Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran

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Sand and Foam
by Kahlil Gibran

I AM FOREVER walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam,
The high tide will erase my foot-prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam.
But the sea and the shore will remain
Forever.

*

Once I filled my hand with mist.
Then I opened it and lo, the mist was a worm.
And I closed and opened my hand again, and behold there was a bird.
And again I closed and opened my hand, and in its hollow stood a man with a sad face, turned upward.
And again I closed my hand, and when I opened it there was naught but mist.
But I heard a song of exceeding sweetness.

*

It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me.

*

They say to me in their awakening, “You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea.”
And in my dream I say to them, “I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore.”

*

Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, “Who are you?”

*

The first thought of God was an angel.
The first word of God was a man.

*

We were fluttering, wandering, longing creatures a thousand thousand years before the sea and the wind in the forest gave us words.
Now how can we express the ancient of days in us with only the sounds of our yesterdays?

*

The Sphinx spoke only once, and the Sphinx said, “A grain of sand is a desert, and a desert is a grain of sand; and now let us all be silent again.”
I heard the Sphinx, but I did not understand.

*

Long did I lie in the dust of Egypt, silent and unaware of the seasons.
Then the sun gave me birth, and I rose and walked upon the banks of the Nile,
Singing with the days and dreaming with the nights.
And now the sun threads upon me with a thousand feet that I may lie again in the dust of Egypt.
But behold a marvel and a riddle!
The very sun that gathered me cannot scatter me.
Still erect am I, and sure of foot do I walk upon the banks of the Nile.

*

Remembrance is a form of meeting.

*

Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.

*

We measure time according to the movement of countless suns; and they measure time by little machines in their little pockets.
Now tell me, how could we ever meet at the same place and the same time?

*

Space is not space between the earth and the sun to one who looks down from the windows of the Milky Way.

*

Humanity is a river of light running from the ex-eternity to eternity.

*

Do not the spirits who dwell in the ether envy man his pain?

*

On my way to the Holy City I met another pilgrim and I asked him, “Is this indeed the way to the Holy City?”
And he said, “Follow me, and you will reach the Holy City in a day and a night.”
And I followed him. And we walked many days and many nights, yet we did not reach the Holy City.
And what was to my surprise he became angry with me because he had misled me.

*

Make me, oh God, the prey of the lion, ere You make the rabbit my prey.

*

One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

*

My house says to me, “Do not leave me, for here dwells your past.”
And the road says to me, “Come and follow me, for I am your future.”
And I say to both my house and the road, “I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things.”

*

How can I lose faith in the justice of life, when the dreams of those who sleep upon feathers are not more beautiful than the dreams of those who sleep upon the earth? >Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.

*

Seven times have I despised my soul:
The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.

*

I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.

*

There is a space between man’s imagination and man’s attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.

*

Paradise is there, behind that door, in the next room; but I have lost the key.
Perhaps I have only mislaid it.

*

You are blind and I am deaf and dumb, so let us touch hands and understand.

*

The significance of man is not in what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.

*

Some of us are like ink and some like paper.
And if it were not for the blackness of some of us, some of us would be dumb;
And if it were not for the whiteness of some of us, some of us would be blind.

*

Give me an ear and I will give you a voice.

*

Our mind is a sponge; our heart is a stream.
Is it not strange that most of us choose sucking rather than running?

*

When you long for blessings that you may not name, and when you grieve knowing not the cause, then indeed you are growing with all things that grow, and rising toward your greater self.

*

When one is drunk with a vision, he deems his faint expression of it the very wine.

*

You drink wine that you may be intoxicated; and I drink that it may sober me from that other wine.

*

When my cup is empty I resign myself to its emptiness; but when it is half full I resent its half-fulness.

*

The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you.
Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.

*

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

*

A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.

*

My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.

*

When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.

*

A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.

*

The real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.

*

The voice of life in me cannot reach the ear of life in you; but let us talk that we may not feel lonely.

*

When two women talk they say nothing; when one woman speaks she reveals all of life.

*

Frogs may bellow louder than bulls, but they cannot drag the plough in the field not turn the wheel of the winepress, and of their skins you cannot make shoes.

*

Only the dumb envy the talkative.

*

If winter should say, “Spring is in my heart,” who would believe winter?

*

Every seed is a longing.

*

Should you really open your eyes and see, you would behold your image in all images.
And should you open your ears and listen, you would hear your own voice in all voices.

*

It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.

*

Though the wave of words is forever upon us, yet our depth is forever silent.

*

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

*

Now let us play hide and seek. Should you hide in my heart it would not be difficult to find you. But should you hide behind your own shell, then it would be useless for anyone to seek you. >A woman may veil her face with a smile.

*

How noble is the sad heart who would sing a joyous song with joyous hearts.

*

He who would understand a woman, or dissect genius, or solve the mystery of silence is the very man who would wake from a beautiful dream to sit at a breakfast table.

*

I would walk with all those who walk. I would not stand still to watch the procession passing by.

*

You owe more than gold to him who serves you. Give him of your heart or serve him.

*

Nay, we have not lived in vain. Have they not built towers of our bones?

*

Let us not be particular and sectional. The poet’s mind and the scorpion’s tail rise in glory from the same earth.

*

Every dragon gives birth to a St. George who slays it.

*

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.

*

Should you care to write (and only the saints know why you should) you must needs have knowledge and art and music – the knowledge of the music of words, the art of being artless, and the magic of loving your readers.

*

They dip their pens in our hearts and think they are inspired.

*

Should a tree write its autobiography it would not be unlike the history of a race.

*

If I were to choose between the power of writing a poem and the ecstasy of a poem unwritten, I would choose the ecstasy. It is better poetry.
But you and all my neighbors agree that I always choose badly.

*

Poetry is not an opinion expressed. It is a song that rises from a bleeding wound or a smiling mouth.

*

Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.

*

A POET IS a dethroned king sitting among the ashes of his palace trying to fashion an image out of the ashes.

*

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

*

In vain shall a poet seek the mother of the songs of his heart.

*

Once I said to a poet, “We shall not know your worth until you die.”
And he answered saying, “Yes, death is always the revealer. And if indeed you would know my worth it is that I have more in my heart than upon my tongue, and more in my desire than in my hand.”

*

If you sing of beauty though alone in the heart of the desert you will have an audience.

*

Poetry is wisdom that enchants the heart.
Wisdom is poetry that sings in the mind.
If we could enchant man’s heart and at the same time sing in his mind,
Then in truth he would live in the shadow of God.

*

Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.

*

We often sing lullabies to our children that we ourselves may sleep.

*

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

*

Thinking is always the stumbling stone to poetry.

*

A great singer is he who sings our silences.

*

How can you sing if your mouth be filled with food?
How shall your hand be raised in blessing if it is filled with gold?

*

They say the nightingale pierces his bosom with a thorn when he sings his love song.
So do we all. How else should we sing?

*

Genius is but a robin’s song at the beginning of a slow spring.

*

Even the most winged spirit cannot escape physical necessity.

*

A madman is not less a musician than you or myself; only the instrument on which he plays is a little out of tune.

*

The song that lies silent in the heart of a mother sings upon the lips of her child.

*

No longing remains unfulfilled.

*

I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us.

*

Your other self is always sorry for you. But your other self grows on sorrow; so all is well.

*

There is no struggle of soul and body save in the minds of those whose souls are asleep and whose bodies are out of tune.

*

When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty.

*

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.

*

Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.

*

The devil died the very day you were born.
Now you do not have to go through hell to meet an angel.

*

Many a woman borrows a man’s heart; very few could possess it.

*

If you would possess you must not claim.

*

When a man’s hand touches the hand of a woman they both touch the heart of eternity.

*

Love is the veil between lover and lover.

*

Every man loves two women; the one is the creation of his imagination, and the other is not yet born.

*

Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.

*

Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.

*

Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.

*

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

*

Love is a word of light, written by a hand of light, upon a page of light.

*

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

*

If you do not understand your friend under all conditions you will never understand him.

*

Your most radiant garment is of the other person’s weaving;
You most savory meal is that which you eat at the other person’s table;
Your most comfortable bed is in the other person’s house.
Now tell me, how can you separate yourself from the other person?

*

Your mind and my heart will never agree until your mind ceases to live in numbers and my heart in the mist.

*

We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

*

HOW SHALL MY heart be unsealed unless it be broken?

*

Only great sorrow or great joy can reveal your truth.
If you would be revealed you must either dance naked in the sun, or carry your cross.

*

Should nature heed what we say of contentment no river would seek the sea, and no winter would turn to Spring. Should she heed all we say of thrift, how many of us would be breathing this air?

*

You see but your shadow when you turn your back to the sun.

*

You are free before the sun of the day, and free before the stars of the night;
And you are free when there is no sun and no moon and no star.
You are even free when you close your eyes upon all there is.
But you are a slave to him whom you love because you love him,
And a slave to him who loves you because he loves you.

*

We are all beggars at the gate of the temple, and each one of us receives his share of the bounty of the King when he enters the temple, and when he goes out.
But we are all jealous of one another, which is another way of belittling the King.

*

You cannot consume beyond your appetite. The other half of the loaf belongs to the other person, and there should remain a little bread for the chance guest.

*

If it were not for your guests all houses would be graves.

*

Said a gracious wolf to a simple sheep, “Will you not honor our house with a visit?”
And the sheep answered, “We would have been honored to visit your house if it were not in your stomach.”

*

I stopped my guest on the threshold and said, “Nay, wipe not your feet as you enter, but as you go out.”

*

Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do.

*

You are indeed charitable when you give, and while giving, turn your face away so that you may not see the shyness of the receiver.

*

The difference between the richest man and the poorest is but a day of hunger and an hour of thirst.

*

We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.

*

I too am visited by angels and devils, but I get rid of them.
When it is an angel I pray an old prayer, and he is bored;
When it is a devil I commit an old sin, and he passes me by.

*

After all this is not a bad prison; but I do not like this wall between my cell and the next prisoner’s cell;
Yet I assure you that I do not wish to reproach the warder not the Builder of the prison.

*

Those who give you a serpent when you ask for a fish, may have nothing but serpents to give. It is then generosity on their part.

*

Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.

*

You are truly a forgiver when you forgive murderers who never spill blood, thieves who never steal, and liars who utter no falsehood.

*

He who can put his finger upon that which divides good from evil is he who can touch the very hem of the garment of God.

*

If your heart is a volcano how shall you expect flowers to bloom in your hands?

*

A strange form of self-indulgence! There are times when I would be wronged and cheated, that I may laugh at the expense of those who think I do not know I am being wronged and cheated.

*

What shall I say of him who is the pursuer playing the part of the pursued?

*

Let him who wipes his soiled hands with your garment take your garment. He may need it again; surely you would not.

*

It is a pity that money-changers cannot be good gardeners.

*

Please do not whitewash your inherent faults with your acquired virtues. I would have the faults; they are like mine own.

*

How often have I attributed to myself crimes I have never committed, so that the other person may feel comfortable in my presence.

*

Even the masks of life are masks of deeper mystery.

*

You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.
Tell me now, who among us is guilty and who is unguilty?

*

The truly just is he who feels half guilty of your misdeeds.

*

Only an idiot and a genius break man-made laws; and they are the nearest to the heart of God.

*

It is only when you are pursued that you become swift.

*

I have no enemies, O God, but if I am to have an enemy
Let his strength be equal to mine,
That truth alone may be the victor.

*

You will be quite friendly with your enemy when you both die.

*

Perhaps a man may commit suicide in self-defense.

*

Long ago there lived a Man who was crucified for being too loving and too lovable.
And strange to relate I met him thrice yesterday.
The first time He was asking a policeman not to take a prostitute to prison; the second time He was drinking wine with an outcast; and the third time He was having a fist-fight with a promoter inside a church.

*

If all they say of good and evil were true, then my life is but one long crime.

*

Pity is but half justice.

*

THE ONLY ONE who has been unjust to me is the one to whose brother I have been unjust.

*

When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, “Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison.”
And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, “Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful.”

*

Oftentimes I have hated in self-defense; but if I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon.

*

How stupid is he who would patch the hatred in his eyes with the smile of his lips.

*

Only those beneath me can envy or hate me.
I have never been envied nor hated; I am above no one.
Only those above me can praise or belittle me.
I have never been praised nor belittled; I am below no one.

*

Your saying to me, “I do not understand you,” is praise beyond my worth, and an insult you do not deserve. >How mean am I when life gives me gold and I give you silver, and yet I deem myself generous.

*

When you reach the heart of life you will find yourself not higher than the felon, and not lower than the prophet.

*

Strange that you should pity the slow-footed and not the slow-minded,
And the blind-eyed rather than the blind-hearted.

*

It is wiser for the lame not to break his crutches upon the head of his enemy.

*

How blind is he who gives you out of his pocket that he may take out of your heart.

*

Life is a procession. The slow of foot finds it too swift and he steps out;
And the swift of foot finds it too slow and he too steps out.

*

If there is such a thing as sin some of us commit it backward following our forefathers’ footsteps;
And some of us commit it forward by overruling our children.

*

The truly good is he who is one with all those who are deemed bad.

*

We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.

*

Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights.

*

Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.
Should we all reveal our virtues we would also laugh for the same cause.

*

An individual is above man-made laws until he commits a crime against man-made conventions; After that he is neither above anyone nor lower than anyone.

*

Government is an agreement between you and myself. You and myself are often wrong.

*

Crime is either another name of need or an aspect of a disease.

*

Is there a greater fault than being conscious of the other person’s faults?

*

If the other person laughs at you, you can pity him; but if you laugh at him you may never forgive yourself.
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
In truth the other person is your most sensitive self given another body.

*

How heedless you are when you would have men fly with your wings and you cannot even give them a feather.

*

Once a man sat at my board and ate my bread and drank my wine and went away laughing at me.
Then he came again for bread and wine, and I spurned him;
And the angels laughed at me.

*

Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?

*

It is the honor of the murdered that he is not the murderer.

*

The tribune of humanity is in its silent heart, never its talkative mind.

*

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold;
And I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

*

They spread before us their riches of gold and silver, of ivory and ebony, and we spread before them our hearts and our spirits.;
And yet they deem themselves the hosts and us the guests.

*

I would not be the least among men with dreams and the desire to fulfill them, rather than the greatest with no dreams and no desires.

*

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

*

We are all climbing toward the summit of our hearts’ desire. Should the other climber steal your sack and your purse and wax fat on the one and heavy on the other, you should pity him;
The climbing will be harder for his flesh, and the burden will make his way longer.
And should you in your leanness see his flesh puffing upward, help him a step; it will add to your swiftness.

*

You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.

*

I would not listen to a conqueror preaching to the conquered.

*

The truly free man is he who bears the load of the bond slave patiently.

*

A thousand years ago my neighbor said to me, “I hate life, for it is naught but a thing of pain.”
And yesterday I passed by a cemetery and saw life dancing upon his grave.

*

Strife in nature is but disorder longing for order.

*

Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches;
Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.

*

Once I spoke of the sea to a brook, and the brook thought me but an imaginative exaggerator;
And once I spoke of a brook to the sea, and the sea thought me but a depreciative defamer.

*

How narrow is the vision that exalts the busyness of the ant above the singing of the grasshopper.

*

The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.

*

The deep and the high go to the depth or to the height in a straight line; only the spacious can move in circles.

*

IF IT WERE not for our conception of weights and measures we would stand in awe of the firefly as we do before the sun.

*

A scientist without imagination is a butcher with dull knives and out-worn scales.
But what would you, since we are not all vegetarians?

*

When you sing the hungry hears you with his stomach.

*

Death is not nearer to the aged than to the new-born; neither is life.

*

If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully; otherwise keep silent, for there is a man in our neighborhood who is dying.

*

Mayhap a funeral among men is a wedding feast among the angels.

*

A forgotten reality may die and leave in its will seven thousand actualities and facts to be spent in its funeral and the building of a tomb.

*

In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.

*

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

*

If the Milky Way were not within me how should I have seen it or known it?

*

Unless I am a physician among physicians they would not believe that I am an astronomer.

*

Perhaps the sea’s definition of a shell is the pearl.
Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond.

*

Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light.

*

A root is a flower that disdains fame.

*

There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.

*

Every great man I have known had something small in his make-up; and it was that small something which prevented inactivity or madness or suicide.

*

The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.

*

I would not believe that a man is mediocre simply because he kills the criminals and the prophets.

*

Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness.

*

Worms will turn; but is it not strange that even elephants will yield?

*

A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.

*

I am the flame and I am the dry bush, and one part of me consumes the other part.

*

We are all seeking the summit of the holy moutain; but shall not our road be shorter if we consider the past a chart and not a guide?

*

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-ful to seek other than itself.

*

Had I filled myself with all that you know what room should I have for all that you do not know?

*

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

*

A bigot is a stone-leaf orator.

*

The silence of the envious is too noisy.

*

When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.

*

An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.

*

If you can see only what light reveals and hear only what sound announces,
Then in truth you do not see nor do you hear.

*

A fact is a truth unsexed.

*

You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time.

*

The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.

*

A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.

*

Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.

*

Said a hunted fox followed by twenty horsemen and a pack of twenty hounds, “Of course they will kill me. But how poor and how stupid they must be. Surely it would not be worth while for twenty foxes riding on twenty asses and accompanied by twenty wolves to chase and kill one man.”

*

It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.

*

A traveler am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.

*

A woman protested saying, “Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it.”

*

I said to Life, “I would hear Death speak.”
And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, “You hear him now.”

*

When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life.

*

Birth and death are the two noblest expressions of bravery.

*

My friend, you and I shall remain strangers unto life,
And unto one another, and each unto himself,
Until the day when you shall speak and I shall listen
Deeming your voice my own voice;
And when I shall stand before you
Thinking myself standing before a mirror.

*

They say to me, “Should you know yourself you would know all men.”
And I say, “Only when I seek all men shall I know myself.”

*

MAN IS TWO men; one is awake in darkness, the other is asleep in light.

*

A hermit is one who renounces the world of fragments that he may enjoy the world wholly and without interruption.

*

There lies a green field between the scholar and the poet; should the scholar cross it he becomes a wise man; should the poet cross it, he becomes a prophet.

*

Yestereve I saw philosophers in the market-place carrying their heads in baskets, and crying aloud, “Wisdom! Wisdom for sale!”
Poor philosophers! They must needs sell their heads to feed their hearts. >Said a philosopher to a street sweeper, “I pity you. Yours is a hard and dirty task.”
And the street sweeper said, “Thank you, sir. But tell me what is your task?”
And the philosopher answered saying, “I study man’s mind, his deeds and his desires.”
Then the street sweeper went on with his sweeping and said with a smile, “I pity you too.”

*

He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.

*

No man can draw the line between necessities and luxuries. Only the angels can do that, and the angels are wise and wistful.
Perhaps the angels are our better thought in space.

*

He is the true prince who finds his throne in the heart of the dervish.

*

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

*

In truth you owe naught to any man. You owe all to all men.

*

All those who have lived in the past live with us now. Surely none of us would be an ungracious host.

*

He who longs the most lives the longest.

*

They say to me, “A bird in the hand is worth ten in the bush.”
But I say, “A bird and a feather in the bush is worth more than ten birds in the hand.”
Your seeking after that feather is life with winged feet; nay, it is life itself.

*

There are only two elements here, beauty and truth; beauty in the hearts of lovers, and truth in the arms of the tillers of the soil.

*

Great beauty captures me, but a beauty still greater frees me even from itself.

*

Beauty shines brighter in the heart of him who longs for it than in the eyes of him who sees it.

*

I admire him who reveals his mind to me; I honor him who unveils his dreams. But why am I shy, and even a little ashamed before him who serves me?

*

The gifted were once proud in serving princes.
Now they claim honor in serving paupers.

*

The angels know that too many practical men eat their bread with the sweat of the dreamer’s brow.

*

Wit is often a mask. If you could tear it you would find either a genius irritated or cleverness juggling.

*

The understanding attributes to me understanding and the dull, dullness. I think they are both right.

*

Only those with secrets in their hearts could divine the secrets in our hearts.

*

He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.

*

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

*

We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.

*

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

*

When either your joy or your sorrow becomes great the world becomes small.

*

Desire is half of life; idifference is half of death.

*

The bitterest thing in our today’s sorrow is the memory of our yesterday’s joy.

*

They say to me, “You must needs choose between the pleasures of this world and the peace of the next world.”
And I say to them, ”I have chosen both the delights of this world and the peace of the next. For I know in my heart that the Supreme Poet wrote but one poem, and it scans perfectly, and it also rhymes perfectly.”

*

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

*

When you reach your height you shall desire but only for desire; and you shall hunger, for hunger; and you shall thirst for greater thirst.

*

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

*

The flowers of spring are winter’s dreams related at the breakfast table of the angels.

*

Said a skunk to a tube-rose, “See how swiftly I run, while you cannot walk nor even creep.”
Said the tube-rose to the skunk, “Oh, most noble swift runner, please run swiftly!”

*

Turtles can tell more about roads than hares.

*

Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.

*

The most talkative is the least intelligent, and there is hardly a difference between an orator and an auctioneer.

*

Be grateful that you do not have to live down the renown of a father nor the wealth of an uncle.
But above all be grateful that no one will have to live down either your renown or your wealth.

*

Only when a juggler misses catching his ball does he appeal to me.

*

The envious praises me unknowingly.

*

Long were you a dream in your mother’s sleep, and then she woke to give you birth.

*

The germ of the race is in your mother’s longing.

*

My father and mother desired a child and they begot me.
And I wanted a mother and a father and I begot night and the sea.

*

Some of our children are our justifications and some are but our regrets.

*

When night comes and you too are dark, lie down and be dark with a will.
And when morning comes and you are still dark stand up and say to the day with a will, “I am still dark.”
It is stupid to play a role with the night and the day.
They would both laugh at you.

*

The mountain veiled in mist is not a hill; an oak tree in the rain is not a weeping willow.

*

Behold here is a paradox; the deep and high are nearer to one another than the mid-level to either.

*

When I stood a clear mirror before you, you gazed into me and saw your image.
Then you said, “I love you.”
But in truth you loved yourself in me.

*

When you enjoy loving your neighbor it ceases to be a virtue.

*

Love which is not always springing is always dying.

*

You cannot have youth and the knowledge of it at the same time;
For youth is too busy living to know, and knowledge is too busy seeking itself to live. >You may sit at your window watching the passersby. And watching you may see a nun walking toward your right hand, and a prostitute toward your left hand.
And you may say in your innocence, “How noble is the one and how ignoble is the other.”
But should you close your eyes and listen awhile you would hear a voice whispering in the ether, “One seeks me in prayer, and the other in pain. And in the spirit of each there is a bower for my spirit.”

*

Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon. And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, “My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree.”

*

May God feed the over-abundant!

*

A great man has two hearts; one bleeds and the other forbears.

*

Should one tell a lie which does not hurt you nor anyone else, why not say in your heart that the house of his facts is too small for his fancies, and he had to leave it for larger space?

*

Behind every closed door is a mystery sealed with seven seals.

*

Waiting is the hoofs of time.

*

What if trouble should be a new window in the Eastern wall of your house?

*

You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.

*

There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.

*

Our God in His gracious thirst will drink us all, the dewdrop and the tear.

*

You are but a fragment of your giant self, a mouth that seeks bread, and a blind hand that holds the cup for a thirsty mouth.

*

If you would rise but a cubit above race and country and self you would indeed become godlike.

*

If I were you I would not find fault with the sea at low tide.
It is a good ship and our Captain is able; it is only your stomach that is in disorder.

*

Should you sit upon a cloud you would not see the boundary line between one country and another, nor the boundary stone between a farm and a farm.
It is a pity you cannot sit upon a cloud.

*

Seven centuries ago seven white doves rose from a deep valley flying to the snow-white summit of the mountain. One of the seven men who watched the flight said, “I see a black spot on the wing of the seventh dove.”
Today the people in that valley tell of seven black doves who flew to the summit of the snowy mountain.

*

In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden.
And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers.
And my neighbors came to behold them, and they all said to me, “When autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?”

*

It is indeed misery if I stretch an empty hand to men and receive nothing; but it is hopelessness if I stretch a full hand and find none to receive.

*

I long for eternity because there I shall meet my unwritten poems and my unpainted pictures.

*

Art is a step from nature toward the Infinite.

*

A work of art is a mist carved into an image.

*

Even the hands that make crowns of thorns are better than idle hands.

*

Our most sacred tears never seek our eyes.

*

Every man is the descendant of every king and every slave that ever lived.

*

If the great-grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, would he not have stood in awe of himself?

*

Was the love of Judas’ mother of her son less than the love of Mary for Jesus?

*

There are three miracles of our Brother Jesus not yet recorded in the Book: the first that He was a man like you and me, the second that He had a sense of humour, and the third that He knew He was a conqueror though conquered.

*

Crucified One, you are crucified upon my heart; and the nails that pierce your hands pierce the walls of my heart.
And tomorrow when a stranger passes by this Golgotha he will not know that two bled here.
He will deem it the blood of one man.

*

You may have heard of the Blessed Mountain.
It is the highest mountain in our world.
Should you reach the summit you would have only one desire, and that to descend and be with those who dwell in the deepest valley.
That is why it is called the Blessed Mountain.

*

Every thought I have imprisoned in expression I must free by my deeds.

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The Way of Peace by James Allen

Beginning of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way of Peace, by James Allen

CONTENTS
THE POWER OF MEDITATION
THE TWO MASTERS, SELF AND TRUTH
THE ACQUIREMENT OF SPIRITUAL POWER
THE REALIZATION OF SELFLESS LOVE
ENTERING INTO THE INFINITE
SAINTS, SAGES, AND SAVIORS; THE LAW OF SERVICE
THE REALIZATION OF PERFECT PEACE
THE POWER OF MEDITATION

Spiritual meditation is the pathway to Divinity. It is the mystic ladder
which reaches from earth to heaven, from error to Truth, from pain to
peace. Every saint has climbed it; every sinner must sooner or later come
to it, and every weary pilgrim that turns his back upon self and the world,
and sets his face resolutely toward the Father’s Home, must plant his feet
upon its golden rounds. Without its aid you cannot grow into the divine
state, the divine likeness, the divine peace, and the fadeless glories and
unpolluting joys of Truth will remain hidden from you.

Meditation is the intense dwelling, in thought, upon an idea or theme, with
the object of thoroughly comprehending it, and whatsoever you constantly
meditate upon you will not only come to understand, but will grow more and
more into its likeness, for it will become incorporated into your very
being, will become, in fact, your very self. If, therefore, you constantly
dwell upon that which is selfish and debasing, you will ultimately become
selfish and debased; if you ceaselessly think upon that which is pure and
unselfish you will surely become pure and unselfish.

Tell me what that is upon which you most frequently and intensely think,
that to which, in your silent hours, your soul most naturally turns, and I
will tell you to what place of pain or peace you are traveling, and whether
you are growing into the likeness of the divine or the bestial.

There is an unavoidable tendency to become literally the embodiment of that
quality upon which one most constantly thinks. Let, therefore, the object
of your meditation be above and not below, so that every time you revert to
it in thought you will be lifted up; let it be pure and unmixed with any
selfish element; so shall your heart become purified and drawn nearer to
Truth, and not defiled and dragged more hopelessly into error.

Meditation, in the spiritual sense in which I am now using it, is the
secret of all growth in spiritual life and knowledge. Every prophet, sage,
and savior became such by the power of meditation. Buddha meditated upon
the Truth until he could say, “I am the Truth.” Jesus brooded upon the
Divine immanence until at last he could declare, “I and my Father are One.”

Meditation centered upon divine realities is the very essence and soul of
prayer. It is the silent reaching of the soul toward the Eternal. Mere
petitionary prayer without meditation is a body without a soul, and is
powerless to lift the mind and heart above sin and affliction. If you are
daily praying for wisdom, for peace, for loftier purity and a fuller
realization of Truth, and that for which you pray is still far from you, it
means that you are praying for one thing while living out in thought and
act another. If you will cease from such waywardness, taking your mind off
those things the selfish clinging to which debars you from the possession
of the stainless realities for which you pray: if you will no longer ask
God to grant you that which you do not deserve, or to bestow upon you that
love and compassion which you refuse to bestow upon others, but will
commence to think and act in the spirit of Truth, you will day by day be
growing into those realities, so that ultimately you will become one with
them.

He who would secure any worldly advantage must be willing to work
vigorously for it, and he would be foolish indeed who, waiting with folded
hands, expected it to come to him for the mere asking. Do not then vainly
imagine that you can obtain the heavenly possessions without making an
effort. Only when you commence to work earnestly in the Kingdom of Truth
will you be allowed to partake of the Bread of Life, and when you have, by
patient and uncomplaining effort, earned the spiritual wages for which you
ask, they will not be withheld from you.

If you really seek Truth, and not merely your own gratification; if you
love it above all worldly pleasures and gains; more, even, than happiness
itself, you will be willing to make the effort necessary for its
achievement.

If you would be freed from sin and sorrow; if you would taste of that
spotless purity for which you sigh and pray; if you would realize wisdom
and knowledge, and would enter into the possession of profound and abiding
peace, come now and enter the path of meditation, and let the supreme
object of your meditation be Truth.

At the outset, meditation must be distinguished from _idle reverie_. There
is nothing dreamy and unpractical about it. It is _a process of searching
and uncompromising thought which allows nothing to remain but the simple
and naked truth_. Thus meditating you will no longer strive to build
yourself up in your prejudices, but, forgetting self, you will remember
only that you are seeking the Truth. And so you will remove, one by one,
the errors which you have built around yourself in the past, and will
patiently wait for the revelation of Truth which will come when your errors
have been sufficiently removed. In the silent humility of your heart you
will realize that

“There is an inmost centre in us all
Where Truth abides in fulness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in;
This perfect, clear perception, which is Truth,
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Blinds it, and makes all error; and to know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.”

Select some portion of the day in which to meditate, and keep that period
sacred to your purpose. The best time is the very early morning when the
spirit of repose is upon everything. All natural conditions will then be in
your favor; the passions, after the long bodily fast of the night, will be
subdued, the excitements and worries of the previous day will have died
away, and the mind, strong and yet restful, will be receptive to spiritual
instruction. Indeed, one of the first efforts you will be called upon to
make will be to shake off lethargy and indulgence, and if you refuse you
will be unable to advance, for the demands of the spirit are imperative.

To be spiritually awakened is also to be mentally and physically awakened.
The sluggard and the self-indulgent can have no knowledge of Truth. He who,
possessed of health and strength, wastes the calm, precious hours of the
silent morning in drowsy indulgence is totally unfit to climb the heavenly
heights.

He whose awakening consciousness has become alive to its lofty
possibilities, who is beginning to shake off the darkness of ignorance in
which the world is enveloped, rises before the stars have ceased their
vigil, and, grappling with the darkness within his soul, strives, by holy
aspiration, to perceive the light of Truth while the unawakened world
dreams on.

“The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”

No saint, no holy man, no teacher of Truth ever lived who did not rise
early in the morning. Jesus habitually rose early, and climbed the solitary
mountains to engage in holy communion. Buddha always rose an hour before
sunrise and engaged in meditation, and all his disciples were enjoined to
do the same.

If you have to commence your daily duties at a very early hour, and are
thus debarred from giving the early morning to systematic meditation, try
to give an hour at night, and should this, by the length and laboriousness
of your daily task be denied you, you need not despair, for you may turn
your thoughts upward in holy meditation in the intervals of your work, or
in those few idle minutes which you now waste in aimlessness; and should
your work be of that kind which becomes by practice automatic, you may
meditate while engaged upon it. That eminent Christian saint and
philosopher, Jacob Boehme, realized his vast knowledge of divine things
whilst working long hours as a shoemaker. In every life there is time to
think, and the busiest, the most laborious is not shut out from aspiration
and meditation.

Spiritual meditation and self-discipline are inseparable; you will,
therefore, commence to meditate upon yourself so as to try and understand
yourself, for, remember, the great object you will have in view will be the
complete removal of all your errors in order that you may realize Truth.
You will begin to question your motives, thoughts, and acts, comparing them
with your ideal, and endeavoring to look upon them with a calm and
impartial eye. In this manner you will be continually gaining more of that
mental and spiritual equilibrium without which men are but helpless straws
upon the ocean of life. If you are given to hatred or anger you will
meditate upon gentleness and forgiveness, so as to become acutely alive to
a sense of your harsh and foolish conduct. You will then begin to dwell in
thoughts of love, of gentleness, of abounding forgiveness; and as you
overcome the lower by the higher, there will gradually, silently steal into
your heart a knowledge of the divine Law of Love with an understanding of
its bearing upon all the intricacies of life and conduct. And in applying
this knowledge to your every thought, word, and act, you will grow more and
more gentle, more and more loving, more and more divine. And thus with
every error, every selfish desire, every human weakness; by the power of
meditation is it overcome, and as each sin, each error is thrust out, a
fuller and clearer measure of the Light of Truth illumines the pilgrim
soul.

Thus meditating, you will be ceaselessly fortifying yourself against your
only _real_ enemy, your selfish, perishable self, and will be establishing
yourself more and more firmly in the divine and imperishable self that is
inseparable from Truth. The direct outcome of your meditations will be a
calm, spiritual strength which will be your stay and resting-place in the
struggle of life. Great is the overcoming power of holy thought, and the
strength and knowledge gained in the hour of silent meditation will enrich
the soul with saving remembrance in the hour of strife, of sorrow, or of
temptation.

As, by the power of meditation, you grow in wisdom, you will relinquish,
more and more, your selfish desires which are fickle, impermanent, and
productive of sorrow and pain; and will take your stand, with increasing
steadfastness and trust, upon unchangeable principles, and will realize
heavenly rest.

The use of meditation is the acquirement of a knowledge of eternal
principles, and the power which results from meditation is the ability to
rest upon and trust those principles, and so become one with the Eternal.
The end of meditation is, therefore, direct knowledge of Truth, God, and
the realization of divine and profound peace.

Let your meditations take their rise from the ethical ground which you now
occupy. Remember that you are to _grow_ into Truth by steady perseverance.
If you are an orthodox Christian, meditate ceaselessly upon the spotless
purity and divine excellence of the character of Jesus, and apply his every
precept to your inner life and outward conduct, so as to approximate more
and more toward his perfection. Do not be as those religious ones, who,
refusing to meditate upon the Law of Truth, and to put into practice the
precepts given to them by their Master, are content to formally worship, to
cling to their particular creeds, and to continue in the ceaseless round of
sin and suffering. Strive to rise, by the power of meditation, above all
selfish clinging to partial gods or party creeds; above dead formalities
and lifeless ignorance. Thus walking the high way of wisdom, with mind
fixed upon the spotless Truth, you shall know no halting-place short of the
realization of Truth.

He who earnestly meditates first perceives a truth, as it were, afar off,
and then realizes it by daily practice. It is only the doer of the Word of
Truth that can know of the doctrine of Truth, for though by pure thought
the Truth is perceived, it is only actualized by practice.

Said the divine Gautama, the Buddha, “He who gives himself up to vanity,
and does not give himself up to meditation, forgetting the real aim of life
and grasping at pleasure, will in time envy him who has exerted himself in
meditation,” and he instructed his disciples in the following “Five Great
Meditations”:–

“The first meditation is the meditation of love, in which you so adjust
your heart that you long for the weal and welfare of all beings, including
the happiness of your enemies.

“The second meditation is the meditation of pity, in which you think of all
beings in distress, vividly representing in your imagination their sorrows
and anxieties so as to arouse a deep compassion for them in your soul.

“The third meditation is the meditation of joy, in which you think of the
prosperity of others, and rejoice with their rejoicings.

“The fourth meditation is the meditation of impurity, in which you consider
the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of sin and diseases. How
trivial often the pleasure of the moment, and how fatal its consequences.

“The fifth meditation is the meditation on serenity, in which you rise
above love and hate, tyranny and oppression, wealth and want, and regard
your own fate with impartial calmness and perfect tranquillity.”

By engaging in these meditations the disciples of the Buddha arrived at a
knowledge of the Truth. But whether you engage in these particular
meditations or not matters little so long as your object is Truth, so long
as you hunger and thirst for that righteousness which is a holy heart and a
blameless life. In your meditations, therefore, let your heart grow and
expand with ever-broadening love, until, freed from all hatred, and
passion, and condemnation, it embraces the whole universe with thoughtful
tenderness. As the flower opens its petals to receive the morning light, so
open your soul more and more to the glorious light of Truth. Soar upward
upon the wings of aspiration; be fearless, and believe in the loftiest
possibilities. Believe that a life of absolute meekness is possible;
believe that a life of stainless purity is possible; believe that a life of
perfect holiness is possible; believe that the realization of the highest
truth is possible. He who so believes, climbs rapidly the heavenly hills,
whilst the unbelievers continue to grope darkly and painfully in the
fog-bound valleys.

So believing, so aspiring, so meditating, divinely sweet and beautiful will
be your spiritual experiences, and glorious the revelations that will
enrapture your inward vision. As you realize the divine Love, the divine
Justice, the divine Purity, the Perfect Law of Good, or God, great will be
your bliss and deep your peace. Old things will pass away, and all things
will become new. The veil of the material universe, so dense and
impenetrable to the eye of error, so thin and gauzy to the eye of Truth,
will be lifted and the spiritual universe will be revealed. Time will
cease, and you will live only in Eternity. Change and mortality will no
more cause you anxiety and sorrow, for you will become established in the
unchangeable, and will dwell in the very heart of immortality.

STAR OF WISDOM

Star that of the birth of Vishnu,
Birth of Krishna, Buddha, Jesus,
Told the wise ones, Heavenward looking,
Waiting, watching for thy gleaming
In the darkness of the night-time,
In the starless gloom of midnight;
Shining Herald of the coming
Of the kingdom of the righteous;
Teller of the Mystic story
Of the lowly birth of Godhead
In the stable of the passions,
In the manger of the mind-soul;
Silent singer of the secret
Of compassion deep and holy
To the heart with sorrow burdened,
To the soul with waiting weary:–
Star of all-surpassing brightness,
Thou again dost deck the midnight;
Thou again dost cheer the wise ones
Watching in the creedal darkness,
Weary of the endless battle
With the grinding blades of error;
Tired of lifeless, useless idols,
Of the dead forms of religions;
Spent with watching for thy shining;
Thou hast ended their despairing;
Thou hast lighted up their pathway;
Thou hast brought again the old Truths
To the hearts of all thy Watchers;
To the souls of them that love thee
Thou dost speak of Joy and Gladness,
Of the peace that comes of Sorrow.
Blessed are they that can see thee,
Weary wanderers in the Night-time;
Blessed they who feel the throbbing,
In their bosoms feel the pulsing
Of a deep Love stirred within them
By the great power of thy shining.
Let us learn thy lesson truly;
Learn it faithfully and humbly;
Learn it meekly, wisely, gladly,
Ancient Star of holy Vishnu,
Light of Krishna, Buddha, Jesus.

THE TWO MASTERS, SELF AND TRUTH

Upon the battlefield of the human soul two masters are ever contending for
the crown of supremacy, for the kingship and dominion of the heart; the
master of self, called also the “Prince of this world,” and the master of
Truth, called also the Father God. The master self is that rebellious one
whose weapons are passion, pride, avarice, vanity, self-will, implements of
darkness; the master Truth is that meek and lowly one whose weapons are
gentleness, patience, purity, sacrifice, humility, love, instruments of
Light.

In every soul the battle is waged, and as a soldier cannot engage at once
in two opposing armies, so every heart is enlisted either in the ranks of
self or of Truth. There is no half-and-half course; “There is self and
there is Truth; where self is, Truth is not, where Truth is, self is not.”
Thus spake Buddha, the teacher of Truth, and Jesus, the manifested Christ,
declared that “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the
one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”

Truth is so simple, so absolutely undeviating and uncompromising that it
admits of no complexity, no turning, no qualification. Self is ingenious,
crooked, and, governed by subtle and snaky desire, admits of endless
turnings and qualifications, and the deluded worshipers of self vainly
imagine that they can gratify every worldly desire, and at the same time
possess the Truth. But the lovers of Truth worship Truth with the sacrifice
of self, and ceaselessly guard themselves against worldliness and
self-seeking.

Do you seek to know and to realize Truth? Then you must be prepared to
sacrifice, to renounce to the uttermost, for Truth in all its glory can
only be perceived and known when the last vestige of self has disappeared.

The eternal Christ declared that he who would be His disciple must “deny
himself daily.” Are you willing to deny yourself, to give up your lusts,
your prejudices, your opinions? If so, you may enter the narrow way of
Truth, and find that peace from which the world is shut out. The absolute
denial, the utter extinction, of self is the perfect state of Truth, and
all religions and philosophies are but so many aids to this supreme
attainment.

Self is the denial of Truth. Truth is the denial of self. As you let self
die, you will be reborn in Truth. As you cling to self, Truth will be
hidden from you.

Whilst you cling to self, your path will be beset with difficulties, and
repeated pains, sorrows, and disappointments will be your lot. There are no
difficulties in Truth, and coming to Truth, you will be freed from all
sorrow and disappointment.

Truth in itself is not hidden and dark. It is always revealed and is
perfectly transparent. But the blind and wayward self cannot perceive it.
The light of day is not hidden except to the blind, and the Light of Truth
is not hidden except to those who are blinded by self.

Truth is the one Reality in the universe, the inward Harmony, the perfect
Justice, the eternal Love. Nothing can be added to it, nor taken from it.
It does not depend upon any man, but all men depend upon it. You cannot
perceive the beauty of Truth while you are looking out through the eyes of
self. If you are vain, you will color everything with your own vanities. If
lustful, your heart and mind will be so clouded with the smoke and flames
of passion, that everything will appear distorted through them. If proud
and opinionative, you will see nothing in the whole universe except the
magnitude and importance of your own opinions.

There is one quality which pre-eminently distinguishes the man of Truth
from the man of self, and that is _humility_. To be not only free from
vanity, stubbornness and egotism, but to regard one’s own opinions as of no
value, this indeed is true humility.

He who is immersed in self regards his own opinions as Truth, and the
opinions of other men as error. But that humble Truth-lover who has learned
to distinguish between opinion and Truth, regards all men with the eye of
charity, and does not seek to defend his opinions against theirs, but
sacrifices those opinions that he may love the more, that he may manifest
the spirit of Truth, for Truth in its very nature is ineffable and can only
be lived. He who has most of charity has most of Truth.

Men engage in heated controversies, and foolishly imagine they are
defending the Truth, when in reality they are merely defending their own
petty interests and perishable opinions. The follower of self takes up arms
against others. The follower of Truth takes up arms against himself. Truth,
being unchangeable and eternal, is independent of your opinion and of mine.
We may enter into it, or we may stay outside; but both our defense and our
attack are superfluous, and are hurled back upon ourselves.

Men, enslaved by self, passionate, proud, and condemnatory, believe their
particular creed or religion to be the Truth, and all other religions to be
error; and they proselytize with passionate ardor. There is but one
religion, the religion of Truth. There is but one error, the error of self.
Truth is not a formal belief; it is an unselfish, holy, and aspiring heart,
and he who has Truth is at peace with all, and cherishes all with thoughts
of love.

You may easily know whether you are a child of Truth or a worshiper of
self, if you will silently examine your mind, heart, and conduct. Do you
harbor thoughts of suspicion, enmity, envy, lust, pride, or do you
strenuously fight against these? If the former, you are chained to self, no
matter what religion you may profess; if the latter, you are a candidate
for Truth, even though outwardly you may profess no religion. Are you
passionate, self-willed, ever seeking to gain your own ends,
self-indulgent, and self-centered; or are you gentle, mild, unselfish, quit
of every form of self-indulgence, and are ever ready to give up your own?
If the former, self is your master; if the latter, Truth is the object of
your affection. Do you strive for riches? Do you fight, with passion, for
your party? Do you lust for power and leadership? Are you given to
ostentation and self-praise? Or have you given up the love of riches? Have
you relinquished all strife? Are you content to take the lowest place, and
to be passed by unnoticed? And have you ceased to talk about yourself and
to regard yourself with self-complacent pride? If the former, even though
you may imagine you worship God, the god of your heart is self. If the
latter, even though you may withhold your lips from worship, you are
dwelling with the Most High.

The signs by which the Truth-lover is known are unmistakable. Hear the Holy
Krishna declare them, in Sir Edwin Arnold’s beautiful rendering of the
“Bhagavad Gita”:–

“Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will
Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand
And governed appetites; and piety,
And love of lonely study; humbleness,
Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives
Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind
That lightly letteth go what others prize;
And equanimity, and charity
Which spieth no man’s faults; and tenderness
Towards all that suffer; a contented heart,
Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild,
Modest and grave, with manhood nobly mixed,
With patience, fortitude and purity;
An unrevengeful spirit, never given
To rate itself too high–such be the signs,
O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set
On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth!”

When men, lost in the devious ways of error and self, have forgotten the
“heavenly birth,” the state of holiness and Truth, they set up artificial
standards by which to judge one another, and make acceptance of, and
adherence to, their own particular theology, the test of Truth; and so men
are divided one against another, and there is ceaseless enmity and strife,
and unending sorrow and suffering.

Reader, do you seek to realize the birth into Truth? There is only one way:
_Let self die_. All those lusts, appetites, desires, opinions, limited
conceptions and prejudices to which you have hitherto so tenaciously clung,
let them fall from you. Let them no longer hold you in bondage, and Truth
will be yours. Cease to look upon your own religion as superior to all
others, and strive humbly to learn the supreme lesson of charity. No longer
cling to the idea, so productive of strife and sorrow, that the Savior whom
you worship is the only Savior, and that the Savior whom your brother
worships with equal sincerity and ardor, is an impostor; but seek
diligently the path of holiness, and then you will realize that every holy
man is a savior of mankind.

The giving up of self is not merely the renunciation of outward things. It
consists of the renunciation of the inward sin, the inward error. Not by
giving up vain clothing; not by relinquishing riches; not by abstaining
from certain foods; not by speaking smooth words; not by merely doing these
things is the Truth found; but by giving up the spirit of vanity; by
relinquishing the desire for riches; by abstaining from the lust of
self-indulgence; by giving up all hatred, strife, condemnation, and
self-seeking, and becoming gentle and pure at heart; by doing these things
is the Truth found. To do the former, and not to do the latter, is
pharisaism and hypocrisy, whereas the latter includes the former. You may
renounce the outward world, and isolate yourself in a cave or in the depths
of a forest, but you will take all your selfishness with you, and unless
you renounce that, great indeed will be your wretchedness and deep your
delusion. You may remain just where you are, performing all your duties,
and yet renounce the world, the inward enemy. To be in the world and yet
not of the world is the highest perfection, the most blessed peace, is to
achieve the greatest victory. The renunciation of self is the way of Truth,
therefore,

“Enter the Path; there is no grief like hate,
No pain like passion, no deceit like sense;
Enter the Path; far hath he gone whose foot
Treads down one fond offense.”

As you succeed in overcoming self you will begin to see things in their
right relations. He who is swayed by any passion, prejudice, like or
dislike, adjusts everything to that particular bias, and sees only his own
delusions. He who is absolutely free from all passion, prejudice,
preference, and partiality, sees himself as he is; sees others as they are;
sees all things in their proper proportions and right relations. Having
nothing to attack, nothing to defend, nothing to conceal, and no interests
to guard, he is at peace. He has realized the profound simplicity of Truth,
for this unbiased, tranquil, blessed state of mind and heart is the state
of Truth. He who attains to it dwells with the angels, and sits at the
footstool of the Supreme. Knowing the Great Law; knowing the origin of
sorrow; knowing the secret of suffering; knowing the way of emancipation in
Truth, how can such a one engage in strife or condemnation; for though he
knows that the blind, self-seeking world, surrounded with the clouds of its
own illusions, and enveloped in the darkness of error and self, cannot
perceive the steadfast Light of Truth, and is utterly incapable of
comprehending the profound simplicity of the heart that has died, or is
dying, to self, yet he also knows that when the suffering ages have piled
up mountains of sorrow, the crushed and burdened soul of the world will fly
to its final refuge, and that when the ages are completed, every prodigal
will come back to the fold of Truth. And so he dwells in goodwill toward
all, and regards all with that tender compassion which a father bestows
upon his wayward children.

Men cannot understand Truth because they cling to self, because they
believe in and love self, because they believe self to be the only reality,
whereas it is the one delusion.

When you cease to believe in and love self you will desert it, and will fly
to Truth, and will find the eternal Reality.

When men are intoxicated with the wines of luxury, and pleasure, and
vanity, the thirst of life grows and deepens within them, and they delude
themselves with dreams of fleshly immortality, but when they come to reap
the harvest of their own sowing, and pain and sorrow supervene, then,
crushed and humiliated, relinquishing self and all the intoxications of
self, they come, with aching hearts to the one immortality, the immortality
that destroys all delusions, the spiritual immortality in Truth.

Men pass from evil to good, from self to Truth, through the dark gate of
sorrow, for sorrow and self are inseparable. Only in the peace and bliss of
Truth is all sorrow vanquished. If you suffer disappointment because your
cherished plans have been thwarted, or because someone has not come up to
your anticipations, it is because you are clinging to self. If you suffer
remorse for your conduct, it is because you have given way to self. If you
are overwhelmed with chagrin and regret because of the attitude of someone
else toward you, it is because you have been cherishing self. If you are
wounded on account of what has been done to you or said of you, it is
because you are walking in the painful way of self. All suffering is of
self. All suffering ends in Truth. When you have entered into and realized
Truth, you will no longer suffer disappointment, remorse, and regret, and
sorrow will flee from you.

“Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul;
Truth is the only angel that can bid the gates unroll;
And when he comes to call thee, arise and follow fast;
His way may lie through darkness, but it leads to light at last.”

The woe of the world is of its own making. Sorrow purifies and deepens the
soul, and the extremity of sorrow is the prelude to Truth.

Have you suffered much? Have you sorrowed deeply? Have you pondered
seriously upon the problem of life? If so, you are prepared to wage war
against self, and to become a disciple of Truth.

The intellectual who do not see the necessity for giving up self, frame
endless theories about the universe, and call them Truth; but do thou
pursue that direct line of conduct which is the practice of righteousness,
and thou wilt realize the Truth which has no place in theory, and which
never changes. Cultivate your heart. Water it continually with unselfish
love and deep-felt pity, and strive to shut out from it all thoughts and
feelings which are not in accordance with Love. Return good for evil, love
for hatred, gentleness for ill-treatment, and remain silent when attacked.
So shall you transmute all your selfish desires into the pure gold of Love,
and self will disappear in Truth. So will you walk blamelessly among men,
yoked with the easy yoke of lowliness, and clothed with the divine garment
of humility.

O come, weary brother! thy struggling and striving
End thou in the heart of the Master of ruth;
Across self’s drear desert why wilt thou be driving,
Athirst for the quickening waters of Truth

When here, by the path of thy searching and sinning,
Flows Life’s gladsome stream, lies Love’s oasis green?
Come, turn thou and rest; know the end and beginning,
The sought and the searcher, the seer and seen.

Thy Master sits not in the unapproached mountains,
Nor dwells in the mirage which floats on the air,
Nor shalt thou discover His magical fountains
In pathways of sand that encircle despair.

In selfhood’s dark desert cease wearily seeking
The odorous tracks of the feet of thy King;
And if thou wouldst hear the sweet sound of His speaking,
Be deaf to all voices that emptily sing.

Flee the vanishing places; renounce all thou hast;
Leave all that thou lovest, and, naked and bare,
Thyself at the shrine of the _Innermost_ cast;
The Highest, the Holiest, the Changeless is there.

Within, in the heart of the Silence He dwelleth;
Leave sorrow and sin, leave thy wanderings sore;
Come bathe in His Joy, whilst He, whispering, telleth
Thy soul what it seeketh, and wander no more.

Then cease, weary brother, thy struggling and striving;
Find peace in the heart of the Master of ruth.
Across self’s dark desert cease wearily driving;
Come; drink at the beautiful waters of Truth.

THE ACQUIREMENT OF SPIRITUAL POWER

The world is filled with men and women seeking pleasure, excitement,
novelty; seeking ever to be moved to laughter or tears; not seeking
strength, stability, and power; but courting weakness, and eagerly engaged
in dispersing what power they have.

Men and women of real power and influence are few, because few are prepared
to make the sacrifice necessary to the acquirement of power, and fewer
still are ready to patiently build up character.

To be swayed by your fluctuating thoughts and impulses is to be weak and
powerless; to rightly control and direct those forces is to be strong and
powerful. Men of strong animal passions have much of the ferocity of the
beast, but this is not power. The elements of power are there; but it is
only when this ferocity is tamed and subdued by the higher intelligence
that real power begins; and men can only grow in power by awakening
themselves to higher and ever higher states of intelligence and
consciousness.

The difference between a man of weakness and one of power lies not in the
strength of the personal will (for the stubborn man is usually weak and
foolish), but in that focus of consciousness which represents their states
of knowledge.

The pleasure-seekers, the lovers of excitement, the hunters after novelty,
and the victims of impulse and hysterical emotion lack that knowledge of
principles which gives balance, stability, and influence.

A man commences to develop power when, checking his impulses and selfish
inclinations, he falls back upon the higher and calmer consciousness within
him, and begins to steady himself upon a principle. The realization of
unchanging principles in consciousness is at once the source and secret of
the highest power.

When, after much searching, and suffering, and sacrificing, the light of an
eternal principle dawns upon the soul, a divine calm ensues and joy
unspeakable gladdens the heart.

He who has realized such a principle ceases to wander, and remains poised
and self-possessed. He ceases to be “passion’s slave,” and becomes a
master-builder in the Temple of Destiny.

The man that is governed by self, and not by a principle, changes his front
when his selfish comforts are threatened. Deeply intent upon defending and
guarding his own interests, he regards all means as lawful that will
subserve that end. He is continually scheming as to how he may protect
himself against his enemies, being too self-centered to perceive that he is
his own enemy. Such a man’s work crumbles away, for it is divorced from
Truth and power. All effort that is grounded upon self, perishes; only that
work endures that is built upon an indestructible principle.

The man that stands upon a principle is the same calm, dauntless,
self-possessed man under all circumstances. When the hour of trial comes,
and he has to decide between his personal comforts and Truth, he gives up
his comforts and remains firm. Even the prospect of torture and death
cannot alter or deter him. The man of self regards the loss of his wealth,
his comforts, or his life as the greatest calamities which can befall him.
The man of principle looks upon these incidents as comparatively
insignificant, and not to be weighed with loss of character, loss of Truth.
To desert Truth is, to him, the only happening which can really be called a
calamity.

It is the hour of crisis which decides who are the minions of darkness, and
who the children of Light. It is the epoch of threatening disaster, ruin,
and persecution which divides the sheep from the goats, and reveals to the
reverential gaze of succeeding ages the men and women of power.

It is easy for a man, so long as he is left in the enjoyment of his
possessions, to persuade himself that he believes in and adheres to the
principles of Peace, Brotherhood, and Universal Love; but if, when his
enjoyments are threatened, or he imagines they are threatened, he begins to
clamor loudly for war, he shows that he believes in and stands upon, not
Peace, Brotherhood, and Love, but strife, selfishness, and hatred.

He who does not desert his principles when threatened with the loss of
every earthly thing, even to the loss of reputation and life, is the man of
power; is the man whose every word and work endures; is the man whom the
afterworld honors, reveres, and worships. Rather than desert that principle
of Divine Love on which he rested, and in which all his trust was placed,
Jesus endured the utmost extremity of agony and deprivation; and today the
world prostrates itself at his pierced feet in rapt adoration.

There is no way to the acquirement of spiritual power except by that inward
illumination and enlightenment which is the realization of spiritual
principles; and those principles can only be realized by constant practice
and application.

Take the principle of divine Love, and quietly and diligently meditate upon
it with the object of arriving at a thorough understanding of it. Bring its
searching light to bear upon all your habits, your actions, your speech and
intercourse with others, your every secret thought and desire. As you
persevere in this course, the divine Love will become more and more
perfectly revealed to you, and your own shortcomings will stand out in more
and more vivid contrast, spurring you on to renewed endeavor; and having
once caught a glimpse of the incomparable majesty of that imperishable
principle, you will never again rest in your weakness, your selfishness,
your imperfection, but will pursue that Love until you have relinquished
every discordant element, and have brought yourself into perfect harmony
with it. And that state of inward harmony is spiritual power. Take also
other spiritual principles, such as Purity and Compassion, and apply them
in the same way, and, so exacting is Truth, you will be able to make no
stay, no resting-place until the inmost garment of your soul is bereft of
every stain, and your heart has become incapable of any hard, condemnatory,
and pitiless impulse.

Only in so far as you understand, realize, and rely upon, these principles,
will you acquire spiritual power, and that power will be manifested in and
through you in the form of increasing dispassion, patience and equanimity.

Dispassion argues superior self-control; sublime patience is the very
hall-mark of divine knowledge, and to retain an unbroken calm amid all the
duties and distractions of life, marks off the man of power. “It is easy in
the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live
after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps
with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Some mystics hold that perfection in dispassion is the source of that power
by which miracles (so-called) are performed, and truly he who has gained
such perfect control of all his interior forces that no shock, however
great, can for one moment unbalance him, must be capable of guiding and
directing those forces with a master-hand.

To grow in self-control, in patience, in equanimity, is to grow in strength
and power; and you can only thus grow by focusing your consciousness upon a
principle. As a child, after making many and vigorous attempts to walk
unaided, at last succeeds, after numerous falls, in accomplishing this, so
you must enter the way of power by first attempting to stand alone. Break
away from the tyranny of custom, tradition, conventionality, and the
opinions of others, until you succeed in walking lonely and erect among
men. Rely upon your own judgment; be true to your own conscience; follow
the Light that is within you; all outward lights are so many
will-o’-the-wisps. There will be those who will tell you that you are
foolish; that your judgment is faulty; that your conscience is all awry,
and that the Light within you is darkness; but heed them not. If what they
say is true the sooner you, as a searcher for wisdom, find it out the
better, and you can only make the discovery by bringing your powers to the
test. Therefore, pursue your course bravely. Your conscience is at least
your own, and to follow it is to be a man; to follow the conscience of
another is to be a slave. You will have many falls, will suffer many
wounds, will endure many buffetings for a time, but press on in faith,
believing that sure and certain victory lies ahead. Search for a rock, a
principle, and having found it cling to it; get it under your feet and
stand erect upon it, until at last, immovably fixed upon it, you succeed in
defying the fury of the waves and storms of selfishness.

For selfishness in any and every form is dissipation, weakness, death;
unselfishness in its spiritual aspect is conservation, power, life. As you
grow in spiritual life, and become established upon principles, you will
become as beautiful and as unchangeable as those principles, will taste of
the sweetness of their immortal essence, and will realize the eternal and
indestructible nature of the God within.

No harmful shaft can reach the righteous man,
Standing erect amid the storms of hate,
Defying hurt and injury and ban,
Surrounded by the trembling slaves of Fate.

Majestic in the strength of silent power,
Serene he stands, nor changes not nor turns;
Patient and firm in suffering’s darkest hour,
Time bends to him, and death and doom he spurns.

Wrath’s lurid lightnings round about him play,
And hell’s deep thunders roll about his head;
Yet heeds he not, for him they cannot slay
Who stands whence earth and time and space are fled.

Sheltered by deathless love, what fear hath he?
Armored in changeless Truth, what can he know
Of loss and gain? Knowing eternity,
He moves not whilst the shadows come and go.

Call him immortal, call him Truth and Light
And splendor of prophetic majesty
Who bideth thus amid the powers of night,
Clothed with the glory of divinity.

THE REALIZATION OF SELFLESS LOVE

It is said that Michael Angelo saw in every rough block of stone a thing of
beauty awaiting the master-hand to bring it into reality. Even so, within
each there reposes the Divine Image awaiting the master-hand of Faith and
the chisel of Patience to bring it into manifestation. And that Divine
Image is revealed and realized as stainless, selfless Love.

Hidden deep in every human heart, though frequently covered up with a mass
of hard and almost impenetrable accretions, is the spirit of Divine Love,
whose holy and spotless essence is undying and eternal. It is the Truth in
man; it is that which belongs to the Supreme: that which is real and
immortal. All else changes and passes away; this alone is permanent and
imperishable; and to realize this Love by ceaseless diligence in the
practice of the highest righteousness, to live in it and to become fully
conscious in it, is to enter into immortality here and now, is to become
one with Truth, one with God, one with the central Heart of all things, and
to know our own divine and eternal nature.

To reach this Love, to understand and experience it, one must work with
great persistency and diligence upon his heart and mind, must ever renew
his patience and keep strong his faith, for there will be much to remove,
much to accomplish before the Divine Image is revealed in all its glorious
beauty.

He who strives to reach and to accomplish the divine will be tried to the
very uttermost; and this is absolutely necessary, for how else could one
acquire that sublime patience without which there is no real wisdom, no
divinity? Ever and anon, as he proceeds, all his work will seem to be
futile, and his efforts appear to be thrown away. Now and then a hasty
touch will mar his image, and perhaps when he imagines his work is almost
completed he will find what he imagined to be the beautiful form of Divine
Love utterly destroyed, and he must begin again with his past bitter
experience to guide and help him. But he who has resolutely set himself to
realize the Highest recognizes no such thing as defeat. All failures are
apparent, not real. Every slip, every fall, every return to selfishness is
a lesson learned, an experience gained, from which a golden grain of wisdom
is extracted, helping the striver toward the accomplishment of his lofty
object. To recognize

“That of our vices we can frame
A ladder if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame,”

is to enter the way that leads unmistakably toward the Divine, and the
failings of one who thus recognizes are so many dead selves, upon which he
rises, as upon stepping-stones, to higher things.

Once come to regard your failings, your sorrows and sufferings as so many
voices telling you plainly where you are weak and faulty, where you fall
below the true and the divine, you will then begin to ceaselessly watch
yourself, and every slip, every pang of pain will show you where you are to
set to work, and what you have to remove out of your heart in order to
bring it nearer to the likeness of the Divine, nearer to the Perfect Love.
And as you proceed, day by day detaching yourself more and more from the
inward selfishness the Love that is selfless will gradually become revealed
to you. And when you are growing patient and calm, when your petulances,
tempers, and irritabilities are passing away from you, and the more
powerful lusts and prejudices cease to dominate and enslave you, then you
will know that the divine is awakening within you, that you are drawing
near to the eternal Heart, that you are not far from that selfless Love,
the possession of which is peace and immortality.

Divine Love is distinguished from human loves in this supremely important
particular, _it is free from partiality_. Human loves cling to a particular
object to the exclusion of all else, and when that object is removed, great
and deep is the resultant suffering to the one who loves. Divine Love
embraces the whole universe, and, without clinging to any part, yet
contains within itself the whole, and he who comes to it by gradually
purifying and broadening his human loves until all the selfish and impure
elements are burnt out of them, ceases from suffering. It is because human
loves are narrow and confined and mingled with selfishness that they cause
suffering. No suffering can result from that Love which is so absolutely
pure that it seeks nothing for itself. Nevertheless, human loves are
absolutely necessary as steps toward the Divine, and no soul is prepared to
partake of Divine Love until it has become capable of the deepest and most
intense human love. It is only by passing through human loves and human
sufferings that Divine Love is reached and realized.

All human loves are perishable like the forms to which they cling; but
there is a Love that is imperishable, and that does not cling to
appearances.

All human loves are counterbalanced by human hates; but there is a Love
that admits of no opposite or reaction; divine and free from all taint of
self, that sheds its fragrance on all alike.

Human loves are reflections of the Divine Love, and draw the soul nearer to
the reality, the Love that knows neither sorrow nor change.

It is well that the mother, clinging with passionate tenderness to the
little helpless form of flesh that lies on her bosom, should be overwhelmed
with the dark waters of sorrow when she sees it laid in the cold earth. It
is well that her tears should flow and her heart ache, for only thus can
she be reminded of the evanescent nature of the joys and objects of sense,
and be drawn nearer to the eternal and imperishable Reality.

It is well that lover, brother, sister, husband, wife should suffer deep
anguish, and be enveloped in gloom when the visible object of their
affections is torn from them, so that they may learn to turn their
affections toward the invisible Source of all, where alone abiding
satisfaction is to be found.

It is well that the proud, the ambitious, the self-seeking, should suffer
defeat, humiliation, and misfortune; that they should pass through the
scorching fires of affliction; for only thus can the wayward soul be
brought to reflect upon the enigma of life; only thus can the heart be
softened and purified, and prepared to receive the Truth.

When the sting of anguish penetrates the heart of human love; when gloom
and loneliness and desertion cloud the soul of friendship and trust, then
it is that the heart turns toward the sheltering love of the Eternal, and
finds rest in its silent peace. And whosoever comes to this Love is not
turned away comfortless, is not pierced with anguish nor surrounded with
gloom; and is never deserted in the dark hour of trial.

The glory of Divine Love can only be revealed in the heart that is
chastened by sorrow, and the image of the heavenly state can only be
perceived and realized when the lifeless, formless accretions of ignorance
and self are hewn away.

Only that Love that seeks no personal gratification or reward, that does
not make distinctions, and that leaves behind no heartaches, can be called
divine.

Men, clinging to self and to the comfortless shadows of evil, are in the
habit of thinking of divine Love as something belonging to a God who is out
of reach; as something outside themselves, and that must for ever remain
outside. Truly, the Love of God is ever beyond the reach of self, but when
the heart and mind are emptied of self then the selfless Love, the supreme
Love, the Love that is of God or Good becomes an inward and abiding
reality.

And this inward realization of holy Love is none other than the Love of
Christ that is so much talked about and so little comprehended. The Love
that not only saves the soul from sin, but lifts it also above the power of
temptation.

But how may one attain to this sublime realization? The answer which Truth
has always given, and will ever give to this question is,–”Empty thyself,
and I will fill thee.” Divine Love cannot be known until self is dead, for
self is the denial of Love, and how can that which is known be also denied?
Not until the stone of self is rolled away from the sepulcher of the soul
does the immortal Christ, the pure Spirit of Love, hitherto crucified, dead
and buried, cast off the bands of ignorance, and come forth in all the
majesty of His resurrection.

You believe that the Christ of Nazareth was put to death and rose again. I
do not say you err in that belief; but if you refuse to believe that the
gentle spirit of Love is crucified daily upon the dark cross of your
selfish desires, then, I say, you err in this unbelief, and have not yet
perceived, even afar off, the Love of Christ.

You say that you have tasted of salvation in the Love of Christ. Are you
saved from your temper, your irritability, your vanity, your personal
dislikes, your judgment and condemnation of others? If not, from what are
you saved, and wherein have you realized the transforming Love of Christ?

He who has realized the Love that is divine has become a new man, and has
ceased to be swayed and dominated by the old elements of self. He is known
for his patience, his purity, his self-control, his deep charity of heart,
and his unalterable sweetness.

Divine or selfless Love is not a mere sentiment or emotion; it is a state
of knowledge which destroys the dominion of evil and the belief in evil,
and lifts the soul into the joyful realization of the supreme Good. To the
divinely wise, knowledge and Love are one and inseparable.

It is toward the complete realization of this divine Love that the whole
world is moving; it was for this purpose that the universe came into
existence, and every grasping at happiness, every reaching out of the soul
toward objects, ideas and ideals, is an effort to realize it. But the world
does not realize this Love at present because it is grasping at the
fleeting shadow and ignoring, in its blindness, the substance. And so
suffering and sorrow continue, and must continue until the world, taught by
its self-inflicted pains, discovers the Love that is selfless, the wisdom
that is calm and full of peace.

And this Love, this Wisdom, this Peace, this tranquil state of mind and
heart may be attained to, may be realized by all who are willing and ready
to yield up self, and who are prepared to humbly enter into a comprehension
of all that the giving up of self involves. There is no arbitrary power in
the universe, and the strongest chains of fate by which men are bound are
self-forged. Men are chained to that which causes suffering because they
desire to be so, because they love their chains, because they think their
little dark prison of self is sweet and beautiful, and they are afraid that
if they desert that prison they will lose all that is real and worth
having.

“Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels,
None other holds ye that ye live and die.”

And the indwelling power which forged the chains and built around itself
the dark and narrow prison, can break away when it desires and wills to do
so, and the soul does will to do so when it has discovered the
worthlessness of its prison, when long suffering has prepared it for the
reception of the boundless Light and Love.

As the shadow follows the form, and as smoke comes after fire, so effect
follows cause, and suffering and bliss follow the thoughts and deeds of
men. There is no effect in the world around us but has its hidden or
revealed cause, and that cause is in accordance with absolute justice. Men
reap a harvest of suffering because in the near or distant past they have
sown the seeds of evil; they reap a harvest of bliss also as a result of
their own sowing of the seeds of good. Let a man meditate upon this, let
him strive to understand it, and he will then begin to sow only seeds of
good, and will burn up the tares and weeds which he has formerly grown in
the garden of his heart.

The world does not understand the Love that is selfless because it is
engrossed in the pursuit of its own pleasures, and cramped within the
narrow limits of perishable interests mistaking, in its ignorance, those
pleasures and interests for real and abiding things. Caught in the flames
of fleshly lusts, and burning with anguish, it sees not the pure and
peaceful beauty of Truth. Feeding upon the swinish husks of error and
self-delusion, it is shut out from the mansion of all-seeing Love.

Not having this Love, not understanding it, men institute innumerable
reforms which involve no inward sacrifice, and each imagines that his
reform is going to right the world for ever, while he himself continues to
propagate evil by engaging it in his own heart. That only can be called
reform which tends to reform the human heart, for all evil has its rise
there, and not until the world, ceasing from selfishness and party strife,
has learned the lesson of divine Love, will it realize the Golden Age of
universal blessedness.

Let the rich cease to despise the poor, and the poor to condemn the rich;
let the greedy learn how to give, and the lustful how to grow pure; let the
partisan cease from strife, and the uncharitable begin to forgive; let the
envious endeavor to rejoice with others, and the slanderers grow ashamed of
their conduct. Let men and women take this course, and, lo! the Golden Age
is at hand. He, therefore, who purifies his own heart is the world’s
greatest benefactor.

Yet, though the world is, and will be for many ages to come, shut out from
that Age of Gold, which is the realization of selfless Love, you, if you
are willing, may enter it now, by rising above your selfish self; if you
will pass from prejudice, hatred, and condemnation, to gentle and forgiving
love.

Where hatred, dislike, and condemnation are, selfless Love does not abide.
It resides only in the heart that has ceased from all condemnation.

You say, “How can I love the drunkard, the hypocrite, the sneak, the
murderer? I am compelled to dislike and condemn such men.” It is true you
cannot love such men _emotionally_, but when you say that you must perforce
dislike and condemn them you show that you are not acquainted with the
Great over-ruling Love; for it is possible to attain to such a state of
interior enlightenment as will enable you to perceive the train of causes
by which these men have become as they are, to enter into their intense
sufferings, and to know the certainty of their ultimate purification.
Possessed of such knowledge it will be utterly impossible for you any
longer to dislike or condemn them, and you will always think of them with
perfect calmness and deep compassion.

If you love people and speak of them with praise until they in some way
thwart you, or do something of which you disapprove, and then you dislike
them and speak of them with dispraise, you are not governed by the Love
which is of God. If, in your heart, you are continually arraigning and
condemning others, selfless Love is hidden from you.

He who knows that Love is at the heart of all things, and has realized the
all-sufficing power of that Love, has no room in his heart for
condemnation.

Men, not knowing this Love, constitute themselves judge and executioner of
their fellows, forgetting that there is the Eternal Judge and Executioner,
and in so far as men deviate from them in their own views, their particular
reforms and methods, they brand them as fanatical, unbalanced, lacking
judgment, sincerity, and honesty; in so far as others approximate to their
own standard do they look upon them as being everything that is admirable.
Such are the men who are centered in self. But he whose heart is centered
in the supreme Love does not so brand and classify men; does not seek to
convert men to his own views, not to convince them of the superiority of
his methods. Knowing the Law of Love, he lives it, and maintains the same
calm attitude of mind and sweetness of heart toward all. The debased and
the virtuous, the foolish and the wise, the learned and the unlearned, the
selfish and the unselfish receive alike the benediction of his tranquil
thought.

You can only attain to this supreme knowledge, this divine Love by
unremitting endeavor in self-discipline, and by gaining victory after
victory over yourself. Only the pure in heart see God, and when your heart
is sufficiently purified you will enter into the New Birth, and the Love
that does not die, nor change, nor end in pain and sorrow will be awakened
within you, and you will be at peace.

He who strives for the attainment of divine Love is ever seeking to
overcome the spirit of condemnation, for where there is pure spiritual
knowledge, condemnation cannot exist, and only in the heart that has become
incapable of condemnation is Love perfected and fully realized.

The Christian condemns the Atheist; the Atheist satirizes the Christian;
the Catholic and Protestant are ceaselessly engaged in wordy warfare, and
the spirit of strife and hatred rules where peace and love should be.

“He that hateth his brother is a murderer,” a crucifier of the divine
Spirit of Love; and until you can regard men of all religions and of no
religion with the same impartial spirit, with all freedom from dislike, and
with perfect equanimity, you have yet to strive for that Love which bestows
upon its possessor freedom and salvation.

The realization of divine knowledge, selfless Love, utterly destroys the
spirit of condemnation, disperses all evil, and lifts the consciousness to
that height of pure vision where Love, Goodness, Justice are seen to be
universal, supreme, all-conquering, indestructible.

Train your mind in strong, impartial, and gentle thought; train your heart
in purity and compassion; train your tongue to silence and to true and
stainless speech; so shall you enter the way of holiness and peace, and
shall ultimately realize the immortal Love. So living, without seeking to
convert, you will convince; without arguing, you will teach; not cherishing
ambition, the wise will find you out; and without striving to gain men’s
opinions, you will subdue their hearts. For Love is all-conquering,
all-powerful; and the thoughts, and deeds, and words of Love can never
perish.

To know that Love is universal, supreme, all-sufficing; to be freed from
the trammels of evil; to be quit of the inward unrest; to know that all men
are striving to realize the Truth each in his own way; to be satisfied,
sorrowless, serene; this is peace; this is gladness; this is immortality;
this is Divinity; this is the realization of selfless Love.

I stood upon the shore, and saw the rocks
Resist the onslaught of the mighty sea,
And when I thought how all the countless shocks
They had withstood through an eternity,
I said, “To wear away this solid main
The ceaseless efforts of the waves are vain.”

But when I thought how they the rocks had rent,
And saw the sand and shingles at my feet
(Poor passive remnants of resistance spent)
Tumbled and tossed where they the waters meet,
Then saw I ancient landmarks ‘neath the waves,
And knew the waters held the stones their slaves.

I saw the mighty work the waters wrought
By patient softness and unceasing flow;
How they the proudest promontory brought
Unto their feet, and massy hills laid low;
How the soft drops the adamantine wall
Conquered at last, and brought it to its fall.

And then I knew that hard, resisting sin
Should yield at last to Love’s soft ceaseless roll
Coming and going, ever flowing in
Upon the proud rocks of the human soul;
That all resistance should be spent and past,
And every heart yield unto it at last.

ENTERING INTO THE INFINITE

From the beginning of time, man, in spite of his bodily appetites and
desires, in the midst of all his clinging to earthly and impermanent
things, has ever been intuitively conscious of the limited, transient, and
illusionary nature of his material existence, and in his sane and silent
moments has tried to reach out into a comprehension of the Infinite, and
has turned with tearful aspiration toward the restful Reality of the
Eternal Heart.

While vainly imagining that the pleasures of earth are real and satisfying,
pain and sorrow continually remind him of their unreal and unsatisfying
nature. Ever striving to believe that complete satisfaction is to be found
in material things, he is conscious of an inward and persistent revolt
against this belief, which revolt is at once a refutation of his essential
mortality, and an inherent and imperishable proof that only in the
immortal, the eternal, the infinite can he find abiding satisfaction and
unbroken peace.

And here is the common ground of faith; here the root and spring of all
religion; here the soul of Brotherhood and the heart of Love,–that man is
essentially and spiritually divine and eternal, and that, immersed in
mortality and troubled with unrest, he is ever striving to enter into a
consciousness of his real nature.

The spirit of man is inseparable from the Infinite, and can be satisfied
with nothing short of the Infinite, and the burden of pain will continue to
weigh upon man’s heart, and the shadows of sorrow to darken his pathway
until, ceasing from his wanderings in the dream-world of matter, he comes
back to his home in the reality of the Eternal.

As the smallest drop of water detached from the ocean contains all the
qualities of the ocean, so man, detached in consciousness from the
Infinite, contains within him its likeness; and as the drop of water must,
by the law of its nature, ultimately find its way back to the ocean and
lose itself in its silent depths, so must man, by the unfailing law of his
nature, at last return to his source, and lose himself in the great ocean
of the Infinite.

To re-become one with the Infinite is the goal of man. To enter into
perfect harmony with the Eternal Law is Wisdom, Love and Peace. But this
divine state is, and must ever be, incomprehensible to the merely personal.
Personality, separateness, selfishness are one and the same, and are the
antithesis of wisdom and divinity. By the unqualified surrender of the
personality, separateness and selfishness cease, and man enters into the
possession of his divine heritage of immortality and infinity.

Such surrender of the personality is regarded by the worldly and selfish
mind as the most grievous of all calamities, the most irreparable loss, yet
it is the one supreme and incomparable blessing, the only real and lasting
gain. The mind unenlightened upon the inner laws of being, and upon the
nature and destiny of its own life, clings to transient appearances, things
which have in them no enduring substantiality, and so clinging, perishes,
for the time being, amid the shattered wreckage of its own illusions.

Men cling to and gratify the flesh as though it were going to last for
ever, and though they try to forget the nearness and inevitability of its
dissolution, the dread of death and of the loss of all that they cling to
clouds their happiest hours, and the chilling shadow of their own
selfishness follows them like a remorseless specter.

And with the accumulation of temporal comforts and luxuries, the divinity
within men is drugged, and they sink deeper and deeper into materiality,
into the perishable life of the senses, and where there is sufficient
intellect, theories concerning the immortality of the flesh come to be
regarded as infallible truths. When a man’s soul is clouded with
selfishness in any or every form, he loses the power of spiritual
discrimination, and confuses the temporal with the eternal, the perishable
with the permanent, mortality with immortality, and error with Truth. It is
thus that the world has come to be filled with theories and speculations
having no foundation in human experience. Every body of flesh contains
within itself, from the hour of birth, the elements of its own destruction,
and by the unalterable law of its own nature must it pass away.

The perishable in the universe can never become permanent; the permanent
can never pass away; the mortal can never become immortal; the immortal can
never die; the temporal cannot become eternal nor the eternal become
temporal; appearance can never become reality, nor reality fade into
appearance; error can never become Truth, nor can Truth become error. Man
cannot immortalize the flesh, but, by overcoming the flesh, by
relinquishing all its inclinations, he can enter the region of immortality.
“God alone hath immortality,” and only by realizing the God state of
consciousness does man enter into immortality.

All nature in its myriad forms of life is changeable, impermanent,
unenduring. Only the informing Principle of nature endures. Nature is many,
and is marked by separation. The informing Principle is One, and is marked
by unity. By overcoming the senses and the selfishness within, which is the
overcoming of nature, man emerges from the chrysalis of the personal and
illusory, and wings himself into the glorious light of the impersonal, the
region of universal Truth, out of which all perishable forms come.

Let men, therefore, practice self-denial; let them conquer their animal
inclinations; let them refuse to be enslaved by luxury and pleasure; let
them practice virtue, and grow daily into high and ever higher virtue,
until at last they grow into the Divine, and enter into both the practice
and the comprehension of humility, meekness, forgiveness, compassion, and
love, which practice and comprehension constitute Divinity.

“Good-will gives insight,” and only he who has so conquered his personality
that he has but one attitude of mind, that of good-will, toward all
creatures, is possessed of divine insight, and is capable of distinguishing
the true from the false. The supremely good man is, therefore, the wise
man, the divine man, the enlightened seer, the knower of the Eternal. Where
you find unbroken gentleness, enduring patience, sublime lowliness,
graciousness of speech, self-control, self-forgetfulness, and deep and
abounding sympathy, look there for the highest wisdom, seek the company of
such a one, for he has realized the Divine, he lives with the Eternal, he
has become one with the Infinite. Believe not him that is impatient, given
to anger, boastful, who clings to pleasure and refuses to renounce his
selfish gratifications, and who practices not good-will and far-reaching
compassion, for such a one hath not wisdom, vain is all his knowledge, and
his works and words will perish, for they are grounded on that which passes
away.

Let a man abandon self, let him overcome the world, let him deny the
personal; by this pathway only can he enter into the heart of the Infinite.

The world, the body, the personality are mirages upon the desert of time;
transitory dreams in the dark night of spiritual slumber, and those who
have crossed the desert, those who are spiritually awakened, have alone
comprehended the Universal Reality where all appearances are dispersed and
dreaming and delusion are destroyed.

There is one Great Law which exacts unconditional obedience, one unifying
principle which is the basis of all diversity, one eternal Truth wherein
all the problems of earth pass away like shadows. To realize this Law, this
Unity, this Truth, is to enter into the Infinite, is to become one with the
Eternal.

To center one’s life in the Great Law of Love is to enter into rest,
harmony, peace. To refrain from all participation in evil and discord; to
cease from all resistance to evil, and from the omission of that which is
good, and to fall back upon unswerving obedience to the holy calm within,
is to enter into the inmost heart of things, is to attain to a living,
conscious experience of that eternal and infinite principle which must ever
remain a hidden mystery to the merely perceptive intellect. Until this
principle is realized, the soul is not established in peace, and he who so
realizes is truly wise; not wise with the wisdom of the learned, but with
the simplicity of a blameless heart and of a divine manhood.

To enter into a realization of the Infinite and Eternal is to rise superior
to time, and the world, and the body, which comprise the kingdom of
darkness; and is to become established in immortality, Heaven, and the
Spirit, which make up the Empire of Light.

Entering into the Infinite is not a mere theory or sentiment. It is a vital
experience which is the result of assiduous practice in inward
purification. When the body is no longer believed to be, even remotely, the
real man; when all appetites and desires are thoroughly subdued and
purified; when the emotions are rested and calm, and when the oscillation
of the intellect ceases and perfect poise is secured, then, and not till
then, does consciousness become one with the Infinite; not until then is
childlike wisdom and profound peace secured.

Men grow weary and gray over the dark problems of life, and finally pass
away and leave them unsolved because they cannot see their way out of the
darkness of the personality, being too much engrossed in its limitations.
Seeking to save his personal life, man forfeits the greater impersonal Life
in Truth; clinging to the perishable, he is shut out from a knowledge of
the Eternal.

By the surrender of self all difficulties are overcome, and there is no
error in the universe but the fire of inward sacrifice will burn it up like
chaff; no problem, however great, but will disappear like a shadow under
the searching light of self-abnegation. Problems exist only in our own
self-created illusions, and they vanish away when self is yielded up. Self
and error are synonymous. Error is involved in the darkness of unfathomable
complexity, but eternal simplicity is the glory of Truth.

Love of self shuts men out from Truth, and seeking their own personal
happiness they lose the deeper, purer, and more abiding bliss. Says
Carlyle–”There is in man a higher than love of happiness. He can do
without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness.

… Love not pleasure, love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all
contradiction is solved; wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with
him.”

He who has yielded up that self, that personality that men most love, and
to which they cling with such fierce tenacity, has left behind him all
perplexity, and has entered into a simplicity so profoundly simple as to be
looked upon by the world, involved as it is in a network of error, as
foolishness. Yet such a one has realized the highest wisdom, and is at rest
in the Infinite. He “accomplishes without striving,” and all problems melt
before him, for he has entered the region of reality, and deals, not with
changing effects, but with the unchanging principles of things. He is
enlightened with a wisdom which is as superior to ratiocination, as reason
is to animality. Having yielded up his lusts, his errors, his opinions and
prejudices, he has entered into possession of the knowledge of God, having
slain the selfish desire for heaven, and along with it the ignorant fear of
hell; having relinquished even the love of life itself, he has gained
supreme bliss and Life Eternal, the Life which bridges life and death, and
knows its own immortality. Having yielded up all without reservation, he
has gained all, and rests in peace on the bosom of the Infinite.

Only he who has become so free from self as to be equally content to be
annihilated as to live, or to live as to be annihilated, is fit to enter
into the Infinite. Only he who, ceasing to trust his perishable self, has
learned to trust in boundless measure the Great Law, the Supreme Good, is
prepared to partake of undying bliss.

For such a one there is no more regret, nor disappointment, nor remorse,
for where all selfishness has ceased these sufferings cannot be; and
whatever happens to him he knows that it is for his own good, and he is
content, being no longer the servant of self, but the servant of the
Supreme. He is no longer affected by the changes of earth, and when he
hears of wars and rumors of wars his peace is not disturbed, and where men
grow angry and cynical and quarrelsome, he bestows compassion and love.
Though appearances may contradict it, he knows that the world is
progressing, and that

“Through its laughing and its weeping,
Through its living and its keeping,
Through its follies and its labors, weaving in and out of sight,
To the end from the beginning,
Through all virtue and all sinning,
Reeled from God’s great spool of Progress, runs the golden
thread of light.”

When a fierce storm is raging none are angered about it, because they know
it will quickly pass away, and when the storms of contention are
devastating the world, the wise man, looking with the eye of Truth and
pity, knows that it will pass away, and that out of the wreckage of broken
hearts which it leaves behind the immortal Temple of Wisdom will be built.

Sublimely patient; infinitely compassionate; deep, silent, and pure, his
very presence is a benediction; and when he speaks men ponder his words in
their hearts, and by them rise to higher levels of attainment. Such is he
who has entered into the Infinite, who by the power of utmost sacrifice has
solved the sacred mystery of life.

Questioning Life and Destiny and Truth,
I sought the dark and labyrinthine Sphinx,
Who spake to me this strange and wondrous thing:–
“Concealment only lies in blinded eyes,
And God alone can see the Form of God.”

I sought to solve this hidden mystery
Vainly by paths of blindness and of pain,
But when I found the Way of Love and Peace,
Concealment ceased, and I was blind no more:
Then saw I God e’en with the eyes of God.

SAINTS, SAGES, AND SAVIORS: THE LAW OF SERVICE

The spirit of Love which is manifested as a perfect and rounded life, is
the crown of being and the supreme end of knowledge upon this earth.

The measure of a man’s truth is the measure of his love, and Truth is far
removed from him whose life is not governed by Love. The intolerant and
condemnatory, even though they profess the highest religion, have the
smallest measure of Truth; while those who exercise patience, and who
listen calmly and dispassionately to all sides, and both arrive themselves
at, and incline others to, thoughtful and unbiased conclusions upon all
problems and issues, have Truth in fullest measure. The final test of
wisdom is this,–how does a man live? What spirit does he manifest? How
does he act under trial and temptation? Many men boast of being in
possession of Truth who are continually swayed by grief, disappointment,
and passion, and who sink under the first little trial that comes along.
Truth is nothing if not unchangeable, and in so far as a man takes his
stand upon Truth does he become steadfast in virtue, does he rise superior
to his passions and emotions and changeable personality.

Men formulate perishable dogmas, and call them Truth. Truth cannot be
formulated; it is ineffable, and ever beyond the reach of intellect. It can
only be experienced by practice; it can only be manifested as a stainless
heart and a perfect life.

Who, then, in the midst of the ceaseless pandemonium of schools and creeds
and parties, has the Truth? He who lives it. He who practices it. He who,
having risen above that pandemonium by overcoming himself, no longer
engages in it, but sits apart, quiet, subdued, calm, and self-possessed,
freed from all strife, all bias, all condemnation, and bestows upon all the
glad and unselfish love of the divinity within him.

He who is patient, calm, gentle, and forgiving under all circumstances,
manifests the Truth. Truth will never be proved by wordy arguments and
learned treatises, for if men do not perceive the Truth in infinite
patience, undying forgiveness, and all-embracing compassion, no words can
ever prove it to them.

It is an easy matter for the passionate to be calm and patient when they
are alone, or are in the midst of calmness. It is equally easy for the
uncharitable to be gentle and kind when they are dealt kindly with, but he
who retains his patience and calmness under all trial, who remains
sublimely meek and gentle under the most trying circumstances, he, and he
alone, is possessed of the spotless Truth. And this is so because such
lofty virtues belong to the Divine, and can only be manifested by one who
has attained to the highest wisdom, who has relinquished his passionate and
self-seeking nature, who has realized the supreme and unchangeable Law, and
has brought himself into harmony with it.

Let men, therefore, cease from vain and passionate arguments about Truth,
and let them think and say and do those things which make for harmony,
peace, love, and good-will. Let them practice heart-virtue, and search
humbly and diligently for the Truth which frees the soul from all error and
sin, from all that blights the human heart, and that darkens, as with
unending night, the pathway of the wandering souls of earth.

There is one great all-embracing Law which is the foundation and cause of
the universe, the Law of Love. It has been called by many names in various
countries and at various times, but behind all its names the same
unalterable Law may be discovered by the eye of Truth. Names, religions,
personalities pass away, but the Law of Love remains. To become possessed
of a knowledge of this Law, to enter into conscious harmony with it, is to
become immortal, invincible, indestructible.

It is because of the effort of the soul to realize this Law that men come
again and again to live, to suffer, and to die; and when realized,
suffering ceases, personality is dispersed, and the fleshly life and death
are destroyed, for consciousness becomes one with the Eternal.

The Law is absolutely impersonal, and its highest manifested expression is
that of Service. When the purified heart has realized Truth it is then
called upon to make the last, the greatest and holiest sacrifice, the
sacrifice of the well-earned enjoyment of Truth. It is by virtue of this
sacrifice that the divinely-emancipated soul comes to dwell among men,
clothed with a body of flesh, content to dwell among the lowliest and
least, and to be esteemed the servant of all mankind. That sublime humility
which is manifested by the world’s saviors is the seal of Godhead, and he
who has annihilated the personality, and has become a living, visible
manifestation of the impersonal, eternal, boundless Spirit of Love, is
alone singled out as worthy to receive the unstinted worship of posterity.
He only who succeeds in humbling himself with that divine humility which is
not only the extinction of self, but is also the pouring out upon all the
spirit of unselfish love, is exalted above measure, and given spiritual
dominion in the hearts of mankind.

All the great spiritual teachers have denied themselves personal luxuries,
comforts, and rewards, have abjured temporal power, and have lived and
taught the limitless and impersonal Truth. Compare their lives and
teachings, and you will find the same simplicity, the same self-sacrifice,
the same humility, love, and peace both lived and preached by them. They
taught the same eternal Principles, the realization of which destroys all
evil. Those who have been hailed and worshiped as the saviors of mankind
are manifestations of the Great impersonal Law, and being such, were free
from passion and prejudice, and having no opinions, and no special letter
of doctrine to preach and defend, they never sought to convert and to
proselytize. Living in the highest Goodness, the supreme Perfection, their
sole object was to uplift mankind by manifesting that Goodness in thought,
word, and deed. They stand between man the personal and God the impersonal,
and serve as exemplary types for the salvation of self-enslaved mankind.

Men who are immersed in self, and who cannot comprehend the Goodness that
is absolutely impersonal, deny divinity to all saviors except their own,
and thus introduce personal hatred and doctrinal controversy, and, while
defending their own particular views with passion, look upon each other as
being heathens or infidels, and so render null and void, as far as their
lives are concerned, the unselfish beauty and holy grandeur of the lives
and teachings of their own Masters. Truth cannot be limited; it can never
be the special prerogative of any man, school, or nation, and when
personality steps in, Truth is lost.

The glory alike of the saint, the sage, and the savior is this,–that he
has realized the most profound lowliness, the most sublime unselfishness;
having given up all, even his own personality, all his works are holy and
enduring, for they are freed from every taint of self. He gives, yet never
thinks of receiving; he works without regretting the past or anticipating
the future, and never looks for reward.

When the farmer has tilled and dressed his land and put in the seed, he
knows that he has done all that he can possibly do, and that now he must
trust to the elements, and wait patiently for the course of time to bring
about the harvest, and that no amount of expectancy on his part will affect
the result. Even so, he who has realized Truth goes forth as a sower of the
seeds of goodness, purity, love and peace, without expectancy, and never
looking for results, knowing that there is the Great Over-ruling Law which
brings about its own harvest in due time, and which is alike the source of
preservation and destruction.

Men, not understanding the divine simplicity of a profoundly unselfish
heart, look upon their particular savior as the manifestation of a special
miracle, as being something entirely apart and distinct from the nature of
things, and as being, in his ethical excellence, eternally unapproachable
by the whole of mankind. This attitude of unbelief (for such it is) in the
divine perfectibility of man, paralyzes effort, and binds the souls of men
as with strong ropes to sin and suffering. Jesus “grew in wisdom” and was
“perfected by suffering.” What Jesus was, he became such; what Buddha was,
he became such; and every holy man became such by unremitting perseverance
in self-sacrifice. Once recognize this, once realize that by watchful
effort and hopeful perseverance you can rise above your lower nature, and
great and glorious will be the vistas of attainment that will open out
before you. Buddha vowed that he would not relax his efforts until he
arrived at the state of perfection, and he accomplished his purpose.

What the saints, sages, and saviors have accomplished, you likewise may
accomplish if you will only tread the way which they trod and pointed out,
the way of self-sacrifice, of self-denying service.

Truth is very simple. It says, “Give up self,” “Come unto Me” (away from
all that defiles) “and I will give you rest.” All the mountains of
commentary that have been piled upon it cannot hide it from the heart that
is earnestly seeking for Righteousness. It does not require learning; it
can be known in spite of learning. Disguised under many forms by erring
self-seeking man, the beautiful simplicity and clear transparency of Truth
remains unaltered and undimmed, and the unselfish heart enters into and
partakes of its shining radiance. Not by weaving complex theories, not by
building up speculative philosophies is Truth realized; but by weaving the
web of inward purity, by building up the Temple of a stainless life is
Truth realized.

He who enters upon this holy way begins by restraining his passions. This
is virtue, and is the beginning of saintship, and saintship is the
beginning of holiness. The entirely worldly man gratifies all his desires,
and practices no more restraint than the law of the land in which he lives
demands; the virtuous man restrains his passions; the saint attacks the
enemy of Truth in its stronghold within his own heart, and restrains all
selfish and impure thoughts; while the holy man is he who is free from
passion and all impure thought, and to whom goodness and purity have become
as natural as scent and color are to the flower. The holy man is divinely
wise; he alone knows Truth in its fullness, and has entered into abiding
rest and peace. For him evil has ceased; it has disappeared in the
universal light of the All-Good. Holiness is the badge of wisdom. Said
Krishna to the Prince Arjuna–

“Humbleness, truthfulness, and harmlessness,
Patience and honor, reverence for the wise,
Purity, constancy, control of self,
Contempt of sense-delights, self-sacrifice,
Perception of the certitude of ill
In birth, death, age, disease, suffering and sin;
An ever tranquil heart in fortunes good
And fortunes evil, …
… Endeavors resolute
To reach perception of the utmost soul,
And grace to understand what gain it were
So to attain–this is true wisdom, Prince!
And what is otherwise is ignorance!”

Whoever fights ceaselessly against his own selfishness, and strives to
supplant it with all-embracing love, is a saint, whether he live in a
cottage or in the midst of riches and influence; or whether he preaches or
remains obscure.

To the worldling, who is beginning to aspire towards higher things, the
saint, such as a sweet St. Francis of Assisi, or a conquering St. Anthony,
is a glorious and inspiring spectacle; to the saint, an equally enrapturing
sight is that of the sage, sitting serene and holy, the conqueror of sin
and sorrow, no more tormented by regret and remorse, and whom even
temptation can never reach; and yet even the sage is drawn on by a still
more glorious vision, that of the savior actively manifesting his knowledge
in selfless works, and rendering his divinity more potent for good by
sinking himself in the throbbing, sorrowing, aspiring heart of mankind.

And this only is true service–to forget oneself in love towards all, to
lose oneself in working for the whole. O thou vain and foolish man, who
thinkest that thy many works can save thee; who, chained to all error,
talkest loudly of thyself, thy work, and thy many sacrifices, and
magnifiest thine own importance; know this, that though thy fame fill the
whole earth, all thy work shall come to dust, and thou thyself be reckoned
lower than the least in the Kingdom of Truth!

Only the work that is impersonal can live; the works of self are both
powerless and perishable. Where duties, howsoever humble, are done without
self-interest, and with joyful sacrifice, there is true service and
enduring work. Where deeds, however brilliant and apparently successful,
are done from love of self, there is ignorance of the Law of Service, and
the work perishes.

It is given to the world to learn one great and divine lesson, the lesson
of absolute unselfishness. The saints, sages, and saviors of all time are
they who have submitted themselves to this task, and have learned and lived
it. All the Scriptures of the world are framed to teach this one lesson;
all the great teachers reiterate it. It is too simple for the world which,
scorning it, stumbles along in the complex ways of selfishness.

A pure heart is the end of all religion and the beginning of divinity. To
search for this Righteousness is to walk the Way of Truth and Peace, and he
who enters this Way will soon perceive that Immortality which is
independent of birth and death, and will realize that in the Divine economy
of the universe the humblest effort is not lost.

The divinity of a Krishna, a Gautama, or a Jesus is the crowning glory of
self-abnegation, the end of the soul’s pilgrimage in matter and mortality,
and the world will not have finished its long journey until every soul has
become as these, and has entered into the blissful realization of its own
divinity.

Great glory crowns the heights of hope by arduous struggle won;
Bright honor rounds the hoary head that mighty works hath done;
Fair riches come to him who strives in ways of golden gain.
And fame enshrines his name who works with genius-glowing brain;
But greater glory waits for him who, in the bloodless strife
‘Gainst self and wrong, adopts, in love, the sacrificial life;
And brighter honor rounds the brow of him who, ‘mid the scorns
Of blind idolaters of self, accepts the crown of thorns;
And fairer purer riches come to him who greatly strives
To walk in ways of love and truth to sweeten human lives;
And he who serveth well mankind exchanges fleeting fame
For Light eternal, Joy and Peace, and robes of heavenly flame.

THE REALIZATION OF PERFECT PEACE

In the external universe there is ceaseless turmoil, change, and unrest; at
the heart of all things there is undisturbed repose; in this deep silence
dwelleth the Eternal.

Man partakes of this duality, and both the surface change and disquietude,
and the deep-seated eternal abode of Peace, are contained within him.

As there are silent depths in the ocean which the fiercest storm cannot
reach, so there are silent, holy depths in the heart of man which the
storms of sin and sorrow can never disturb. To reach this silence and to
live consciously in it is peace.

Discord is rife in the outward world, but unbroken harmony holds sway at
the heart of the universe. The human soul, torn by discordant passion and
grief, reaches blindly toward the harmony of the sinless state, and to
reach this state and to live consciously in it is peace.

Hatred severs human lives, fosters persecution, and hurls nations into
ruthless war, yet men, though they do not understand why, retain some
measure of faith in the overshadowing of a Perfect Love; and to reach this
Love and to live consciously in it is peace.

And this inward peace, this silence, this harmony, this Love, is the
Kingdom of Heaven, which is so difficult to reach because few are willing
to give up themselves and to become as little children.

“Heaven’s gate is very narrow and minute,
It cannot be perceived by foolish men
Blinded by vain illusions of the world;
E’en the clear-sighted who discern the way,
And seek to enter, find the portal barred,
And hard to be unlocked. Its massive bolts
Are pride and passion, avarice and lust.”

Men cry peace! peace! where there is no peace, but on the contrary,
discord, disquietude and strife. Apart from that Wisdom which is
inseparable from self-renunciation, there can be no real and abiding peace.

The peace which results from social comfort, passing gratification, or
worldly victory is transitory in its nature, and is burnt up in the heat of
fiery trial. Only the Peace of Heaven endures through all trial, and only
the selfless heart can know the Peace of Heaven.

Holiness alone is undying peace. Self-control leads to it, and the
ever-increasing Light of Wisdom guides the pilgrim on his way. It is
partaken of in a measure as soon as the path of virtue is entered upon, but
it is only realized in its fullness when self disappears in the
consummation of a stainless life.

“This is peace,
To conquer love of self and lust of life,
To tear deep-rooted passion from the heart
To still the inward strife.”

If, O reader! you would realize the Light that never fades, the Joy that
never ends, and the tranquillity that cannot be disturbed; if you would
leave behind for ever your sins, your sorrows, your anxieties and
perplexities; if, I say, you would partake of this salvation, this
supremely glorious Life, then conquer yourself. Bring every thought, every
impulse, every desire into perfect obedience to the divine power resident
within you. There is no other way to peace but this, and if you refuse to
walk it, your much praying and your strict adherence to ritual will be
fruitless and unavailing, and neither gods nor angels can help you. Only to
him that overcometh is given the white stone of the regenerate life, on
which is written the New and Ineffable Name.

Come away, for awhile, from external things, from the pleasures of the
senses, from the arguments of the intellect, from the noise and the
excitements of the world, and withdraw yourself into the inmost chamber of
your heart, and there, free from the sacrilegious intrusion of all selfish
desires, you will find a deep silence, a holy calm, a blissful repose, and
if you will rest awhile in that holy place, and will meditate there, the
faultless eye of Truth will open within you, and you will see things as
they really are. This holy place within you is your real and eternal self;
it is the divine within you; and only when you identify yourself with it
can you be said to be “clothed and in your right mind.” It is the abode of
peace, the temple of wisdom, the dwelling-place of immortality. Apart from
this inward resting-place, this Mount of Vision, there can be no true
peace, no knowledge of the Divine, and if you can remain there for one
minute, one hour, or one day, it is possible for you to remain there
always. All your sins and sorrows, your fears and anxieties are your own,
and you can cling to them or you can give them up. Of your own accord you
cling to your unrest; of your own accord you can come to abiding peace. No
one else can give up sin for you; you must give it up yourself. The
greatest teacher can do no more than walk the way of Truth for himself, and
point it out to you; you yourself must walk it for yourself. You can obtain
freedom and peace alone by your own efforts, by yielding up that which
binds the soul, and which is destructive of peace.

The angels of divine peace and joy are always at hand, and if you do not
see them, and hear them, and dwell with them, it is because you shut
yourself out from them, and prefer the company of the spirits of evil
within you. You are what you will to be, what you wish to be, what you
prefer to be. You can commence to purify yourself, and by so doing can
arrive at peace, or you can refuse to purify yourself, and so remain with
suffering.

Step aside, then; come out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the
scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the
cooling airs of peace will calm, renew, and restore you.

Come out of the storms of sin and anguish. Why be troubled and
tempest-tossed when the haven of Peace of God is yours!

Give up all self-seeking; give up self, and lo! the Peace of God is yours!

Subdue the animal within you; conquer every selfish uprising, every
discordant voice; transmute the base metals of your selfish nature into the
unalloyed gold of Love, and you shall realize the Life of Perfect Peace.
Thus subduing, thus conquering, thus transmuting, you will, O reader! while
living in the flesh, cross the dark waters of mortality, and will reach
that Shore upon which the storms of sorrow never beat, and where sin and
suffering and dark uncertainty cannot come. Standing upon that Shore, holy,
compassionate, awakened, and self-possessed and glad with unending
gladness, you will realize that

“Never the Spirit was born, the Spirit will cease to be never;
Never was time it was not, end and beginning are dreams;
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit for ever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems.”

You will then know the meaning of Sin, of Sorrow, of Suffering, and that
the end thereof is Wisdom; will know the cause and the issue of existence.

And with this realization you will enter into rest, for this is the bliss
of immortality, this the unchangeable gladness, this the untrammeled
knowledge, undefiled Wisdom, and undying Love; this, and this only, is the
realization of Perfect Peace.

O thou who wouldst teach men of Truth!
Hast thou passed through the desert of doubt?
Art thou purged by the fires of sorrow? hath ruth
The fiends of opinion cast out
Of thy human heart? Is thy soul so fair
That no false thought can ever harbor there?

O thou who wouldst teach men of Love!
Hast thou passed through the place of despair?
Hast thou wept through the dark night of grief?
does it move
(Now freed from its sorrow and care)
Thy human heart to pitying gentleness,
Looking on wrong, and hate, and ceaseless stress?

O thou who wouldst teach men of Peace!
Hast thou crossed the wide ocean of strife?
Hast thou found on the Shores of the Silence,
Release from all the wild unrest of life?
From thy human heart hath all striving gone,
Leaving but Truth, and Love, and Peace alone?

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way of Peace, by James Allen

James Allen – As A Man Thinketh

Beginning of the Project Gutenberg
Etext of As A Man Thinketh, by James Allen

_Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:–
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass._

Authorized Edition

CONTENTS
THOUGHT AND CHARACTER
EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES
EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON HEALTH AND THE BODY
THOUGHT AND PURPOSE
THE THOUGHT-FACTOR IN ACHIEVEMENT
VISIONS AND IDEALS
SERENITY

FOREWORD

THIS little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not
intended as an exhaustive treatise on the much-written-upon subject
of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory,
its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and
perception of the truth that–

“They themselves are makers of themselves.”

by virtue of the thoughts, which they choose and encourage; that
mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character
and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have
hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in
enlightenment and happiness.

JAMES ALLEN.
BROAD PARK AVENUE,
ILFRACOMBE,
ENGLAND

AS A MAN THINKETH
THOUGHT AND CHARACTER

THE aphorism, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,” not only
embraces the whole of a man’s being, but is so comprehensive as to
reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is
literally _what he thinks, _his character being the complete sum of
all his thoughts.

As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so
every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and
could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those
acts called “spontaneous” and “unpremeditated” as to those, which
are deliberately executed.

Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits;
thus does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own
husbandry.

“Thought in the mind hath made us, What we are
By thought was wrought and built. If a man’s mind
Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes
The wheel the ox behind….

..If one endure
In purity of thought, joy follows him
As his own shadow–sure.”

Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause
and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of
thought as in the world of visible and material things. A noble and
Godlike character is not a thing of favour or chance, but is the
natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of
long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and
bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the
continued harbouring of grovelling thoughts.

Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury of thought he
forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions
the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy
and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of
thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and
wrong application of thought, he descends below the level of the
beast. Between these two extremes are all the grades of character,
and man is their maker and master.

Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been
restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening
or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this–that man is
the master of thought, the moulder of character, and the maker and
shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.

As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own
thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within
himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may
make himself what he wills.

Man is always the master, even in his weaker and most abandoned
state; but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master
who misgoverns his “household.” When he begins to reflect upon his
condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being
is established, he then becomes the wise master, directing his
energies with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful
issues. Such is the _conscious _master, and man can only thus become
by discovering _within himself _the laws of thought; which discovery
is totally a matter of application, self analysis, and experience.

Only by much searching and mining, are gold and diamonds obtained,
and man can find every truth connected with his being, if he will
dig deep into the mine of his soul; and that he is the maker of his
character, the moulder of his life, and the builder of his destiny,
he may unerringly prove, if he will watch, control, and alter his
thoughts, tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon
his life and circumstances, linking cause and effect by patient
practice and investigation, and utilizing his every experience, even
to the most trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining
that knowledge of himself which is Understanding, Wisdom, Power. In
this direction, as in no other, is the law absolute that “He that
seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened;” for
only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man
enter the Door of the Temple of Knowledge.

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES
MAN’S mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently
cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or
neglected, it must, and will, _bring forth._ If no useful seeds are
_put _into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will _fall
_therein, and will continue to produce their kind.

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds,
and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man
tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and
impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and
fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this
process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the
master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also
reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with
ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind elements
operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.

Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest
and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer
conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be
harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a
man’s circumstances at any given time are an indication of his
_entire _character, but that those circumstances are so intimately
connected with some vital thought-element within himself that, for
the time being, they are indispensable to his development.

Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which
he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the
arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is
the result of a law which cannot err. This is just as true of those
who feel “out of harmony” with their surroundings as of those who
are contented with them.

As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may
learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which
any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to
other circumstances.

Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to
be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he
is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and
seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes
the rightful master of himself.

That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for
any length of time practised self-control and self-purification, for
he will have noticed that the alteration in his circumstances has
been in exact ratio with his altered mental condition. So true is
this that when a man earnestly applies himself to remedy the defects
in his character, and makes swift and marked progress, he passes
rapidly through a succession of vicissitudes.

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it
loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its
cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened
desires,–and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives
its own.

Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to
take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into
act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance.
Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.

The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of
thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are
factors, which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the
reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss.

Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which he
allows himself to be dominated, (pursuing the will-o’-the-wisps of
impure imaginings or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and
high endeavour), a man at last arrives at their fruition and
fulfilment in the outer conditions of his life. The laws of growth
and adjustment everywhere obtains.

A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of
fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts and
base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by
stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long
been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity
revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it
reveals him to himself No such conditions can exist as descending
into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious
inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness
without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations; and man,
therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of
himself the shaper and author of environment. Even at birth the soul
comes to its own and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it
attracts those combinations of conditions which reveal itself, which
are the reflections of its own purity and, impurity, its strength
and weakness.

Men do not attract that which they _want,_ but that which they _are._
Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but
their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it
foul or clean. The “divinity that shapes our ends” is in ourselves;
it is our very self. Only himself manacles man: thought and action
are the gaolers of Fate–they imprison, being base; they are also
the angels of Freedom–they liberate, being noble. Not what he
wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His
wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they
harmonize with his thoughts and actions.

In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning of “fighting
against circumstances?” It means that a man is continually revolting
against an _effect_ without, while all the time he is nourishing and
preserving its _cause_ in his heart. That cause may take the form of
a conscious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it
stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor, and thus calls
aloud for remedy.

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to
improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does
not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the
object upon which his heart is set. This is as true of earthly as of
heavenly things. Even the man whose sole object is to acquire wealth
must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can
accomplish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a
strong and well-poised life?

Here is a man who is wretchedly poor. He is extremely anxious that
his surroundings and home comforts should be improved, yet all the
time he shirks his work, and considers he is justified in trying to
deceive his employer on the ground of the insufficiency of his
wages. Such a man does not understand the simplest rudiments of
those principles which are the basis of true prosperity, and is not
only totally unfitted to rise out of his wretchedness, but is
actually attracting to himself a still deeper wretchedness by
dwelling in, and acting out, indolent, deceptive, and unmanly
thoughts.

Here is a rich man who is the victim of a painful and persistent
disease as the result of gluttony. He is willing to give large sums
of money to get rid of it, but he will not sacrifice his gluttonous
desires. He wants to gratify his taste for rich and unnatural viands
and have his health as well. Such a man is totally unfit to have
health, because he has not yet learned the first principles of a
healthy life.

Here is an employer of labour who adopts crooked measures to avoid
paying the regulation wage, and, in the hope of making larger
profits, reduces the wages of his workpeople. Such a man is
altogether unfitted for prosperity, and when he finds himself
bankrupt, both as regards reputation and riches, he blames
circumstances, not knowing that he is the sole author of his
condition.

I have introduced these three cases merely as illustrative of the
truth that man is the causer (though nearly always is unconsciously)
of his circumstances, and that, whilst aiming at a good end, he is
continually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughts
and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end. Such
cases could be multiplied and varied almost indefinitely, but this
is not necessary, as the reader can, if he so resolves, trace the
action of the laws of thought in his own mind and life, and until
this is done, mere external facts cannot serve as a ground of
reasoning.

Circumstances, however, are so complicated, thought is so deeply
rooted, and the conditions of happiness vary so, vastly with
individuals, that a man’s entire soul-condition (although it may be
known to himself) cannot be judged by another from the external
aspect of his life alone. A man may be honest in certain directions,
yet suffer privations; a man may be dishonest in certain directions,
yet acquire wealth; but the conclusion usually formed that the one
man fails _because of his particular honesty, _and that the other
_prospers because of his particular dishonesty, _is the result of a
superficial judgment, which assumes that the dishonest man is almost
totally corrupt, and the honest man almost entirely virtuous. In the
light of a deeper knowledge and wider experience such judgment is
found to be erroneous. The dishonest man may have some admirable
virtues, which the other does, not possess; and the honest man
obnoxious vices which are absent in the other. The honest man reaps
the good results of his honest thoughts and acts; he also brings
upon himself the sufferings, which his vices produce. The dishonest
man likewise garners his own suffering and happiness.

It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because
of one’s virtue; but not until a man has extirpated every sickly,
bitter, and impure thought from his mind, and washed every sinful
stain from his soul, can he be in a position to know and declare
that his sufferings are the result of his good, and not of his bad
qualities; and on the way to, yet long before he has reached, that
supreme perfection, he will have found, working in his mind and
life, the Great Law which is absolutely just, and which cannot,
therefore, give good for evil, evil for good. Possessed of such
knowledge, he will then know, looking back upon his past ignorance
and blindness, that his life is, and always was, justly ordered, and
that all his past experiences, good and bad, were the equitable
outworking of his evolving, yet unevolved self.

Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad
thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but
saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from
nettles but nettles. Men understand this law in the natural world,
and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral
world (though its operation there is just as simple and
undeviating), and they, therefore, do not co-operate with it.

Suffering is _always_ the effect of wrong thought in some direction.
It is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with
himself, with the Law of his being. The sole and supreme use of
suffering is to purify, to burn out all that is useless and impure.
Suffering ceases for him who is pure. There could be no object in
burning gold after the dross had been removed, and a perfectly pure
and enlightened being could not suffer.

The circumstances, which a man encounters with suffering, are the
result of his own mental in harmony. The circumstances, which a man
encounters with blessedness, are the result of his own mental
harmony. Blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of
right thought; wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is
the measure of wrong thought. A man may be cursed and rich; he may
be blessed and poor. Blessedness and riches are only joined together
when the riches are rightly and wisely used; and the poor man only
descends into wretchedness when he regards his lot as a burden
unjustly imposed.

Indigence and indulgence are the two extremes of wretchedness. They
are both equally unnatural and the result of mental disorder. A man
is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and
prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the
result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer, of
the man with his surroundings.

A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile,
and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his
life. And as he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases
to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself
up in strong and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against
circumstances, but begins to _use_ them as aids to his more rapid
progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and
possibilities within himself.

Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe;
justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life; and
righteousness, not corruption, is the moulding and moving force in
the spiritual government of the world. This being so, man has but to
right himself to find that the universe is right; and during the
process of putting himself right he will find that as he alters his
thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people
will alter towards him.

The proof of this truth is in every person, and it therefore admits
of easy investigation by systematic introspection and self-analysis.
Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at
the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions
of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it
cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies
into circumstance. Bestial thoughts crystallize into habits of
drunkenness and sensuality, which solidify into circumstances of
destitution and disease: impure thoughts of every kind crystallize
into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into
distracting and adverse circumstances: thoughts of fear, doubt, and
indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits,
which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish
dependence: lazy thoughts crystallize into habits of uncleanliness
and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and
beggary: hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits
of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of
injury and persecution: selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize
into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into circumstances more
or less distressing. On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all
kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which
solidify into genial and sunny circumstances: pure thoughts
crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which
solidify into circumstances of repose and peace: thoughts of
courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits,
which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom:
energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and
industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle
and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which
solidify into protective and preservative circumstances: loving and
unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for
others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding
prosperity and true riches.

A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad,
cannot fail to produce its results on the character and
circumstances. A man cannot _directly_ choose his circumstances, but
he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his
circumstances.

Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts, which
he most encourages, and opportunities are presented which will most
speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil thoughts.

Let a man cease from his sinful thoughts, and all the world will
soften towards him, and be ready to help him; let him put away his
weakly and sickly thoughts, and lo, opportunities will spring up on
every hand to aid his strong resolves; let him encourage good
thoughts, and no hard fate shall bind him down to wretchedness and
shame. The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations
of colours, which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are
the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.

“So You will be what you will to be;
Let failure find its false content
In that poor word, ‘environment,’
But spirit scorns it, and is free.

“It masters time, it conquers space;
It cowes that boastful trickster, Chance,
And bids the tyrant Circumstance
Uncrown, and fill a servant’s place.

“The human Will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew a way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene.

“Be not impatient in delays
But wait as one who understands;
When spirit rises and commands
The gods are ready to obey.”

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON HEALTH AND THE BODY
THE body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the
mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically
expressed. At the bidding of unlawful thoughts the body sinks
rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful
thoughts it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty.

Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought.
Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a sickly body.
Thoughts of fear have been known to kill a man as speedily as a
bullet, and they are continually killing thousands of people just as
surely though less rapidly. The people who live in fear of disease
are the people who get it. Anxiety quickly demoralizes the whole
body, and lays it open to the, entrance of disease; while impure
thoughts, even if not physically indulged, will soon shatter the
nervous system.

Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in vigour and
grace. The body is a delicate and plastic instrument, which responds
readily to the thoughts by which it is impressed, and habits of
thought will produce their own effects, good or bad, upon it.

Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood, so long as they
propagate unclean thoughts. Out of a clean heart comes a clean life
and a clean body. Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life and
a corrupt body. Thought is the fount of action, life, and
manifestation; make the fountain pure, and all will be pure.

Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts.
When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure
food.

Clean thoughts make clean habits. The so-called saint who does not
wash his body is not a saint. He who has strengthened and purified
his thoughts does not need to consider the malevolent microbe.

If you would protect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew
your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy,
disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A
sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts.
Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, and pride.

I know a woman of ninety-six who has the bright, innocent face of a
girl. I know a man well under middle age whose face is drawn into
inharmonious contours. The one is the result of a sweet and sunny
disposition; the other is the outcome of passion and discontent.

As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the
air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a
bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free
admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and goodwill and
serenity.

On the faces of the aged there are wrinkles made by sympathy, others
by strong and pure thought, and others are carved by passion: who
cannot distinguish them? With those who have lived righteously, age
is calm, peaceful, and softly mellowed, like the setting sun. I have
recently seen a philosopher on his deathbed. He was not old except
in years. He died as sweetly and peacefully as he had lived.

There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills
of the body; there is no comforter to compare with goodwill for
dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live continually in
thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be
confined in a self made prison-hole. But to think well of all, to be
cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all–such
unselfish thoughts are the very portals of heaven; and to dwell day
by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring
abounding peace to their possessor.

THOUGHT AND PURPOSE
UNTIL thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent
accomplishment. With the majority the bark of thought is allowed to
“drift” upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice, and such
drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of
catastrophe and destruction.

They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to
petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pityings, all of which are
indications of weakness, which lead, just as surely as deliberately
planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness,
and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power evolving universe.

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set
out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing
point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or
it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time
being; but whichever it is, he should steadily focus his
thought-forces upon the object, which he has set before him. He
should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself
to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into
ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road
to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails
again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must
until weakness is overcome), the _strength of character gained_ will
be the measure of _his true_ success, and this will form a new
starting-point for future power and triumph.

Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a _great_ purpose
should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their
duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in
this way can the thoughts be gathered and focussed, and resolution
and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which
may not be accomplished.

The weakest soul, knowing its own weakness, and believing this truth
_that strength can only be developed by effort and practice,_ will,
thus believing, at once begin to exert itself, and, adding effort to
effort, patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never
cease to develop, and will at last grow divinely strong.

As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and
patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong
by exercising himself in right thinking.

To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with
purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only
recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all
conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly,
and accomplish masterfully.

Having conceived of his purpose, a man should mentally mark out a
_straight_ pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right
nor the left. Doubts and fears should be rigorously excluded; they
are disintegrating elements, which break up the straight line of
effort, rendering it crooked, ineffectual, useless. Thoughts of
doubt and fear never accomplished anything, and never can. They
always lead to failure. Purpose, energy, power to do, and all strong
thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in.

The will to do springs from the knowledge that we _can_ do. Doubt
and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages
them, who does not slay them. thwarts himself at every step.

He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure. His
every, thought is allied with power, and all difficulties are
bravely met and wisely overcome. His purposes are seasonably
planted, and they bloom and bring forth fruit, which does not fall
prematurely to the ground.

Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force: he who
_knows_ this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a
mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations; he who
_does _this has become the conscious and intelligent wielder of his
mental powers.

THE THOUGHT-FACTOR IN ACHIEVEMENT
ALL that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the
direct result of his own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe,
where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual
responsibility must be absolute. A man’s weakness and strength,
purity and impurity, are his own, and not another man’s; they are
brought about by himself, and not by another; and they can only be
altered by himself, never by another. His condition is also his own,
and not another man’s. His suffering and his happiness are evolved
from within. As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he
remains.

A strong man cannot help a weaker unless that weaker is _willing_ to
be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself;
he must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires
in another. None but himself can alter his condition.

It has been usual for men to think and to say, “Many men are slaves
because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor.” Now,
however, there is amongst an increasing few a tendency to reverse
this judgment, and to say, “One man is an oppressor because many are
slaves; let us despise the slaves.”

The truth is that oppressor and slave are co-operators in ignorance,
and, while seeming to afflict each other, are in reality afflicting
themselves. A perfect Knowledge perceives the action of law in the
weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the oppressor;
a perfect Love, seeing the suffering, which both states entail,
condemns neither; a perfect Compassion embraces both oppressor and
oppressed.

He who has conquered weakness, and has put away all selfish
thoughts, belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. He is free.

A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his
thoughts. He can only remain weak, and abject, and miserable by
refusing to lift up his thoughts.

Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he must
lift his thoughts above slavish animal indulgence. He may not, in
order to succeed, give up all animality and selfishness, by any
means; but a portion of it must, at least, be sacrificed. A man
whose first thought is bestial indulgence could neither think
clearly nor plan methodically; he could not find and develop his
latent resources, and would fail in any undertaking. Not having
commenced to manfully control his thoughts, he is not in a position
to control affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities. He is not
fit to act independently and stand alone. But he is limited only by
the thoughts, which he chooses.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice, and a
man’s worldly success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his
confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of
his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and
self-reliance. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly,
upright, and righteous he becomes, the greater will be his success,
the more blessed and enduring will be his achievements.

The universe does not favour the greedy, the dishonest, the vicious,
although on the mere surface it may sometimes appear to do so; it
helps the honest, the magnanimous, the virtuous. All the great
Teachers of the ages have declared this in varying forms, and to
prove and know it a man has but to persist in making himself more
and more virtuous by lifting up his thoughts.

Intellectual achievements are the result of thought consecrated to
the search for knowledge, or for the beautiful and true in life and
nature. Such achievements may be sometimes connected with vanity and
ambition, but they are not the outcome of those characteristics;
they are the natural outgrowth of long and arduous effort, and of
pure and unselfish thoughts.

Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations. He
who lives constantly in the conception of noble and lofty thoughts,
who dwells upon all that is pure and unselfish, will, as surely as
the sun reaches its zenith and the moon its full, become wise and
noble in character, and rise into a position of influence and
blessedness.

Achievement, of whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of
thought. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity,
righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends; by the aid
of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of
thought a man descends.

A man may rise to high success in the world, and even to lofty
altitudes in the spiritual realm, and again descend into weakness
and wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish, and corrupt thoughts
to take possession of him.

Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained by
watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly
fall back into failure.

All achievements, whether in the business, intellectual, or
spiritual world, are the result of definitely directed thought, are
governed by the same law and are of the same method; the only
difference lies in _the object of attainment._

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would
achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must
sacrifice greatly.

VISIONS AND IDEALS
THE dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is
sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and
sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of
their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it
cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows
them as they _realities_ which it shall one day see and know.

Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the
makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is
beautiful because they have lived; without them, labouring humanity
would perish.

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart,
will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another
world, and he discovered it; Copernicus fostered the vision of a
multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it;
Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty
and perfect peace, and he entered into it.

Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that
stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the
loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will
grow all delightful conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these,
if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.

To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve. Shall man’s basest
desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest
aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law: such
a condition of things can never obtain: “ask and receive.”

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your
Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is
the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The
oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the
highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the
seedlings of realities.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long
remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You
cannot travel _within_ and stand still _without._ Here is a youth
hard pressed by poverty and labour; confined long hours in an
unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of
refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of
intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of,
mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a
wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest
urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means,
small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and
resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the
workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony
with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is
cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities, which fit the
scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years
later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of
certain forces of the mind, which he wields with worldwide influence
and almost unequalled power. In his hands he holds the cords of
gigantic responsibilities; he speaks, and lo, lives are changed; men
and women hang upon his words and remould their characters, and,
sunlike, he becomes the fixed and luminous centre round which
innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his
youth. He has become one with his Ideal.

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle
wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both,
for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most
love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own
thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less.
Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or
rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as
small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant
aspiration: in the beautiful words of Stanton Kirkham Davis, “You
may be keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the
door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals,
and shall find yourself before an audience–the pen still behind
your ear, the ink stains on your fingers and then and there shall
pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You may be driving sheep,
and you shall wander to the city-bucolic and open-mouthed; shall
wander under the intrepid guidance of the spirit into the studio of
the master, and after a time he shall say, ‘I have nothing more to
teach you.’ And now you have become the master, who did so recently
dream of great things while driving sheep. You shall lay down the
saw and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the
world.”

The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the
apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of
luck, of fortune, and chance. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, “How
lucky he is!” Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim,
“How highly favoured he is!” And noting the saintly character and
wide influence of another, they remark, “How chance aids him at
every turn!” They do not see the trials and failures and struggles
which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their
experience; have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of
the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have
exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable,
and realize the Vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness
and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it
“luck”. They do not see the long and arduous journey, but only
behold the pleasant goal, and call it “good fortune,” do not
understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it
chance.

In all human affairs there are _efforts,_ and there are _results,_
and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance
is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual
possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed,
objects accomplished, visions realized.

The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you
enthrone in your heart–this you will build your life by, this you
will become.

SERENITY
CALMNESS of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the
result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence is
an indication of ripened experience, and of a more than ordinary
knowledge of the laws and operations of thought.

A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a
thought evolved being, for such knowledge necessitates the
understanding of others as the result of thought, and as he develops
a right understanding, and sees more and more clearly the internal
relations of things by the action of cause and effect he ceases to
fuss and fume and worry and grieve, and remains poised, steadfast,
serene.

The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to
adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual
strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The
more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his
influence, his power for good. Even the ordinary trader will find
his business prosperity increase as he develops a greater
self-control and equanimity, for people will always prefer to deal
with a man whose demeanour is strongly equable.

The strong, calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a
shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a
storm. “Who does not love a tranquil heart, a sweet-tempered,
balanced life? It does not matter whether it rains or shines, or
what changes come to those possessing these blessings, for they are
always sweet, serene, and calm. That exquisite poise of character,
which we call serenity is the last lesson of culture, the fruitage
of the soul. It is precious as wisdom, more to be desired
than gold–yea, than even fine gold. How insignificant mere money
seeking looks in comparison with a serene life–a life that dwells
in the ocean of Truth, beneath the waves, beyond the reach of
tempests, in the Eternal Calm!

“How many people we know who sour their lives, who ruin all that is
sweet and beautiful by explosive tempers, who destroy their poise of
character, and make bad blood! It is a question whether the great
majority of people do not ruin their lives and mar their happiness
by lack of self-control. How few people we meet in life who are well
balanced, who have that exquisite poise which is characteristic of
the finished character!

Yes, humanity surges with uncontrolled passion, is tumultuous with
ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and doubt only the wise
man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the
winds and the storms of the soul obey him.

Tempest-tossed souls, wherever ye may be, under whatsoever
conditions ye may live, know this in the ocean of life the isles of
Blessedness are smiling, and the sunny shore of your ideal awaits
your coming. Keep your hand firmly upon the helm of thought. In the
bark of your soul reclines the commanding Master; He does but sleep:
wake Him. Self-control is strength; Right Thought is mastery;
Calmness is power. Say unto your heart, “Peace, be still!”

End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of As A Man Thinketh, by James Allen

Great Thinkers

Includes the writings of James Allen (“As A Man Thinketh”), Kahlil Gibran and others.

James Allen
James Allen (28 November 1864 in Leicester, England – 1912) was a philosophical writer of British nationality known for his inspirational books and poetry. Allen was 15 when his father, a businessman, was robbed and murdered. He left school to work full-time in several British manufacturing firms to help support the family. He later married Lily L. Allen and became an executive secretary for a large company. At age 38, inspired by the writings of Leo Tolstoy, he retired from employment. Allen — along with his wife and their daughter, Nohra — moved to a small cottage in Ilfracombe, Devon, England to pursue a simple life of contemplation. There he wrote for nine years, producing 19 works. He also edited and published a magazine, “The Light of Reason”.  (More on Wikipedia)

As A Man Thinketh
The Way of Peace

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Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran, (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer.

Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of Ottoman Syria), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career.

He is chiefly known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of philosophical essays written in English prose. An early example of Inspirational fiction, the book sold well despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely popular in 1960s counterculture.  (More on Wikipedia.)

The Prophet
Sand and Foam