Developing Spiritual Consciousness: Chapter VII. Cause and Effect

BY your great enemy I mean yourself. If you have the power to face your Own Soul in the darkness and silence, you will have conquered the physical or Animal-Self that dwells in sensation only."—"Light on the Path."

The above sentence embodies in a nutshell the very cream of the Yoga Philosophy. It is the quintessence of Occultism. 'The lips of wisdom are closed except to the ears of understanding.' You who read this will profit thereby only if you are bent upon spiritualising yourself. The One Thing that I want of you is Earnestness: not the earnestness of a-small-pot-soon-hot style, but one deep, abiding and constant impulsion that shall compel your being right through life. There is a widespread impression amongst those of the West that the Yogi is fit only for the lunatic asylum. But before you so clap them into Bedlam, please read, mark, and inwardly digest this lesson and judge it on its merits alone. "Never utter these words 'I do not know this thing, therefore it is not true.' One must study to know, know to understand, and understand to judge." The man whose thoughts are matter-bound,

"In stripping time of its illusions, in seeking to find what is the heart of the day, we come to the quality of the moment and drop the duration altogether. It is the depth at which we live and not at all the surface extension, that imports. We pierce to the eternity of which time is the fitting surface; and really the least acceleration of thought and the least increase of power of thought, make life to seem and to be of vast duration. We call it time, but when that acceleration and that deepening effect take place, it acquires another higher name;—Eternity"

"God works in moments."

"The measure of life, O Socrates, is with the wise;—the speaking and hearing such discourses as yours."

"There is no real happiness in this life but in intellect and virtue."

"It is the deep today that all men scorn, the rich 

The above are just a few thoughts to convince you that each stroke, each swing of the Will, each moment of utter devotion to the means, each hour of day, uncongenial labor, each spell of painful, patient concentration shall count in the Eternal Summation.

Hence pay homage to and worship the means. Honour the present moment. Set up the strong Present Tense against all else. The present moment is the crystalisation of the Past. Build into the structure of the Past the richest and finest materials, vitalize it with the rich, red, life-blood of youth, and surely, most surely, the spirit shall shine out in all its columnar majesty. Your Past is laden with the cumulative force of thoughts, desires and actions. Everything turns upon how you have lived in the past.

How cramped, how down-trodden, how sorrow-laden, how miserable, how low, mean, and hard-hearted and cruel we men and women are!

It all seems to have been ground in with our life-force.

"What I would that I do not; what I would not, that I do." "When I would do good, evil is present with me."

This is the tale of the age. It is a staggering blow to one's optimism. It dampens one's spirits. It plunges one into the bottomless pit of despair. Standing by men steeped to their lips in weaknesses, one turns inwards and doubtingly says "Am I really Strong?"

"I failed." Why? "Because, sir, you neglected the means and simply killed your time in spinning airy webs. You did not throw in your heart and soul. Here is the cause and cure of failure. In our struggles to cheat Nature, we simply cheat ourselves. In trying to drown the voice of conscience, we simply sink ourselves. In trying to follow the eat-drink-and-be-merry policy we simply retard our own inner unfoldment.

Please remember therefore:—All Yogis are tremendous causationists. There is method in their madness. They believe in methodical and persistent work. They say with me in effect:—

"Marshal your forces properly and powerfully and success is sure."

Is it not meet that we turn to something permanent, something that will live through the ages, some-

To be able to appreciate greatness at its full value, we must ourselves have the germs of greatness stirring within us. The power of the spirit is struggling to uncoil itself. Your being vibrates to the thrills of spiritual forces. Your complex though confused ideas regarding your mission, your Divine Heritage, your birthright, are shooting into order. The pressure of your chains is telling upon your nerves. Your sufferings, your little independent twists and angles and blind gropings are the promises of your future.

Intensify yourself then along these channels. Carry these thoughts constantly with you. Make them the part, nay, the whole, of your lives. They shall fit in everywhere. Ever they ring true. I hear this complaint from many men. "I am deeply impressed when I read these things or when you talk of them to us. I am full of noble resolves. I feel quite different from hum-drum humanity. But alas! the impression wears off as soon as the world demands my attention."

That shows positively that the latter compels your nature. The superficial glamour of worldism claims you for its own as Mephistopheles claimed Faust. Your carnal and sex-sensational tendencies occupy the "principal seats" in your nature. Your talk of the Higher Life is vapory in the extreme; you are like Clarence Glyndon in Lytton's "Zanoni:"—"Unsustained Aspiration"