It is not a mere technical, intellectual acquirement, the ability to define principles and formulate propositions. It rather consists in testing them out in actual experience; first by self-analysis to become familiar with the real self, its capacities and powers, its motives and aims in life; and having grasped and adjusted all these, then to start consciously, deliberately, determinedly, and intelligently, on “the road to the South,” on the upward climb toward the Light.
“Possessions,” with the great majority of individuals, mean something outward, in space and time; what we have, and, for the time hold, rather than what we are. The average idea of enjoyment is something altogether superficial and transient. It is found, or supposed to be found, in variety of sensations, emotions and feelings; in ringing the changes on these, till vitality fails, disillusion or satiety supervenes, and old age or death closes the play. Often the appetite remains, when vitality fails, and Faust rejuvenated, would run the same gauntlet again. The pity of it is that thousands of these victims of either satiety or Tantalus seem never to dream that there are other values, or anything else, or better, in life.
And yet there is not one of these faculties, capacities and powers that is useless, or, in itself, evil or degrading. They are, one and all, resources of the Individual Intelligence; tools for the day’s work; materials for the building of the Temple; whereas, they most frequently are made the motive and the aim of life. They are means to a higher end, and not the end itself.
Without the latent passions, emotions, and feelings, man would be a mere mechanism. If all were mind, or mere intellect, there could be neither the creation nor the appreciation of beauty. Every work of art would be soulless; music might amuse the intellect by intricate chords and variations, like a colorless kaleidoscope, but it could never touch the heart nor elevate the soul.
Music and art, in the highest sense, through consonant vibrations in us, open the doors and windows of the soul, put us in touch and tune with the Infinite, and then, the real harmony begins. We live for the time in another world and return with a sigh and recover the bated breath, as though we had seen a vision beyond words. Music is an agent, a talisman, a means to an end. It strikes in us chords that lie at the foundation, the combinations that unlock the doors, and the “Imprisoned Splendor” wings in and out like the doves of Hesperides.
Blunt the passions, the feelings and the emotions by over-indulgence, by vice and dissipation, and the royal guests desert the banquet hall, the doors of the soul creak on their hinges; and in place of the “music of the spheres” you have a devil’s dance, and the orgies of despair!
Does it pay? It all depends on use. Here lie the resources, the real possessions of man. Here lies the “Parable of the Talents.”
Look at the profusion, the prodigality, the beneficence of Nature, Flowers and Fruit, Beauty and Bloom and Fragrance everywhere. Where there is no eye to see, no hand to pluck, Mother Nature delights in profusion, seemingly because she is made that way and cannot help it. And yet, in this little Rose-garden of ours – the Human Soul – we tramp down the flowers, plant loathsome weeds and poisons that kill and degrade and besot us, set up the tables of the money-changers, drive out the doves of Hesperides, and turn the temple into a shambles for wild beasts. “Nothing pays.” “Let us curse God and – die!”
Is there not something after all in the Measure of Values, and in the inexorable Law of Use?
And who constrains us but ourselves?
Can God and Nature be so prodigal, noting even the sparrows fall, and yet disregard the children of men?
What our resources are we can never imagine till we draw upon and begin to utilize them as others have done throughout the ages.
The “average sinner,” seemingly to justify or excuse his own failure, will not believe that any have ever achieved. But there they stand all down the ages! Ecclesiastics help the deception and keep up the illusion by calling it Miracle or “Special Providence,” and so prevent man from entering his birthright, to possess it; and so we sell our birthright for a mess of pottage. It is like the dissipated, poverty-stricken spendthrift, who shuts his eyes and refuses to believe that any, by industry, economy, integrity and hard work have secured a competency. And so he cries, “Come on, boys! let’s have another drink, and then rob this bond-holder, who has more than his share.”
The Measure of Values, and the Law of Use hold everywhere, in every department of human life; and the question, “Does it pay?” is practical and scientific to the last degree, and no one can answer but ourselves. As we answer will be the results, and nothing but ourselves can change them.
We must realize that the human body, the organism of man, with all its faculties, capacities and powers, is but an instrument of the Individual Intelligence; and that every experience in life, every episode in our career, is like a day’s work; perfecting the instrument for more and better work, if used rightly; till we advance from height to height of being; to larger and still larger and more glorious fields of work and experience.
There would seem to be no limit to this evolution, this upward and onward journey of the human soul. The more good work done, the larger the capacity and the broader the field opening before us. “From height to height the spirit walks.”
The primary endowment of man is Life and conscious Intelligence, with the power to use both.
This would seem to be the only gratuity, and whether we regard it as a blessing or a curse, depends on how we regard and use them.
The great majority in all time, through ignorance or recklessness, seem to have misused them.
Hence sickness, disease, deformity, and degradation.
It is a wonderful thing – this Law of Normal Use – from which health, harmony, comfort, joy, growth, and development result, while misuse and abuse degrade and destroy.
Divinity seems to have put within the grasp of man’s Intelligence (if he chooses and wills) an almost infinite range in power, variety and application, of that subtle and basic Principle of affinity, balance and equilibrium, that unites the atoms in a molecule, or a chemical substance; that law of attraction and repulsion – the Parallelogram of Force – that holds the planets in their orbits. Divinity seems to have taken man into council and offered him, not only the Kingdom of Nature, but the royal domain of his own soul, as a reward for co-operation and loyal service, on condition that he shall use wisely, intelligently, loyally, and kindly, and not misuse or abuse.
Is it worth while? Will it pay?
Nor is this all, beneficent as it seems. The whole journey of life on the physical plane here below is so designed and planned as to make the natural aging and decay of the physical body supplement, unfold and develop the Spiritual Body, through the right use of the faculties, capacities, and powers of the Human Soul – the Individual Intelligence.
These are aspects, uses and powers of that subtle something we call Life; that Principle that
“Runs through all time, extends through all extent,
Lives undivided, operates unspent.”
Normal use that insures growth and development, range and power of action, is also, from first to last, a refining process; while misuse and abuse of these powers degrade and brutalize inevitably.
It follows, therefore, as the bodily structure and functions fail under normal use those of the spiritual body open, develop and unfold. First the seed, then the plant, then the flower and finally the fruit “of a well-spent life.”
There is no “theory” or “guess-work” about it. It becomes, step by step, a matter of conscious, intelligent, individual experience. We know it just as we know that fire will burn or that we are here now, living, breathing, and acting.
If I thrust my finger into a flame, all the philosophers and metaphysicians of the world could not “argue” me out of the experience of the fact of “burn” and “pain”; nor could theologians succeed any better by quotations