POKROV IS A SPIRITUAL ASSOCIATION OF ESOTERIC.
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The Friendly Philosopher-The Eternal Verities
The friendly philosopher
or not. The memory of walking is with us now; the memory of talking is with us now. We may not remember how nor when we
learned to talk or to walk, but we have present with us the knowing how to walk and to talk. True memory is just that—the
possession of the knowledge of the past. It is memory which connects us physically with the body, through all changes of
body, scene and circumstance; without it, we should be living merely from impression to impression; there would be no
connection whatever with the past and there would be no sense of self-identity.
Memory exists also in other inner departments of our nature. Living on the physical plane, our ideas connected almost
entirely with the “three-dimensional” state of matter, we are no more conscious of those inner planes of being than, when in
sleep, we are conscious of the physical plane, being absolutely shut off from the outside world, from the happenings to our
friends, to the nation, and to the world at large, which are then of no consequence whatever to us. Yet there is an active life in
those inner departments of our nature, and there is a memory of it. The Thinker who uses the brain in the waking state is
simply acting on another plane of matter and using another plane of memory. Every plane of consciousness has a memory of
its own.
That consciousness never ceases, but is continuously active, is evidenced by the fact that no one has ever experienced
sleep. Nor does death come to us any more than sleep. We may be aware that sleep or death is coming for the body, but we
know those states only as we see them in others. When we say “I was asleep,” we mean that the body was in the sleeping
state, while we passed away altogether from this plane for the time being. Then we passed back again from the inner planes
to this, picking up the memory of the waking state where we laid it down, and leaving behind the memory of what passed on
the other side. There is no record made in this physical instrument of the inner planes, for the brain has not been trained in
that direction, and hence it can
not translate those planes of consciousness, except in some partial recollections such as occur in dreams. Dreams attest
that we are alive and active on inner planes; for in them, we think, speak, smell, taste, hear and move, as individuals, and
never have any question as to our identity, even though the personality presented should be that of some past incarnation.
The dreaming state is very close to the point of waking—the intermediate state between waking and sleep—so that we are
able to impress the brain-cells with what has occurred before waking, and remember. But beyond the dreaming stage, which
is a very short stage of sleep, there is a Vast extent of human thought and action. We go in and in until we are close to the
source of our own being, where the Thinker is at work, where he knows all that he has been before—all his past
incarnations—where he sees and knows himself as he is. The memory of all the experiences through which he has been as
an individualized being is there in one consecutive whole. That, indeed, was the Paradise of man, when he walked with
Deity, when he knew himself as he really was. True memory is the Paradise which all human beings should strive to regain.
To recover that whole memory, to make that great knowledge of the past usable, here and now in the brain and in the body,
is the true work of ‘salvation. Only when we understand what we really are, shall we be able to take a conscious, active,
purposeful part in the evolution of our race. Only when we gain the perception that we are the Eternal Spirit, that Death never
touches us at all, that we may have a conscious life in spirit, not in matter—only when we begin to think and act from that
basis, can true memory come through to the brain; only then can we know for ourselves, have nothing to ask of anyone, but
have everything to give to every other one. That true memory is possible for every living being.
The barrier for every man is not in the memory, but in the false ideas of life according to which he acts. However much the
soul remembers, if we are using the brain contrary to the nature of the soul, the brain can not translate its impressions. The
Thinker must transfer the memory of the soul to the brain, and he can do so only by thinking and acting along right lines
during active waking consciousness, until the brain responds to the ideas and learns to transmit what occurs while the body
is inoperative. Then the true memory of the past that is in the soul is our knowledge in the brain.
The Masters are those who have the true memory of every step through which They have gone—the knowledge of all past
civilizations, the understanding of all that every human being has to experience, the recognition of all the laws ruling evolution.
As custodians of that knowledge, and as our Elder Brothers, They stand ready to help mankind in the only way open to
Them—by recording as much of that knowledge as we can assimilate, by directing us to its proper use for the benefit of all
other human beings, that all humanity may advance in an orderly way to the true goal. Greater and greater individualization,
wider and wider range of perception, are the objects of evolution; but there are two paths by which we may reach the goal.
One path leads to an individualization that is selfish, and self-righteous—a state of separateness from all human beings; on
the other, there is no cessation of work for humanity. The Elder Brother goes as high as he can, but he stops before he
enters the final door that separates him from the rest; he returns and takes up again a body of the race, as Jesus did, that he
may help those who know less than He does. So we are never alone. Never will there come a time when those Great Beings
will cease from that labor, which is a labor of love. But we are the ones who must determine for ourselves, sooner or later,
whether to go on through aeons of suffering and millions of lives of ignorance, or to follow the path They show, which leads
straight to the goal—which involves the power of direct cognition of truth without any mistake whatever, and which includes
real memory.
THE ETERNAL VERITIES
THE CAUSE OF SORROW
We are never free from pain, sorrow, and suffering in the world. Pleasures come and go very lightly, but always the sorrow
and suffering of life itself abides with us. If we could see and understand the cause of the sorrow existing in the world in every
direction—not only the sorrows of the ordinary life but those brought about by collective action, as wars are—we should
cease to make that cause. We have assumed that all these sorrows are due to external causes—to some higher being or
beings, or to some outside laws of the universe; never to ourselves. And because we have never brought it home to
ourselves that we are in any way connected with the causes of sorrow which come our way, we go on looking for something
external to relieve us of those sorrows. Not all the religions that ever have existed on the face of the earth, not all that the
sciences have so far achieved or may achieve will ever give us that knowledge, because the cause of sorrow does not lie
outside; it lies within each one. Each one contains within himself the power to cause sorrow; he also has the power to cause
its cessation.
The wisdom of the ages explains the cause of sorrow. It teaches that each being is spirit; that the power of spirit is illimitable,
although we limit it because we assume that it is limited; that the changeless spirit in the heart of every being is behind every
form, the cause and sustainer of all forms; that spirit is the force be hind evolution, and also the force that rules and relates all
things of whatever grade; that every being is the result of an unfoldment from within outwards—of a desire for greater and
greater expression. But we who have reached this stage of self-consciousness, unlike the lower kingdoms, now have the
power of choice and can draw upon that illimitable source of our being and realize it while we live in a mortal and ever-
changing body.
Desire, in a limited way, with regard to the personality, is the cause of all sin, sorrow, and suffering. Such desire is based on
selfish thought; it is not what others desire; it heeds not any other urge than its own. The unfulfilled desires, it is, that hurt us;
yet do the fulfilled desires give us happiness? Never, for so soon as they are achieved, there begins a further desire for
something more, something greater. With many conflicting desires, then, we live upon each other, we prey upon each other,
we devour each other, we injure each other—in every way. There is no necessity for all this. It never was the original plan—
the original nature of the development of man. There is never any need to desire. All our woes are self-inflicted; the very
inherent power of spirit has plunged us into them and maintains us in them.
Yet misery, sorrow and suffering have a mission. It is usually only the misery we bring upon ourselves that makes us stop
doing wrong, to look around and ask and see what is right. It is by our mistakes we learn to see the difference between right
and wrong, and in seeing that difference is the whole story of progress. We have to be able to tell the difference. It is only
through ‘ opposites”—the perception of them and the employment of them—that any being can grow at all. There has always
to be duality in nature. All human beings are One in spirit, dual in expression. Always there is the actor and something to act
upon. Always there are the two—Purusha, the spirit, and Prakriti, matter—not two separate things, but two aspects of one
and the same thing. No perception is possible unless we have that duality. We have to experience darkness first in order to
see light, and so with the opposites of pleasure and pain. Without pain we could not understand pleasure; without pleasure
we could not understand pain. What lies behind all advance in intelligence, from the lowest to the highest, is perception
gained by that which acts, from that which is acted upon.
Law rules everywhere in nature in accord with the basis of duality. We call it the law of periodicity, but it is simply a statement
of Karma, or action and reaction. What we call the laws of the elements are in reality but perceptions of the actions and
reactions of various grades of intelligences. ‘What we call our seasons, and all the cycles of time or of individuals, are
covered by that law—reaction from action previously sent forth. The people who form a nation are people who were together
in other times; their collective actions have brought them the same collective reactions. Every thought we have has its return
of impression; every feeling we have has its return. All react upon us, coming back either impoverished or enriched. Thus,
with the power to produce any kind of effect resident in us, we can understand the power of false, mistaken ideas. We can
sustain these ideas interminably by the law of return of impression, and continually suffer reactions from them. The whole
power of spirit used in a wrong direction, in ignorance of our own nature and the nature of beings in general, creates sorrow
of every kind.
No one can stop us in our mistaken course so long as we foolishly entertain false ideas. Our evolution has been brought
about by us under the laws of our own operation—action and reaction within ourselves—and in no other way. It is a mistake
to think that good comes to us from outside quarters. It never does. Whatever good or whatever evil comes is the reaping of
what we have sown, in every way and in every circumstance. There are no exceptions. We look for “justice.” We are getting
it, according to our own thought and action. For let us remember that the plane of action is thought itself, that is to say—
ideas. Action is merely the sequence of the concretion of thought. So there is every necessity for us to clear out the rubbish
which we hold as ideas. Our “minds,” as a rule, are found to be made of a bundle of ideas that somebody has handed on to
us. We accept the ideas of the race, of the people about us, of this “ism” or that “ology,” and call it our mind, when, in reality,
we have no mind of our own at all. The mind is the power to receive and to reject. What we receive and what we reject
depends upon ourselves—on our ignorance or on our wisdom. There is nothing outside we have to learn, but every thing
inside. The task we have at hand is to understand our own natures.
If any great number of beings in this world should reach the understanding of their own natures, and so exercise their inherent
spiritual powers for the benefit of their fellow-men, in no long time we should find the misery of the world most wonderfully
abated. As was said of old, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. And one of our Teachers said, “Give me five hundred
good, earnest, sincere, devoted men and women and I will move the world.” Our success does not depend upon any form of
physical evolution, nor upon any form of scientific advancement. These are but means and not ends in themselves, though
did we but know our own real powers, they could be carried to a pitch not yet dreamed of. We must and eventually will carry
the civilization of the world to a higher stage than has ever before existed, but that will never be until men realize their own
natures and act from that basis. We can go on indefinitely repeating the present thinking and acting, but so long as we do,
just so long will there be sin and sorrow and suffering. Never will they cease, nor wars, diseases, pestilences, tornadoes,
cyclones, nor earthquakes—for all these come from man’s errors.
We shall never find a vicarious atonement. We must take the results of what we sow. Recognizing that we are responsible
for our own conditions, we must do our best to adjust them. Readjustment can come only through assuming our own spiritual
birth right, instead of assuming that we are these unfortunate bodies that are born, live for a while and die; through the
fulfillment of our duties in every direction as the opportunities are offered us. For we cannot work out our salvation alone. We
cannot live alone. We cannot progress alone. We cannot raise ourselves beyond the rest, but must help all the rest to
whatever stage we occupy, going further and further ourselves that we may be the better able to help and teach the others.
Jesus was what he was because he became so. Buddha was what he was because he became so. There was a time when
they were sinning and erring mortals like ourselves. But they saw the true path and turned and followed it, as in all time to
come must every being.
Just so long as we think that we are physical beings and follow after this or that desire, just so long do we put off the day of
readjustment and suffer from the causes we have set in motion. But when in place of false ideas we commence to base our
thought and action on correct ideas, the brain begins to be clarified and to be permeable to the immense knowledge of the
inner man—a knowledge which is not now recorded because of the wrong way in which we have trained it. The brain has to
be made a good conductor for spiritual knowledge. If true knowledge were ours, would we have desires? Would we seek
after this or that thing in physical life and expend our best energies upon them? No. Further, we would know that no matter
what there is in the universe anywhere, nothing can stop the progress laid down for ourselves in a spiritual direction. We
would also know that nothing can harm us; nothing can be wilder us. We would trust the law of our own spiritual nature,
seeking only to do what good we can; seeking nothing for our selves, but to do service in every possible way for every other
being. Then we should be in accord with the nature of the whole, and the natures and forces of all beings would carry us
along on the stream that brooks no obstacle whatever. Would we be sorrowful? Never; because we would be fulfilling the real
purpose of spirit and soul in helping all other souls on the path, so far as the opportunity lay before us. In this course there is
no need to strain and struggle; we have only to take those opportunities which our reactions bring us. The evil that comes to
us—well, it is something for us to adjust, to balance. The good that comes to us—that too is the result of our own actions. So
we may take the good and enjoy it, and meet the evil without fear or trembling or resistance of any kind in an attempt to avoid
it.
The only sorrow of the great Teachers, or Masters of Wisdom, is to see men perpetually engulfing themselves in sin and
sorrow and suffering which They cannot prevent. One of Them was asked at one time, “Why is it with your great knowledge
and power that you do not make men think as they should?” He said, “The human soul is not so constituted. It has to see and
act for itself.” For the action is from within outward, and the power goes with the action. No one can save us but ourselves.
BACK
NEXT
or not. The memory of walking is with us now; the memory of talking is with us now. We may not remember how nor when we
learned to talk or to walk, but we have present with us the knowing how to walk and to talk. True memory is just that—the
possession of the knowledge of the past. It is memory which connects us physically with the body, through all changes of
body, scene and circumstance; without it, we should be living merely from impression to impression; there would be no
connection whatever with the past and there would be no sense of self-identity.
Memory exists also in other inner departments of our nature. Living on the physical plane, our ideas connected almost
entirely with the “three-dimensional” state of matter, we are no more conscious of those inner planes of being than, when in
sleep, we are conscious of the physical plane, being absolutely shut off from the outside world, from the happenings to our
friends, to the nation, and to the world at large, which are then of no consequence whatever to us. Yet there is an active life in
those inner departments of our nature, and there is a memory of it. The Thinker who uses the brain in the waking state is
simply acting on another plane of matter and using another plane of memory. Every plane of consciousness has a memory of
its own.
That consciousness never ceases, but is continuously active, is evidenced by the fact that no one has ever experienced
sleep. Nor does death come to us any more than sleep. We may be aware that sleep or death is coming for the body, but we
know those states only as we see them in others. When we say “I was asleep,” we mean that the body was in the sleeping
state, while we passed away altogether from this plane for the time being. Then we passed back again from the inner planes
to this, picking up the memory of the waking state where we laid it down, and leaving behind the memory of what passed on
the other side. There is no record made in this physical instrument of the inner planes, for the brain has not been trained in
that direction, and hence it can
not translate those planes of consciousness, except in some partial recollections such as occur in dreams. Dreams attest
that we are alive and active on inner planes; for in them, we think, speak, smell, taste, hear and move, as individuals, and
never have any question as to our identity, even though the personality presented should be that of some past incarnation.
The dreaming state is very close to the point of waking—the intermediate state between waking and sleep—so that we are
able to impress the brain-cells with what has occurred before waking, and remember. But beyond the dreaming stage, which
is a very short stage of sleep, there is a Vast extent of human thought and action. We go in and in until we are close to the
source of our own being, where the Thinker is at work, where he knows all that he has been before—all his past
incarnations—where he sees and knows himself as he is. The memory of all the experiences through which he has been as
an individualized being is there in one consecutive whole. That, indeed, was the Paradise of man, when he walked with
Deity, when he knew himself as he really was. True memory is the Paradise which all human beings should strive to regain.
To recover that whole memory, to make that great knowledge of the past usable, here and now in the brain and in the body,
is the true work of ‘salvation. Only when we understand what we really are, shall we be able to take a conscious, active,
purposeful part in the evolution of our race. Only when we gain the perception that we are the Eternal Spirit, that Death never
touches us at all, that we may have a conscious life in spirit, not in matter—only when we begin to think and act from that
basis, can true memory come through to the brain; only then can we know for ourselves, have nothing to ask of anyone, but
have everything to give to every other one. That true memory is possible for every living being.
The barrier for every man is not in the memory, but in the false ideas of life according to which he acts. However much the
soul remembers, if we are using the brain contrary to the nature of the soul, the brain can not translate its impressions. The
Thinker must transfer the memory of the soul to the brain, and he can do so only by thinking and acting along right lines
during active waking consciousness, until the brain responds to the ideas and learns to transmit what occurs while the body
is inoperative. Then the true memory of the past that is in the soul is our knowledge in the brain.
The Masters are those who have the true memory of every step through which They have gone—the knowledge of all past
civilizations, the understanding of all that every human being has to experience, the recognition of all the laws ruling evolution.
As custodians of that knowledge, and as our Elder Brothers, They stand ready to help mankind in the only way open to
Them—by recording as much of that knowledge as we can assimilate, by directing us to its proper use for the benefit of all
other human beings, that all humanity may advance in an orderly way to the true goal. Greater and greater individualization,
wider and wider range of perception, are the objects of evolution; but there are two paths by which we may reach the goal.
One path leads to an individualization that is selfish, and self-righteous—a state of separateness from all human beings; on
the other, there is no cessation of work for humanity. The Elder Brother goes as high as he can, but he stops before he
enters the final door that separates him from the rest; he returns and takes up again a body of the race, as Jesus did, that he
may help those who know less than He does. So we are never alone. Never will there come a time when those Great Beings
will cease from that labor, which is a labor of love. But we are the ones who must determine for ourselves, sooner or later,
whether to go on through aeons of suffering and millions of lives of ignorance, or to follow the path They show, which leads
straight to the goal—which involves the power of direct cognition of truth without any mistake whatever, and which includes
real memory.
THE ETERNAL VERITIES
THE CAUSE OF SORROW
We are never free from pain, sorrow, and suffering in the world. Pleasures come and go very lightly, but always the sorrow
and suffering of life itself abides with us. If we could see and understand the cause of the sorrow existing in the world in every
direction—not only the sorrows of the ordinary life but those brought about by collective action, as wars are—we should
cease to make that cause. We have assumed that all these sorrows are due to external causes—to some higher being or
beings, or to some outside laws of the universe; never to ourselves. And because we have never brought it home to
ourselves that we are in any way connected with the causes of sorrow which come our way, we go on looking for something
external to relieve us of those sorrows. Not all the religions that ever have existed on the face of the earth, not all that the
sciences have so far achieved or may achieve will ever give us that knowledge, because the cause of sorrow does not lie
outside; it lies within each one. Each one contains within himself the power to cause sorrow; he also has the power to cause
its cessation.
The wisdom of the ages explains the cause of sorrow. It teaches that each being is spirit; that the power of spirit is illimitable,
although we limit it because we assume that it is limited; that the changeless spirit in the heart of every being is behind every
form, the cause and sustainer of all forms; that spirit is the force be hind evolution, and also the force that rules and relates all
things of whatever grade; that every being is the result of an unfoldment from within outwards—of a desire for greater and
greater expression. But we who have reached this stage of self-consciousness, unlike the lower kingdoms, now have the
power of choice and can draw upon that illimitable source of our being and realize it while we live in a mortal and ever-
changing body.
Desire, in a limited way, with regard to the personality, is the cause of all sin, sorrow, and suffering. Such desire is based on
selfish thought; it is not what others desire; it heeds not any other urge than its own. The unfulfilled desires, it is, that hurt us;
yet do the fulfilled desires give us happiness? Never, for so soon as they are achieved, there begins a further desire for
something more, something greater. With many conflicting desires, then, we live upon each other, we prey upon each other,
we devour each other, we injure each other—in every way. There is no necessity for all this. It never was the original plan—
the original nature of the development of man. There is never any need to desire. All our woes are self-inflicted; the very
inherent power of spirit has plunged us into them and maintains us in them.
Yet misery, sorrow and suffering have a mission. It is usually only the misery we bring upon ourselves that makes us stop
doing wrong, to look around and ask and see what is right. It is by our mistakes we learn to see the difference between right
and wrong, and in seeing that difference is the whole story of progress. We have to be able to tell the difference. It is only
through ‘ opposites”—the perception of them and the employment of them—that any being can grow at all. There has always
to be duality in nature. All human beings are One in spirit, dual in expression. Always there is the actor and something to act
upon. Always there are the two—Purusha, the spirit, and Prakriti, matter—not two separate things, but two aspects of one
and the same thing. No perception is possible unless we have that duality. We have to experience darkness first in order to
see light, and so with the opposites of pleasure and pain. Without pain we could not understand pleasure; without pleasure
we could not understand pain. What lies behind all advance in intelligence, from the lowest to the highest, is perception
gained by that which acts, from that which is acted upon.
Law rules everywhere in nature in accord with the basis of duality. We call it the law of periodicity, but it is simply a statement
of Karma, or action and reaction. What we call the laws of the elements are in reality but perceptions of the actions and
reactions of various grades of intelligences. ‘What we call our seasons, and all the cycles of time or of individuals, are
covered by that law—reaction from action previously sent forth. The people who form a nation are people who were together
in other times; their collective actions have brought them the same collective reactions. Every thought we have has its return
of impression; every feeling we have has its return. All react upon us, coming back either impoverished or enriched. Thus,
with the power to produce any kind of effect resident in us, we can understand the power of false, mistaken ideas. We can
sustain these ideas interminably by the law of return of impression, and continually suffer reactions from them. The whole
power of spirit used in a wrong direction, in ignorance of our own nature and the nature of beings in general, creates sorrow
of every kind.
No one can stop us in our mistaken course so long as we foolishly entertain false ideas. Our evolution has been brought
about by us under the laws of our own operation—action and reaction within ourselves—and in no other way. It is a mistake
to think that good comes to us from outside quarters. It never does. Whatever good or whatever evil comes is the reaping of
what we have sown, in every way and in every circumstance. There are no exceptions. We look for “justice.” We are getting
it, according to our own thought and action. For let us remember that the plane of action is thought itself, that is to say—
ideas. Action is merely the sequence of the concretion of thought. So there is every necessity for us to clear out the rubbish
which we hold as ideas. Our “minds,” as a rule, are found to be made of a bundle of ideas that somebody has handed on to
us. We accept the ideas of the race, of the people about us, of this “ism” or that “ology,” and call it our mind, when, in reality,
we have no mind of our own at all. The mind is the power to receive and to reject. What we receive and what we reject
depends upon ourselves—on our ignorance or on our wisdom. There is nothing outside we have to learn, but every thing
inside. The task we have at hand is to understand our own natures.
If any great number of beings in this world should reach the understanding of their own natures, and so exercise their inherent
spiritual powers for the benefit of their fellow-men, in no long time we should find the misery of the world most wonderfully
abated. As was said of old, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. And one of our Teachers said, “Give me five hundred
good, earnest, sincere, devoted men and women and I will move the world.” Our success does not depend upon any form of
physical evolution, nor upon any form of scientific advancement. These are but means and not ends in themselves, though
did we but know our own real powers, they could be carried to a pitch not yet dreamed of. We must and eventually will carry
the civilization of the world to a higher stage than has ever before existed, but that will never be until men realize their own
natures and act from that basis. We can go on indefinitely repeating the present thinking and acting, but so long as we do,
just so long will there be sin and sorrow and suffering. Never will they cease, nor wars, diseases, pestilences, tornadoes,
cyclones, nor earthquakes—for all these come from man’s errors.
We shall never find a vicarious atonement. We must take the results of what we sow. Recognizing that we are responsible
for our own conditions, we must do our best to adjust them. Readjustment can come only through assuming our own spiritual
birth right, instead of assuming that we are these unfortunate bodies that are born, live for a while and die; through the
fulfillment of our duties in every direction as the opportunities are offered us. For we cannot work out our salvation alone. We
cannot live alone. We cannot progress alone. We cannot raise ourselves beyond the rest, but must help all the rest to
whatever stage we occupy, going further and further ourselves that we may be the better able to help and teach the others.
Jesus was what he was because he became so. Buddha was what he was because he became so. There was a time when
they were sinning and erring mortals like ourselves. But they saw the true path and turned and followed it, as in all time to
come must every being.
Just so long as we think that we are physical beings and follow after this or that desire, just so long do we put off the day of
readjustment and suffer from the causes we have set in motion. But when in place of false ideas we commence to base our
thought and action on correct ideas, the brain begins to be clarified and to be permeable to the immense knowledge of the
inner man—a knowledge which is not now recorded because of the wrong way in which we have trained it. The brain has to
be made a good conductor for spiritual knowledge. If true knowledge were ours, would we have desires? Would we seek
after this or that thing in physical life and expend our best energies upon them? No. Further, we would know that no matter
what there is in the universe anywhere, nothing can stop the progress laid down for ourselves in a spiritual direction. We
would also know that nothing can harm us; nothing can be wilder us. We would trust the law of our own spiritual nature,
seeking only to do what good we can; seeking nothing for our selves, but to do service in every possible way for every other
being. Then we should be in accord with the nature of the whole, and the natures and forces of all beings would carry us
along on the stream that brooks no obstacle whatever. Would we be sorrowful? Never; because we would be fulfilling the real
purpose of spirit and soul in helping all other souls on the path, so far as the opportunity lay before us. In this course there is
no need to strain and struggle; we have only to take those opportunities which our reactions bring us. The evil that comes to
us—well, it is something for us to adjust, to balance. The good that comes to us—that too is the result of our own actions. So
we may take the good and enjoy it, and meet the evil without fear or trembling or resistance of any kind in an attempt to avoid
it.
The only sorrow of the great Teachers, or Masters of Wisdom, is to see men perpetually engulfing themselves in sin and
sorrow and suffering which They cannot prevent. One of Them was asked at one time, “Why is it with your great knowledge
and power that you do not make men think as they should?” He said, “The human soul is not so constituted. It has to see and
act for itself.” For the action is from within outward, and the power goes with the action. No one can save us but ourselves.
BACK
NEXT