This acceptance, known under many names in the psychology of religion, comes to pass when the individual, the ego, surrenders the conceit of personal freedom and power, realizing that it depends absolutely on that inner, unknown universe which is nature in the human soul. It only exists as an ego to fulfill the purpose of that universe—a purpose which, in one sense, it cannot help serving, but which, in another sense, it does not appreciate when laboring under the conceit of personal freedom and self-sufficiency.
It is generally agreed that happiness cannot be had by any form of direct striving. Like your shadow, the more you chase it, the more it runs away. It is not surprising therefore that in both ancient religions and modern psychology man is advised to relax his self-assertive efforts and acquire a certain passivity of soul, encouraging thereby a state of receptivity or acceptance, which Christianity would describe as easing-up the tumult of self-will in order that it may give place to the will of God.
Whether it is called the giving-up of self, submitting to the will of God, accepting life, releasing the tension of striving for happiness, or letting oneself go with the stream of life, the essential principle is one of relaxation.
Relaxation is something just as elusive as happiness; it is something which no amount of self-assertive striving can obtain, for as it is in a certain sense the absence of effort, any effort to achieve it is self-defeating.
Twentieth-century, civilized man is so centered in his own limited self-consciousness that he is quite unaware of its origin, of the directing forces that lie beneath it.
Although civilized man appears to live only from his self-conscious center, although he appears divorced from nature, from a spiritual point of view this is a mere conceit. In other words, at this very moment we have that union and harmony in spite of ourselves; we create spiritual problems simply through not being aware of it, and that lack of understanding causes and in turn is caused by the delusion of self-sufficiency.
As Christianity would say, the Grace of God is always being freely offered; the problem is to get man to accept it and give up the conceit that he can save himself by the power of his ego, which is like trying to pick himself up by his own belt.
If the ego can be made to look into itself, it will see that its own true nature is deeper than itself, that it derives its faculties and its consciousness from a source beyond individual personality.
When it is said that those who search for happiness never find it, perhaps the truth is that there is no need to search for it.
To see life whole is to understand these opposing qualities as essential to its existence, without trying to interfere, without dissecting the body of the universe so that its pleasant portions may be preserved and its unpleasant cast away.
These so-called opposites present man with a difficult problem, for there is a longing in his heart for eternity and victory over death, a longing which is misdirected because in life as he knows it he himself is one of those opposites and thus is apparently set against something over which he can never triumph.
The existence of the universe depends apparently only on the impersonal multitude of selves of which there is an inexhaustible supply; it does not depend on any particular self. Indeed, nature seems astonishingly callous and wasteful in its treatment of individual selves, and it is therefore not surprising that man should rebel when treated with the same callous disregard for individuality as is the insect.
Man might assist nature to a greater economy by regulating the reproduction of his own kind and by adapting himself to nature instead of trying to fight it.
Whatever may be said about the need for basing one’s attitude to life on a universal as distinct from a personal point of view, the difficulty is that in the ordinary way man does not feel universal. His center is himself and his consciousness peeps out through windows in a wall of flesh; he does not feel his consciousness as existing in the things outside of himself, seeing through others’ eyes or moving with others’ limbs.
Within this fortress he strives to guard and preserve the thing he calls his life, but he might as well try to imprison sunlight in a room by pulling down the blind or trap wind by shutting the door. To enjoy wind you must let it blow past you and feel it against bare flesh; the same is true of time, for the moment has always gone before it can be seized, and the same is true of life which not even this wall of flesh can hold forever. To feel and understand it you must let it blow past you like the wind as it moves across the earth from void to void.
When the tension of original fear is accepted man can swing happily upon his orbit; but should he try to escape from that fear he simply adds one fear to another and one tension to another, which is a process that may go on forever. Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, the more he struggles, the more he becomes involved.
In holding to pleasure in fear of pain man starts the tension, but the real trouble begins when he tries to get rid not only of the pain but of the tension as well, giving himself two enemies instead of one. That pain should arouse fear is as natural as that fire should arouse warmth. But let it stay there, for if we run from our fear it becomes panic, and this is the entrance to a bottomless abyss of self-deception and misery.
Nothing that is isolated can live, since the two most important characteristics of life are circulation and change.
Man is as much attached to nature as a tree, and though he walks freely on two legs and is not rooted in the soil, he is by no means a self-sufficient, self-moving, and self-directed entity.
Man is a meeting-place for the interplay of forces from all quarters of the universe.
All men suffer, now as well as in ancient times, but not all are unhappy, for unhappiness is a reaction to suffering, not suffering itself.
When man attains that state of self-consciousness he becomes a Prodigal; he feels isolated and lonely, and more particularly in his “low” moments is certain that the universe is against him.
There is no actual scarcity of wealth; men starve only because of human stupidity.
It is not often realized that the apparent departure from nature which we have in civilization is an absolutely essential stage in man’s development. Without it we should remain like the elder son in the parable, jealous and unappreciative. For only those who have sinned can understand and appreciate the bliss of redemption.
Those who search for happiness do not find it, because they are trying to manufacture it by the very means which defeat it.
There arises in his soul a feeling of the most profound happiness, not because of some special event, but because of the whole of life. This is not necessarily contentment or joy; it is rather that he feels himself completely united to the power that moves the universe.
The spiritual genius is not a specialist, for he does not just paint or compose creatively: he lives creatively, and his tools are not confined to brush, pen, or instrument; they are all things touched by his hand.
Spirituality is a deep sense of inner freedom based on the realization that one’s self is in complete union and harmony with life, with God, with the Self of the universe or whatever that principle may be called. It is the realization that that union has existed from all time, even though one did not know it, and that nothing in all the world nor anything that oneself can do is able to destroy it. It is thus the sense that the whole might of the universe is at work in one’s every thought and action, however trivial and small. In fact this is true of all men and all things, but only the spiritual man really knows it, and his realization gives a subtly different quality to his life; all that he does becomes strangely alive.
In one sense you feel that your life is not lived by you at all; the power of the universe, fate and destiny, God Himself, are directing all your motions and all your responsibilities are blown to the winds. In another sense you feel free to move as you wish; you seem to be moving life with the same vast power with which life moves you, and your littlest acts become filled with gigantic possibilities.
You no longer distinguish between what you do to life and what life does to you; it is as if two dancers moved in such perfect accord that the distinction between lead and response vanished, as if the two became one and the same motion.
Tat tvam asi is the Hindu formula, meaning, “That (Brahman or God) art thou.” This is also the theme of several forms of Western mysticism; in the words of Eckhart, “While I am here, He is in me; after this life, I am in Him. All things are therefore possible to me, if I am united to Him Who can do all things.” But for the modern Westerner there is a danger in this knowledge; reading and practicing such ideas he is apt to make a God of his ego rather than an ego of his God.
Unless you accept all that the loneliness and isolation of self-consciousness involves, every attempt to get away from it will be futile. The ego cannot abolish the pain of conflict between itself and the universe simply by trying to identify itself with the essence of that universe which is God. Paradoxically, it must realize its union with God by being an ego, for the very reason that that is what God Himself is doing in that particular human being.
Bear always in mind that the doctrines of these ancient religions are the symbols of inward, personal experiences rather than attempts to describe metaphysical truth. The important thing is not whether the doctrine contains an objective statement of fact about the universe; it is to discover what inward experience, what state of mind or attitude to life, would lead human beings to think in that way. For the wisdom of the East has a strictly practical aim which is not mere knowledge about the universe; it aims at a transformation of the individual and of his feeling for life through experience rather than belief.
Life and death constitute a more glorious life than life alone—a truth which can only be proved in acceptance. For if we can learn to love both life and death, we find that life and death are in turn an expression of love. If we can learn to love, to accord freedom to both the heights and the depths of our own nature, we shall instantly realize that this love is not something that we have produced alone but it is in the very nature of the universe, and that our heights and depths are unintelligible without it.
Just as love is the meaning of man and woman and has its symbol in the child, so only love can explain all other opposites under the sun.
Without these many opposites there could no more be a universe than there could be melody without the sounding and silencing of notes, and only those who do not accept them can complain that the universe was unfortunately arranged.
Unaccepted, the universe has no meaning; it is senseless fate and chaos, but acceptance is a way of discovering meaning, not of manufacturing it.
Gratitude makes it possible to sacrifice the freedom to be immoral in the realization that immorality and sin are petty and tedious. In a universe where freedom of the spirit offers such gigantic possibilities, sin is a simple waste of time. To use a commonplace analogy, it is like gorging oneself with saccharine when one might be eating a skillfully prepared banquet. For in the last analysis sin is bad taste; it is sensationalism as distinct from sensibility.
Because of his gratitude the free man’s religion is principally a means of saying, “Thank you.” It is no longer a means of discovering salvation, for religion as a quest for personal illumination is necessary but selfish, and until freedom is discovered it is a blind attempt to create for oneself what is simply to be had for the taking—“searching for fire with a lighted lantern.” Thus the religion of freedom consists of using that freedom and giving thanks for it, because it is only a dead faith that does not show itself in works.
Realization has done its work when one’s very life become an expression of gratitude, and this is the greatest happiness, for the meaning of happiness consists in three elements—freedom, gratitude, and the sense of wonder.
So many people make the mistake of looking in the super-sensual realms for the happiness which they cannot find here on earth, searching for an occult “cosmic consciousness” to release them from the tedious experiences of everyday life.
The Great Illumination is not a fantastic, extraordinary state of consciousness remote from normal experience.
The Great Illumination is the state of consciousness you have at this moment, and it is recognized as such only when you cease to run away from it and give it freedom to reveal itself.
Vast knowledge of the mysteries of the universe increases pride, and to lay bare all mysteries is to be in danger of becoming bored.
What is especially interesting about explanations is that they do not explain; and what is especially dangerous about them is that if they are taken seriously enough and far enough, they simply explain things away. And even if one does resort to the ultimate madness of explaining all things away, there remains still the impenetrable mystery of who is it that explains and why?
If anyone is a fool it is himself for not having discovered his treasure long before. Thus in the moment of illumination he realizes that the universe is a mystery greater than he can ever hope to fathom, for the deepest perplexity of all is that such a creature as himself should be allowed to use the power that moves the stars in the littlest of his deeds.