that is "wrapped up." A thing
must be put in, before it may be taken out.
Following
the laws of Involution imposed upon it, the Universal Mental Principle involved
itself in the Universal Energy Principle; and then in obedience to the same
laws, the latter involved itself in the Universal Material Principle. Each
stage of Involution, or wrapping-up, created for itself (out of the
higher principle which in being involved) the wrapper or sheath which is to be
used to wrap-up the higher principle. And the higher forms of the Material
Principle formed sheaths of lower forms, until forms of Matter were produced
far more gross than any known to us now, for they have disappeared in the
Evolutionary ascent. Down, down, down went the process of Involution, until the
lowest point was reached. Then ensued a moment's pause, preceding the beginning
of the Evolutionary Unfoldment.
Then
began the Great Evolution. But, as we have told you, the Upward movement was
distinguished by the "Tendency toward Individualization." That is,
while the Involuntary Process was accomplished by Principles as Principles, the
Upward Movement was begun by a tendency toward "splitting up," and
the creation of "individual forms," and the effort to perfect them
and build upon them higher and still higher succeeding forms, until a stage was
reached in which the Temple of the Spirit was worthy of being occupied by Man,
the self-conscious expression of the Spirit. For the coming of Man was the
first step of a higher form of Evolution—the Spiritual Evolution. Up to this
time there had been simply an Evolution of Bodies, but now there came the
Evolution of Souls.
And
this Evolution of Souls becomes possible only by the process of Metempsychosis
(pronounced me-temp-si-ko-sis) which is more commonly known as
Reincarnation, or Re-embodiment.
It
becomes necessary at this point to call your attention to the general subject
of Metempsychosis, for the reason that the public mind is most confused
regarding this important subject. It has the most vague ideas regarding the
true teachings, and has somehow acquired the impression that the teachings are
that human souls are re-born into the bodies of dogs, and other animals. The
wildest ideas on this subject are held by some people. And, not only is this
so, but even a number of those who hold to the doctrine of Reincarnation, in
some of its forms, hold that their individual souls were once the individual
souls of animals, from which state they have evolved to the present condition.
This last is a perversion of the highest Yogi Teachings, and we trust to make
same plain in these lessons. But, first we must take a look at the general
subject of Metempsychosis, that we may see the important part it has played in
the field of human thought and belief.
While
to many the idea of Metempsychosis may seem new and unfamiliar, still it is one
of the oldest conceptions of the race, and in ages past was the accepted belief
of the whole of the civilized race of man of the period. And even today, it is
accepted as Truth by the majority of the race
The
almost universal acceptance of the idea by the East with its teeming life,
counterbalances its comparative non-reception by the Western people of the day.
From the early days of written or legendary history, Metempsychosis has been
the accepted belief of many of the most intelligent of the race. It is found
underlying the magnificent civilization of ancient Egypt, and from thence it
traveled to the Western world being held as the highest truth by such teachers
as Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Virgil and Ovid. Plato's Dialogues are full
of this teaching. The Hindus have always held to it. The Persians, inspired by
their learned Magi, accepted it implicitly. The ancient Druids, and Priests of
Gaul, as well as the ancient inhabitants of Germany, held to it. Traces of it
may be found in the remains of the Aztec, Peruvian and Mexican civilizations.
The
Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece, the Roman Mysteries, and the Inner Doctrines of
the Cabbala of the Hebrews all taught the Truths of Metempsychosis. The early
Christian Fathers; the Gnostic and Manichaeans and other sects of the Early
Christian people, all held to the doctrine. The modern German philosophers have
treated it with the greatest respect, if indeed they did not at least partially
accept it. Many modern writers have considered it gravely, and with respect.
The following quotations will give an idea of "how the wind is
blowing" in the West:
"Of
all the theories respecting the origin of the soul, Metempsychosis seems to me
the most plausible and therefore the one most likely to throw light on the
question of a life to come."—Frederick H. Hedge.
"It
would be curious if we should find science and philosophy taking up again the
old theory of metempsychosis, remodelling' it to suit our present modes of
religious and scientific thought, and launching it again on the wide ocean of
human belief. But stranger things have happened in the history of human
opinions."—James Freeman Clarke.
"If
we could legitimately determine any question of belief by the number of its
adherents, the —— would apply to metempsychosis more fitly than to any other. I
think it is quite as likely to be revived and to come to the front as any rival
theory."—Prof. Wm. Knight.
"It
seems to me, a firm and well-grounded faith in the doctrine of Christian
metempsychosis might help to regenerate the world. For it would be a faith not
hedged around with many of the difficulties and objections which beset other
forms of doctrine, and it offers distinct and pungent motives for trying to
lead a more Christian life, and for loving and helping our brother-man."—Prof.
Francis Bowen.
"The
doctrine of Metempsychosis may almost claim to be a natural or innate belief in
the human mind, if we may judge from its wide diffusion among the nations of
the earth, and its prevalence throughout the historical ages."—Prof.
Francis Bowen.
"When
Christianity first swept over Europe, the inner thought of its leaders was
deeply tinctured with this truth. The Church tried ineffectually to eradicate
it, but in various sects it kept sprouting forth beyond the time of Erigina and
Bonaventura, its mediaeval advocates. Every great intuitional soul, as
Paracelsus, Boehme, and Swedenborg, has adhered to it. The Italian luminaries,
Giordano Bruno and Campanella. embraced it. The best of German philosophy is
enriched by it. In Schopenhauer, Lessing, Hegel, Leibnitz, Herder, and Fichte,
the younger, it is earnestly advocated. The anthropological systems of Kant and
Schelling furnish points of contact with it. The younger Helmont, in De
Revolutione Animarum, adduces in two hundred problems all the arguments
which may be urged in favor of the return of souls into human bodies according
to Jewish ideas. Of English thinkers, the Cambridge Platonists defended it with
much learning and acuteness, most conspicuously Henry More; and in Cudsworth
and Hume it ranks as the most rational theory of immortality. Glanvil's Lux
Orientalis devotes a curious treatise to it. It captivated the minds
of Fourier and Leroux. Andre Pezzani's book on The Plurality of the
Soul's Lives works out the system on the Roman Catholic idea of
expiation."—E.D. WALKER, in "Re-Incarnation, a Study of Forgotten
Truth."
And
in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, and this the early part of the
Twentieth Century, the general public has been made familiar with the idea of
Metempsychosis, under the name of Re-incarnation, by means of the great volume
of literature issued by The Theosophical Society and its allied following. No
longer is the thought a novelty to the Western thinker, and many have found
within themselves a corroborative sense of its truth. In fact, to many the mere
mention of the idea has been sufficient to awaken faint shadowy memories of
past lives, and, to such, many heretofore unaccountable traits of character,
tastes, inclinations, sympathies, dislikes, etc., have been explained.
The
Western world has been made familiar with the idea of the re-birth of souls
into new bodies, under the term of "Re-incarnation," which means
"a re-entry into flesh," the word "incarnate" being derived
from the words "in," and "carnis," meaning
flesh—the English word meaning "to clothe with flesh," etc. The word
Metempsychosis, which we use in this lesson, is concerned rather with the
"passage of the soul" from one tenement to another, the
"fleshly" idea being merely incidental.
The
doctrine of Metempsychosis, or Re-incarnation, together with its accompanying
doctrine, Karma, or Spiritual Cause and Effect, is one of the great foundation
stones of the Yogi Philosophy, as indeed it is of the entire system of systems
of Oriental Philosophy and Thought. Unless one understands Metempsychosis he
will never be able to understand the Eastern Teachings, for he will be without
the Key. You who have read the Bhagavad Gita, that wonderful Hindu
Epic, will remember how the thread of Re-Birth runs through it all. You
remember the words of Krishna to Arjuna: "As
the soul, wearing this material body, experienceth the stages of infancy,
youth, manhood, and old age, even so shall it, in due time, pass on to another
body, and in other incarnations shall it again live, and move and play its
part." "These bodies, which act as enveloping coverings for the souls
occupying them, are but finite things—things of the moment—and not the Real Man
at all. They perish as all finite things perish—let them perish." "As
a man throweth away his old garments, replacing them with new and brighter
ones, even so the Dweller of the body, having quitted its old mortal frame,
entereth into others which are new and freshly prepared for it. Weapons pierce
not the Real Man, nor doth the fire burn him; the water affecteth him not, nor
the wind drieth him nor bloweth him away. For he is impregnable and impervious
to these things of the world of change—he is eternal, permanent, unchangeable,
and unalterable—Real."
This
view of life gives to the one who holds to it, an entirely different mental
attitude. He no longer identifies himself with the particular body that he may
be occupying, nor with any other body for that matter. He learns to regard his
body just as he would a garment which he is wearing, useful to him for certain purposes,
but which will in time be discarded and thrown aside for a better one, and one
better adapted to his new requirements and needs. So firmly is this idea
embedded in the consciousness of the Hindus, that they will often say "My
body is tired," or "My body is hungry," or "My body is full
of energy," rather than that "I am" this or that thing. And this
consciousness, once attained, gives to one a sense of strength, security and
power unknown to him who regards his body as himself. The first step for the
student who wishes to grasp the idea of Metempsychosis, and who wishes to
awaken in his consciousness a certainty of its truth, is to familiarize himself
with the idea of his "I" being a thing independent and a part from
his body, although using the latter as an abiding place and a useful shelter
and instrument for the time being.
Many
writers on the subject of Metempsychosis have devoted much time, labor and
argument to prove the reasonableness of the doctrine upon purely speculative,
philosophical, or metaphysical grounds. And while we believe that such efforts
are praiseworthy for the reason that many persons must be first convinced in
that way, still we feel that one must really feel the truth of
the doctrine from something within his own consciousness, before he will
really believe it to be truth. One may convince himself of the
logical necessity of the doctrine of Metempsychosis, but at the same time he
may drop the matter with a shrug of the shoulders and a "still, who
knows?" But when one begins to feel within himself the awakening
consciousness of a "something in the past," not to speak of the
flashes of memory, and feeling of former acquaintance with the subject, then,
and then only, does he begin to believe.
Many
people have had "peculiar experiences" that are accountable only upon
the hypothesis of Metempsychosis. Who has not experienced the consciousness of
having felt the thing before—having thought it some time in the
dim past? Who has not witnessed new scenes that appear old, very old? Who has not
met persons for the first time, whose presence awakened memories of a past
lying far back in the misty ages of long ago? Who has not been seized at times
with the consciousness of a mighty "oldness" of soul? Who has not
heard music, often entirely new compositions, which somehow awakens memories of
similar strains, scenes, places, faces, voices, lands, associations and events,
sounding dimly on the strings of memory as the breezes of the harmony floats
over them? Who has not gazed at some old painting, or piece of statuary, with
the sense of having seen it all before? Who has not lived through events, which
brought with them a certainty of being merely a repetition of some shadowy
occurrences away back in lives lived long ago? Who has not felt the influence
of the mountain, the sea, the desert, coming to them when they are far from
such scenes—coming so vividly as to cause the actual scene of the present to
fade into comparative unreality. Who has not had these experiences—we ask?
Writers,
poets, and others who carry messages to the world, have testified to these
things—and nearly every man or woman who hears the message recognizes it as
something having correspondence in his or her own life. Sir Walter Scott tells
us in his diary: "I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down,
that yesterday, at dinner time, I was strangely haunted by what I would call
the sense of preexistence, viz., a confused idea that nothing that passed was
said for the first time; that the same topics had been discussed and the same
persons had stated the same opinions on them. The sensation was so strong as to
resemble what is called the mirage in the desert and a calenture on board
ship." The same writer, in one of his novels, "Guy Mannering,"
makes one of his characters say: "Why is it that some scenes awaken
thoughts which belong as it were, to dreams of early and shadowy recollections,
such as old Brahmin moonshine would have ascribed to a state of previous
existence. How often do we find ourselves in society which we have never before
met, and yet feel impressed with a mysterious and ill-defined consciousness
that neither the scene nor the speakers nor the subject are entirely new; nay,
feel as if we could anticipate that part of the conversation which has not yet
taken place."
Bulwer
speaks of "that strange kind of inner and spiritual memory which so often
recalls to us places and persons we have never seen before, and which
Platonists would resolve to be the unquenched consciousness of a former
life." And again, he says: "How strange is it that at times a feeling
comes over us as we gaze upon certain places, which associates the scene either
with some dim remembered and dreamlike images of the Past, or with a prophetic
and fearful omen of the Future. Every one has known a similar strange and
indistinct feeling at certain times and places, and with a similar inability to
trace the cause." Poe has written these words on the subject: "We
walk about, amid the destinies of our world existence, accompanied by dim but
ever present memories of a Destiny more vast—very distant in the bygone time
and infinitely awful. We live out a youth peculiarly haunted by such dreams,
yet never mistaking them for dreams. As memories we know them. During our youth
the distinctness is too clear to deceive us even for a moment. But the doubt of
manhood dispels these feelings as illusions."
Home
relates an interesting incident in his life, which had a marked effect upon his
beliefs, thereafter. He relates that upon an occasion when he visited a strange
house in London he was shown into a room to wait. He says: "On looking
around, to my astonishment everything appeared perfectly familiar to me. I
seemed to recognize every object. I said to myself, 'What is this? I have never
been here before, and yet I have seen all this, and if so, then there must be a
very peculiar knot in that shutter.'" He proceeded to examine the shutter,
and much to his amazement the knot was there.
We
have recently heard of a similar case, told by an old lady who formerly lived
in the far West of the United States. She states that upon one occasion a party
was wandering on the desert in her part of the country, and found themselves
out of water. As that part of the desert was unfamiliar even to the guides, the
prospect for water looked very poor indeed. After a fruitless search of several
hours, one of the party, a perfect stranger to that part of the country,
suddenly pressed his hand to his head, and acted in a dazed manner, crying out
"I know that a water-hole is over to the right—this way," and away he
started with the party after him. After a half-hour's journey they reached an
old hidden water-hole that was unknown even to the oldest man in the party. The
stranger said that he did not understand the matter, but that he had somehow
experienced a sensation of having been there before, and knowing
just where the water-hole was located. An old Indian who was questioned about
the matter, afterward, stated that the place had been well known to his people
who formerly travelled much on that part of the desert; and that they had
legends relating to the "hidden water-hole," running back for many
generations. In this case, it was remarked that the water-hole was situated in
such a peculiar and unusual manner, as to render it almost undiscoverable even
to people familiar with the characteristics of that part of the country. The
old lady who related the story, had it direct from the lips of one of the
party, who regarded it as "something queer," but who had never even
heard of Metempsychosis.
A
correspondent of an English magazine writes as follows: "A gentleman of
high intellectual attainments, now deceased, once told me that he had dreamed
of being in a strange city, so vividly that he remembered the streets, houses
and public buildings as distinctly as those of any place he ever visited. A few
weeks later he was induced to visit a panorama in Leicester Square, when he was
startled by seeing the city of which he had dreamed. The likeness was perfect,
except that one additional church appeared in the picture. He was so struck by
the circumstance that he spoke to the exhibitor, assuming for the purpose the
air of a traveller acquainted with the place, when he was informed that the
church was a recent erection." The fact of the addition of the church,
seems to place the incident within the rule of awakened memories of scenes
known in a past life, for clairvoyance, astral travel, etc., would show the
scene as it was at the time of the dream, not as it had been years before.
Charles
Dickens mentions a remarkable impression in his work "Pictures from
Italy." "In the foreground was a group of silent peasant girls,
leaning over the parapet of the little bridge, looking now up at the sky, now
down into the water; in the distance a deep dell; the shadow of an approaching
night on everything. If I had been murdered there in some former life I could
not have seemed to remember the place more thoroughly, or with more emphatic
chilling of the blood; and the real remembrance of it acquired in that minute
is so strengthened by the imaginary recollection that I hardly think I could
forget it."
We
have recently met two people in America who had very vivid memories of
incidents in their past life. One of these, a lady, has a perfect horror of
large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, or the Ocean, although she was
born and has lived the greater part of her life inland, far removed from any
great body of water, She has a distinct recollection of falling from a large
canoe-shape vessel, of peculiar lines, and drowning. She was quite overcome
upon her first visit to the Field Museum in Chicago, where there were exhibited
a number of models of queer vessels used by primitive people. She pointed out
one similar in shape, and lines, to the one she remembers as having fallen from
in some past life.
The
second case mentioned is that of a married couple who met each other in a
country foreign to both, on their travels. They fell in love with each other,
and both have felt that their marriage was a reunion rather than a new
attachment. The husband one day shortly after their marriage told his wife in a
rather shamed-faced way that he had occasional flashes of memory of having held
in his arms, in the dim past, a woman whose face he could not recall, but who
wore a strange necklace, he describing the details of the latter. The wife said
nothing, but after her husband had left for his office, she went to the attic
and unpacked an old trunk containing some odds and ends, relics, heirlooms,
etc., and drew from it an old necklace of peculiar pattern that her grandfather
had brought back from India, where he had lived in his younger days, and which
had been in the family ever since. She laid the necklace on the table, so that
her husband would see it upon his return. The moment his eyes fell upon it, he
turned white as death, and gasped "My God! that's the necklace!"
A
writer in a Western journal gives the following story of a Southern woman.
"When I was in Heidelberg, Germany, attending a convention of Mystics, in
company with some friends I paid my first visit to the ruined Heidelberg
Castle. As I approached it I was impressed with the existence of a peculiar
room in an inaccessible portion of the building. A paper and pencil were
provided me, and I drew a diagram of the room even to its peculiar floor. My
diagram and description were perfect, when we afterwards visited the room. In
some way, not yet clear to me, I have been connected with that apartment. Still
another impression came to me with regard to a book, which I was made to feel
was in the old library of the Heidelberg University. I not only knew what the
book was, but even felt that a certain name of an old German professor would be
found written in it. Communicating this feeling to one of the Mystics at the
convention, a search was made for the volume, but it was not found. Still the
impression clung to me, and another effort was made to find the book; this time
we were rewarded for our pains. Sure enough, there on the margin of one of the
leaves was the very name I had been given in such a strange manner. Other
things at the same time went to convince me that I was in possession of the
soul of a person who had known Heidelberg two or three centuries ago."
A
contributor to an old magazine relates, among other instances, the following
regarding a friend who remembers having died in India during the youth of some
former life. He states: "He sees the bronzed attendants gathered about his
cradle in their white dresses: they are fanning him. And as they gaze he passes
into unconsciousness. Much of his description concerned points of which he knew
nothing from any other source, but all was true to the life, and enabled me to
fix on India as the scene which he recalled."
While
comparatively few among the Western races are able to remember more than
fragments of their past lives, in India it is quite common for a man well
developed spiritually to clearly remember the incidents and details of former
incarnations, and the evidence of the awakening of such power causes little
more than passing interest among his people. There is, as we shall see later, a
movement toward conscious Metempsychosis, and many of the race are just moving
on to that plane. In India the highly developed individuals grow into a clear
recollection of their past lives when they reach the age of puberty, and when
their brains are developed sufficiently to grasp the knowledge locked up in the
depths of the soul. In the meantime the individual's memory of the past is
locked away in the recesses of his mind, just as are many facts and incidents
of his present life so locked away, to be remembered only when some one
mentions the subject, or some circumstance serves to supply the associative
link to the apparently forgotten matter.
Regarding
the faculty of memory in our present lives, we would quote the following from
the pen of Prof. William Knight, printed in the Fortnightly Review. He says:
"Memory of the details of the past is absolutely impossible. The power of
the conservative faculty, though relatively great, is extremely limited. We
forget the larger portion of experience soon after we have passed through it,
and we should be able to recall the particulars of our past years, filling all
the missing links of consciousness since we entered on the present life, before
we were in a position to remember our ante-natal experience. Birth must
necessarily be preceded by crossing the river of oblivion, while the capacity
for fresh acquisition survives, and the garnered wealth of old experience
determines the amount and character of the new."
Another
startling evidence of the proof of Metempsychosis is afforded us in the cases
of "infant prodigies," etc., which defy any other explanation. Take
the cases of the manifestation of musical talent in certain children at an
early age, for instance. Take the case of Mozart who at the age of four was
able to not only perform difficult pieces on the piano, but actually composed
original works of merit. Not only did he manifest the highest faculty of sound
and note, but also an instinctive ability to compose and arrange music, which
ability was superior to that of many men who had devoted years of their life to
study and practice. The laws of harmony—the science of commingling tones, was
to him not the work of years, but a faculty born in him. There are many similar
cases of record.
Heredity
does not explain these instances of genius, for in many of the recorded cases,
none of the ancestors manifested any talent or ability. From whom did
Shakespeare inherit his genius? From whom did Plato derive his wonderful
thought? From what ancestor did Abraham Lincoln inherit his character—coming
from a line of plain, poor, hard-working people, and possessing all of the
physical attributes and characteristics of his ancestry, he, nevertheless,
manifested a mind which placed him among the foremost of his race. Does not
Metempsychosis give us the only possible key? Is it not reasonable to suppose
that the abilities displayed by the infant genius, and the talent of the men
who spring from obscure origin, have their root in the experiences of a
previous life?
Then
take the cases of children at school. Children of even the same family manifest
different degrees of receptivity to certain studies. Some "take to"
one thing, and some to another. Some find arithmetic so easy that they almost
absorb it intuitively, while grammar is a hard task for them; while their
brothers and sisters find the exact reverse to be true. How many have found
that when they would take up some new study, it is almost like recalling
something already learned. Do you student, who are now reading these lines take
your own case. Does not all this Teaching seem to you like the repetition of
some lesson learned long ago? Is it not like remembering something already
learned, rather than the learning of some new truth? Were you not attracted to
these studies, in the first place, by a feeling that you had known it all
before, somewhere, somehow? Does not your mind leap ahead of the lesson, and
see what is coming next, long before you have turned the pages? These inward
evidences of the fact of pre-existence are so strong that they outweigh the
most skillful appeal to the intellect.
This
intuitive knowledge of the truth of Metempsychosis explains why the belief in
it is sweeping over the Western world at such a rapid rate. The mere mention of
the idea, to many people who have never before heard of it, is sufficient to
cause them to recognize its truth. And though they may not understand the laws
of its operation, yet deep down in their consciousness they find a something
that convinces them of its truth. In spite of the objections that are urged
against the teaching, it is making steady headway and progress.
The
progress of the belief in Metempsychosis however has been greatly retarded by
the many theories and dogmas attached to it by some of the teachers. Not to
speak of the degrading ideas of re-birth into the bodies of animals, etc.,
which have polluted the spring of Truth, there are to be found many other
features of teaching and theory which repel people, and cause them to try to
kill out of the minds the glimmer of Truth that they find there. The human soul
instinctively revolts against the teaching that it is bound to the wheel or
re-birth, willy-nilly, compulsorily, without choice—compelled to
live in body after body until great cycles are past. The soul, perhaps already
sick of earth-life, and longing to pass on to higher planes of existence,
fights against such teaching. And it does well to so fight, for the truth is
nearer to its hearts desire. There is no soul longing that does not carry with
it the prophecy of its own fulfillment, and so it is in this case. It is true
that the soul of one filled with earthly desires, and craving for material things,
will by the very force of those desires be drawn back to earthly re-birth in a
body best suited for the gratification of the longings, desires and cravings
that it finds within itself. But it is likewise true that the earth-sick soul
is not compiled to return unless its own desires bring it back. Desire is the
key note of Metempsychosis, although up to a certain stage it may operate
unconsciously. The sum of the desires of a soul regulate its re-birth. Those
who have become sickened of all that earth has for them at this stage of its
evolution, may, and do, rest in states of existence far removed from earth
scenes, until the race progresses far enough to afford the resting soul the
opportunities and environments that it so earnestly craves.
And
more than this, when Man reaches a certain stage, the process of Metempsychosis
no longer remains unconscious, but he enters into a conscious knowing, willing
passage from one life to another. And when that stage is reached a full memory
of the past lives is unfolded, and life to such a soul becomes as the life of a
day, succeeded by a night, and then the awakening into another day with full
knowledge and recollection of the events of the day before. We are in merely
the babyhood of the race now, and the fuller life of the conscious soul lies
before us. Yea, even now it is being entered into by the few of the race that
have progressed sufficiently far on the Path. And you, student, who feel within
you that craving for conscious re-birth and future spiritual evolution, and the
distaste for, and horror of, a further blind, unconscious re-plunge into the
earth-life—know you, that this longing on your part is but an indication of
what lies before you. It is the strange, subtle, awakening of the nature within
you, which betokens the higher state. Just as the young person feels within his
or her body strange emotions, longings and stirrings, which betoken the passage
from the child state into that of manhood or womanhood, so do these spiritual
longings, desires and cravings betoken the passage from unconscious re-birth
into conscious knowing Metempsychosis, when you have passed from the scene of
your present labors.
In
our next lesson we shall consider the history of the race as its souls passed
on from the savage tribes to the man of to-day. It is the history of the
race—the history of the individual—your own history, student—the record of that
through which you have passed to become that which you now are. And as you have
climbed step after step up the arduous path, so will you, hereafter climb still
higher paths, but no longer in unconsciousness, but with your spiritual eyes
wide open to the Rays of Truth pouring forth from the great Central Sun—the
Absolute.
Concluding
this lesson, we would quote two selections from the American poet, Whitman,
whose strange genius was undoubtedly the result of vague memories springing
from a previous life, and which burst into utterances often not more than half
understood by the mind that gave them birth. Whitman says:
"Facing
West from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet
unfound, A, a child, very old, over waves, toward the house of maternity,
the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my Western sea, the
circle almost circled: For starting Westward from Hindustan, from
the vales of Kashmere, From Asia, from the north, from God, the sage,
and the hero, From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and spiceis
lands, Long having wandered since, round the earth having wandered, Now
I face home again, very pleased and joyous. (But where is what I started
for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?)"
* * * * *
"I
know I am deathless. I know that this orbit of mine cannot be swept by
a carpenter's compass; And whether I come to my own to-day, or in
ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now or with
equal cheerfulness can wait."
* *
* * *
"As
to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths. No doubt I
have died myself ten thousand times before."
* *
* * *
"Births
have brought us richness and variety, and other births have brought us richness
and variety."
* *
* * *
And
this quotation from the American poet N.P. Willis:
"But
what a mystery this erring mind? It wakes within a frame of various powers
A stranger in a new and wondrous world.
It brings an instinct from some other sphere, For its fine senses are
familiar all, And with the unconscious habit of a dream It calls and they
obey. The priceless sight Springs to its curious organ, and the
ear Learns strangely to detect the articulate air In its unseen
divisions, and the tongue Gets its miraculous lesson with the
rest, And in the midst of an obedient throng Of well trained
ministers, the mind goes forth To search the secrets of its new found
home."
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