The Way of Peace - James Allen
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.