Songs of Submission

CHAPTER I

When God First made the World

WHEN God first made the world He gave man the way to Himself. The world was to be a passing place for man, as though in growing up he had to go on a journey, leaving his Father's house and travelling through many lands before returning again to his Father's house, stronger by the experience and having fulfilled a task.

The love of the son for his Father would lead him safely back in due season, and this love would protect him from enmeshment in the places he would pass through.

But for all men this was not so. Once separated from their Father's house, as they travelled into strange lands they be- came as it were entranced. They forgot that their true home was elsewhere, and that in truth they were as strangers in the strange lands.

They dawdled in the bazaars, buying and selling. They began to amass great quantities of goods which, had they thought of it, they would have known they could never wish to carry home with them.

Forgetting their origin and their nature, they entered into the hopes and fears of the peoples of these strange lands, and believed that their place was there. At first these other peoples seemed strange to them, but soon they felt part of them too and took to their hopes and fears, their loves and hates. Soon they too were strutting and setting themselves up as somebody: since everybody else did too, it seemed natural.

These others whom they met were indeed in the same plight as themselves: they had come from the same House of the same Father, were journeying in the same way and for the same reason, and should return in due season to the same end.

But many had stayed already a long time; many had totally lost the remembrance they had had at the start; many were like streams that wander from the main river and lose them- selves among the marshes. It was such particularly who buttonholed newcomers and passionately tried to infect them with the sickness from which they were suffering.

A few there were who walked through the market-place, coolly, freely, smiling to adjust themselves as well as they could to the strange ways for the short time they would be there. Some from seeing them would remember the truth about themselves, and they too would then smile and, while enjoying, would look forward to the time of their return.

Others would find the freedom of such offensive, as though an insult to themselves, and would vomit their anger at them and their kind, and dig themselves the deeper into the place they had come to, until in truth they were a part of it.

So the place that God created for man became for him not a journeying-place on the passage from and to his Father, but instead his graveyard.

God is spirit and His children spirit. But the world, God made of things; and when they entered it, because they had been given things as accessories to help them, themselves became things. Given a body, as a coat to warm them in the cold, they became that body and believed only in it.

Given appetite to guide them in maintaining their body, they sought nothing more than to satisfy that, and to excess.

Given pleasure in all that was beneficial for them, they sought only the pleasure so that that became the end in itself.

Given mind to serve them, they became its slave.

In this way they came to disease of body, disease of feeling, disease of mind.

Unhappiness and despair came to them, for in giving pleasure to them in what was right God had also, to guide them against wrong, provided that unhappiness and misfortune should flow from the following of wrong.

But instead of understanding that their condition was indeed the proof of God's mercy in warning them and guiding them away from what was hurtful for them, they dug themselves under with pride, and cursed God or denied Him or turned away their faces.

And then the voice of God was heard in the valley of lamentation and through the delirium of mankind. For the spirit within man remained and it was still of the same nature as God.

God called to man and sent His power among men.

He did not counsel or command: He called as a Father to his children who had forgotten Him.

He offered them of Himself, if they would open their souls to Him.

And in opening their souls to Him, they found the way out of the abyss; the delirium of their fever passed; happiness came upon them; and they lost the dread of leaving that place, knowing that when they would be released, they would be going home.

CHAPTER II

The coming of man to God

THE coming of man to God does not depend on man, but on God. God cannot be commanded of man.

The dawn comes at its own time and the cock proclaims it; but the cock does not command the dawn, and though he crow at midnight, the dawn comes not.

For the sun keeps his rounds, as appointed by God, for all the world and all the planets and for his place among the stars, and shines not for the sake of one cock. Yet to the benefit of each cock shines he forth in his due season.

The ovum yearns for the sperm, but the ovum has no power of command; and if her lord comes not to her, she will be cast out unfulfilled: nor is the fault hers.

The Justice of God is for all, not for one: yet can each one prosper in his own way and not be deprived, for such is God's mercy.

God has sent to man help in due season and has shown man ways to Himself suited to each age and condition of mankind.

After a spell man forgets and turns aside and the force from God withdraws.

Then the way that was a way is no longer a way, and only the signpost remains.

Then is baptism neither by fire nor by water, but by man only. Then is the laying on of hands continued as a ritual, but the hands are the hands of man. Then is bread only bread, and wine not more than the fermentation of the grape. Then is the bending of the body in prayer decreed by the description of man, it is no longer bent by the force of God.

When the substance is gone, the form is retained. When the cup is empty, the cup is still there: reverently man lifts it to his lips pretending strength and comfort from it, because man tells him so.

As a distant people with a sacred box might perform the ritual handed down from those who saw it done when music came forth; but though he adjust the wires and tune the dial and increase the volume, nothing will be heard if the electricity is no longer there.

Though he by tradition of generations be the one to whom the secret of the ritual has been passed down, and though with awe his fellows crowd round him; and though he say to them: 'I hear music, hear you nothing! Is your faith then so small!' In truth he lies, for without the force of electricity will no one hear sounds from the box, nor see images in the screen; nor without fuel will the ritual car, however reverently regarded and sacredly kept, move one inch of its own accord.

When the force that is from God is present there is no ritual, there is no form, there is no lie. What takes place is from God, not from man, and no man controls or foresees or is expert, unless his knowledge also comes newly from God and not from man.

And now in these days the power of God is massing over the earth, it is heavy above man. The dark clouds are assembled, the thunder is in them and the lightning, and from the storm blessed rain will fall upon the parched land, and rivers will flow and deserts thrust up their flowers, and men will shake themselves and run drenching in the rain and laugh and dance and throw themselves down and laugh again with lightness: and give thanks.

For this time God sends His holy rain. He makes no secret springs, no magical wells that only few can draw at, He puts not the power of His bounty in the hands of an elect.

No, this time God pours down in great abundance His holy rain on all men: all men that are thirsty, all men that are dried up and caked and parched from the long drought. He gives in abundance, that all in abundance may receive, each according to his measure and his need. Ah! to be born in such an age! Ah! to be in manhood at such a time!

The prophets bade men have faith that God would send help; there were those that told of such things; and many that bore the hard dry times with steadfastness and belief. May they now partake and smile, for in due season and according to His wisdom and His justice and His mercy, God has shown compassion for man.

CHAPTER III

Some say that God does not exist

SOME say that God does not exist. It is a small thing. Whether the worm knows it or not, man is: and if she walks across his path, whatever she reasons to herself, she will be under his foot.

Man's reason is such that it can be persuaded of anything. It can believe that matter does not exist, or that mind does not exist; or that the first is the second, or the second the first. It can believe that it is the creator of all and that nothing exists that it does not think.

What is, is; and the thinking otherwise changes nothing.

Nor is God offended if one man proves He does not exist, while another proves that He exists like a man.

God is, and His nature is knowable only to Himself.

Therefore God does not withhold Himself from the man who denies His existence or from the man who pictures Him like himself. (We speak from the experience of fact, not from reasoning of God's actions.)

Now that God gives forth His force upon the earth and to man, any can partake of it. For the man who after the long drought may proclaim that rain is a false tradition of the past and cannot fall upon the land, will himself become wet if he goes out under it, in spite of what he thought.

But he who, to defend his beliefs, huddles in his house crying: 'Gullible fools! You are deceived again by those that seek advantage of you!' will not feel the freshening coolness that falls.

And he who guards the place where a sacred spring once flowed, and who fears that men will no longer hold him in awe and support him out of reverence if the rain truly comes, he will crouch the more in the hut by his hole in the earth, and under the pelting roof cry for his spring to well up again.

And he too that has fasted and prayed for water for himself and his few, will be affronted that God's munificence is poured upon all peoples, and he may be heard to say: 'Water may be had by fasting and prayer, by suffering and self-denial, and every drop must be paid for. Who heard of true water without prior sacrifice?'

But the wetness of the water is its proof, and God is wise after His own fashion. And who is man to order the bounty of God!

Let men then set aside their pride and their preconceptions; let them cast off their theories; let them sacrifice their wishing, their pent-up longing, their cherished sadness.

Let them only go out from their house and stand under heaven, open to receive.

CHAPTER IV

God is not limited by language

GOD is not limited by language. To the Chinese He will not speak in English, to the Russian He will not speak in Tamil. Each will understand through the language that is his.

So too will God come to the Christian through his Christianity and to the Muslim through his faith in Allah and his Prophet, and to each according to his way.

For God sends His force and it is the same force that He sent as the fountain-head of each religion.

And if in the north a fire is needed and in the south a fan, will not electricity flow according to the need and not contrary to it?

Man disputes with man about the shape of fires and fans and the philosophy of heat and cold. But the needs of men are different and if it were not so, different prophets would not have come to different lands.

God knows the needs of man. Will the electricity refuse to work for fires because the users of fans complain! The electricity is the source of all their working and this is the gift of God.

But when a man, whatever his race or country, whatever his creed, beliefs, opinions, desires, touches the live current itself, then is disputation ended. For the live current is the same for On: and when he touches it, it quickens him.

When the great Life Force, the force that comes from God, enters a man, he is shaken, he trembles. It penetrates to the one part in man, nameless as the force is nameless, to which it is akin.

It does not pass through his thinking or his feelings or his body, because its nature is higher than theirs.

When it enters, it quickens the part in man which he does not know, the place he has not dwelt in.

Coarse matters contain the atom, and within the atom is yet another fastness. It is there that force penetrates, and from there that action begins.

What follows appears as a miracle. To the thinking and the feeling and the body; and therefore to the man as he is accustomed to experience himself, it is a miracle. To the force itself and the part to which it corresponds, it is no miracle but the ordered working of the laws of their nature.

A process begins, arising from an unknown place, acting in familiar places.

It is the action whereby all that is alien is cast out.

First the body, saturated with forces lower than man's true nature, is freed from them. As what is higher enters, what is lower departs; as what is lower departs, what is higher enters.

The body functions according to its true nature and as it had been intended by God that it should; and by and by in due course it begins to be permeated by the life force.

In time every limb and every muscle, every bone to its marrow, yes, even every cell of the body becomes permeated with the force that comes from God and that wells up from the secret place in man.

Each particle is awakened and consciously participates in serving the best interests of the whole organism, itself a servant of God.

Each particle with its own consciousness worships God.

The feelings, which have absorbed alien matter from with- out and below, as a sponge soaks up ink or blood as readily as water, are made clean.

The egotism in man, his self-centredness, his longing for praise and approval, and all the twisted emotions which have led him and from which, if he has tried, he has not found himself able to escape by his own will and work, are in due season ejected from him.

The emotional part of man becomes vivified by the force that comes from God, and new feelings come to him. A man who never before truly felt love for any but himself may find himself feeling love for those even whom he did not like, or disapproved, or feared. Whereas formerly his wish to love or his knowing that he ought to love had brought no change, now he will find that what was not possible for man alone is possible through God: and he will feel love with his whole being.

His thinking will undergo change. Formerly his thinking was infected from his feelings, themselves bound to his body, and all under influences lower than man. Now his thinking will arise from the part in him that he has not known.

For the thinking was created as a servant of man, to help him in his needs; but becoming the master, it displaced the man himself. Now it takes its rightful place.

And it willingly abandons the function it had usurped of leading the man on his spiritual path. For of this, the mind knows nothing. As soon as true knowledge enters man through the force of God, this is quickly apparent, and the mind then stands humbly aside.

For its own appointed tasks the mind is quickened and alert, and in leaving go a higher place than it had right to, it steps into its rightful place with assurance and clarity.

Thus purification takes place. But purification, which many take to be the end, is in truth only the beginning. Just as for the physical body, the washing and making ready of it, its feeding and excreting, and its being clothed, is only preparation for the tasks it is required to perform.

CHAPTER V

When the force from God enters a man

WHEN the force from God enters into a man, and he comes to a state of true worship, he experiences in life what otherwise he would only experience after death.

Thought and feeling are put aside, and the body; and he stands before God without his accessories. Having divested himself of all that accompanies him in this world, he comes to the same state as when entering the next world.

For at death, man enters a world without body and without the feelings and thoughts that are dependent on the bodily organism that he has just left. Then truly he is naked.

What exists for him in this life at such time is what can exist for him after death.

A man who passes through this experience will know that this is so.

And he will also know that his equipment for the world in which no human body, feelings or thoughts can exist, is small.

He can be puffed by the wind of God, like a piece of sail. He can be darkly moved hither and thither. He can be drawn and repulsed. He is conscious of himself, he is truly himself; but he is also as a small child.

It is as though he were newly born. He cries and puckers his face, he smiles at unknown things. He moves arms and legs without purpose. He makes his first sounds, and takes his first steps.

Gradually these things increase and, as with a child, he grows up.

When God's force enters a man, it impregnates him. A new being is born.

It is this being which can live in the world after death: and it can live in this world also, because it co-habitates the physical body of man.

The new being grows through the saturation of the earthly body with matter which can exist both in this world and the next.

And so a new form grows. It is not apparent to others, because it is like the new skin that grows under the snake's old skin.

This body too has eyes and can see: but its eyes are not the eyes of the physical body, and they can see when the earthly eyelids are closed.

It has ears, and they can hear what the earthly ears cannot hear, although they do not interfere with the functions of the earthly ears.

It has a nose and can smell: its smelling is different from the physical smelling, although so strong that at first the one may be confused with the other. And there is taste and touch.

The new body grows real until it is whole: like a man and an X-ray photograph of the man.

Since it is free to separate at death, it may even separate during life for a little.

If a man be so equipped he knows there is no fear of death. There has arisen in him that which belongs better to the other world than to this one. As a man who has built himself a boat will not be afraid of the journey ahead across the water.

God in His mercy now gives man the chance quickly to prepare himself for the certainty of death by creating a vehicle for himself of the matter of the other world. And in this very world he can accustom himself to that vehicle. And then he will freely smile at the prospect of leaving this body, for by the grace of God he has a superior one.

In this very life he has through consciousness died; in this very life he has been resurrected and lives again; and that resurrected life continues on, after God permits this one to come to its end.

CHAPTER XXVI

If a man said: 'I do not believe in God'

IF a man said: 'I do not believe in God. For I see no evidence, and I believe only in evidence.

'In science I examine matter and I make experiments, and when each time I find the same result, then I conclude that that is a fact as to the nature of that matter.

'But in the question of God I find only different assertions and conflicting views. Nothing is known and no experiment can be repeated to have the same results a second time:

'And therefore I cannot believe in God.'

It might be said to such a man: 'Friend, I understand your argument, though I come to a different conclusion.

'But are you happy and at peace in yourself? And is there anything whatever lacking in your own internal world!

'For previous experience surely shows that however far you may go in your present direction and however much you may learn about matter and the laws of its operation, or indeed about any other subject, this will not help at ah in making you happy or at peace in yourself or in supplying whatever it mar be you feel lacking in your own internal world.

'There is however an experiment which you might be interested to make.

'It would be an experiment in which you could observe every development as it took place and in which you and only you would judge of the effects;

'Which effects, if and when they may have taken place, you could compare with the effects obtained by other people in identical experiments: and therefore you would be able to judge on the same basis on which you have trained yourself to judge other experiments.'

One might then ask such a person whether he personally concluded that there were forces in existence, the nature of which were not entirely understood by man. If he were familiar with electricity he would agree that this is a force whose effects can be noted and whose way of operation can be studied and established, and which therefore can be used for the purposes of mankind: but whose nature is unknown, so that the greatest scientist is unable to define or explain its nature.

And the nature of nuclear force is also unknown, though man now discovers its behaviour and applies its uses.

If he were to accept that man frequently is in contact with a great force and can establish by its manifestation the fact of its presence, the explanation of its nature being unnecessary for its use, then one might speak to him of a subtler force;

Whose nature might be inexplicable to him but whose existence he could establish by experiment.

The instruments of his laboratory would be himself: but if he were able to maintain objectivity he should not find this an obstacle: and the opportunity later of comparing notes with other experimenters would give him the possibility of verification of his own observations.

One might then say to him: 'This experiment requires, say, one year: for as you know all experiments have their time requirement, and the interruption of the process of an experiment nullifies results.

'Therefore if you decide on this experiment, you should set such a period as the minimum for yourself.

'During that time, little is required in the way of attendance to the process, and you yourself should not interfere with it in any way, just as you are trained to exclude your own interference from your other experiments.

'At the outset, the requirement will be that you quiet yourself and put aside your thinking and feelings and simply open yourself to receive from this force: the force you are seeking to establish whether it exists or not, and if it exists, what its effects are.

'Someone will accompany you because, as in some scientific processes, a catalyst is necessary: the catalyst really plays no part and is not involved in the process, yet its presence is necessary, as will be familiar to you from processes known to science.

'The first experiment will last for half an hour; and then the same will take place for half an hour two times a week. After a short time the presence of the catalyst will be unnecessary but it will be an advantage to the experiment if it takes place in the presence of others experimenting.

'For the rest, you will perhaps wish to hear nothing more of what may or may not take place, for you may fear that you might imagine the results you had been led to expect, and this would prejudice your experiment.

'If you make the experiment, you will then know for yourself if nothing takes place; or if something takes place, you will know it:

'Whereas if you do not make the experiment you will never know for yourself whether or not any such force exists; or if it does, what its action is. But it is your decision.

'My personal conclusion based on my own experience is that the force exists, and that its action is beneficial to me, and J believe to all men. But since this is my conclusion arising from my experience, it cannot be yours.

'If there are questions you wish to ask, they can be answered: but whether you wish to ask or not is your decision.'

If a man sincerely approaches in this way, he will indeed receive from the force that comes from God, and be aware of it; and changes will take place for him which will be un- mistakable and indubitable.

He may not understand them at first, but that is a familiar condition to him in any genuine research experiments.

Changes will take place, and he will consciously experience and observe them; and in due course if he compares with others he will find that they correspond in nature to what others experience, though each is individual in each individual case: a condition also familiar to him in his other experiments.

He will be convinced of its operation in him; he will be convinced after a time of its beneficial action; and in due course he will come to his own understanding of the force: and of God; and he will receive his own guidance.

And since the experiment and the experience is indeed his own he will have no doubt and he will not rely on anyone else whatever nor on any other proof: for the proof is his own of himself.

And faith will arise: based on conviction: itself based on experience.

And at last he will find that indeed he is happy and at peace in himself, and that there is no longer anything whatever lacking in his own internal world.

CHAPTER XXVII

All who follow a spiritual way

ALL who follow a spiritual way, whatever that way may be, seek an inner experience beyond their ordinary experience. And this is the quintessence of each way.

It matters little the description that they give. Some speak of coming into union with God; some of Samadhi; some deny the self and seek God; some deny God and seek the self; some deny both God and the self, and seek only an internal state.

The language is of little matter, for all seek the same.

And all that attain to the highest attain to the same.

Only language and interpretation through language brings differentiation, for the experience is beyond language.

When language is used there is multiplicity. But as to the state there is unity.

The means to the state differ, and often they have been adapted by those who did not themselves attain. Yet are the principles discernible beneath the differences.

All agree that a process must take place, which may be called--to use but one word--purification; or the freeing from what is incompatible with the state.

All agree that the state may come only through that process. All agree that something takes place for man through that state that does not take place otherwise: he has access to a force, or Higher Power; or something that comes from God; or something that comes from within himself: and that this,

however it be described, can indeed be the experience of man.

Whether it be described as coming from without or from within matters little, for to some minds it is easier to regard it as coming from outside man and to some it is easier to regard it as coming from within man.

But only the man who has experienced can understand: and then the truth he knows embraces both, denies neither; and theories and descriptions and doctrines are no longer necessary to him.

There is a fact of spiritual life which is known from time to time among mankind but which disappears from his practice when there are none present who practise it: so that it remains in the Holy Books of tradition but is inaccessible to men.

This fact is that the force that is sought for as at the end of the process can be contacted at the beginning.

This is the true sacred force that is of the essence: it is not of the powers that some seek as magic and others warn against as allure: it is holy, uncontaminated and cannot come to wrong usage.

When it is contacted at the beginning then the process of purification can take place with its help.

Then is a man not dependent during all the process of purification on the efforts of himself alone and unaided.

Then he draws from above in order to ascend, instead of striving from below: he climbs on a rope from above to get from the bog, instead of trying to tread down the mud with his feet.

It is as though a man were in a boat alone, wishing to reach a certain shore and hoping when he got close to it to find a wind to speed him.

And in order to get there a certain distance had to be traversed and the boat was drifting; and its sides were covered with sea growth; and its rudder was tossed this way and that; and the boat was turning in circles and was taking in water from the waves;

And it was constantly colliding with other boats in the same plight, and each time each blamed the other though both were equally out of control and therefore collision was inevitable.

If a man were awake enough to his situation he would try to do what he could, for he is in danger of sinking and he will never come to the other shore.

With advice from others, he might seek to set his boat in order so that when the time for the wind came he could profit from it.

He might row with diligence, disciplining himself to keep at rowing. He might take the rudder and tie it firm in the position he thought best. He might scrub the sides of growth to prepare for speed. And he might bail out the water as it came in from the waves.

But with little movement there would be little progress and the shore would remain distant.

He might feel it as gain that his muscles grew strong and his will grew firm, and he might look with satisfaction at the rudder bound fast to head the boat always in the same way.

Collisions might be fewer but they would continue: for he would still be surrounded by other helpless boats and his own had no way on it for steering, and the rudder was fixed firm: unless he was able to separate himself from them all and find a cove or eddy to be in alone.

But the aim was the getting to the shore and achievement is only in relation to that.

And often the distance he rowed in a day would be undone at night; and the very fixedness of the rudder would lead him in a wrong direction for the boat would sometimes be turned around and he would not know it, since at that distance the shore was seldom to be seen.

And though he diligently bailed, yet there was always more water coming from the waves, for the boat would wallow in the troughs.

And as he cleared the sides of growth, more growth came and some that was cleared grew back; for the boat was all but stationary.

Now on the boat there is a mast and there is a sail: and in the sky there is wind.

If the man will raise the sail, the wind will fill it.

When the wind fills it, the boat will truly move.

Then will the rudder be needed by him to steer his boat: but the wind will show him how the rudder is to be used.

For to keep the wind in the sail he will sometimes have to tack to right or to left and sometimes to go straight ahead. But the wind will show him.

And the speed of the boat will help clear the growth from the sides, and because it is moving, what he clears off is carried away behind and does not grow on again, and neither is there any new growth.

The sea no longer comes over the sides for he is not at the mercy of the waves; and spray from his movement is quickly dispersed.

Now there are no collisions, for the wind gives him movement and movement gives him the power to steer: and he will always yield to the boats out of control and so avoid mishap . And his boat skims over the water, steered by him in accordance with the sail, itself controlled by the wind.

And with steady speed he will come quickly closer towards the shore, so that it is always in view and he is never in doubt as to his direction.

He need not fear that his muscles will not be strong or his will firm for all is wholly engaged on what is now required of him.

For now he will be fully exercised in determination and patience and understanding and endurance and skill; and he will look back at his previous days of stationary toil and backing and forthing as sorry for their great effort and small accomplishment.

For now he is in the hands of the wind and his boat is truly in action. Now there is everything to be learned and under- stood from movement, and all that he had tried to train himself for is now being actually practised.

The ship is lively under him, and he feels her motion; and he knows the direction he is going in and he sees the shore rising up out of the sea.

And as the wind carries his ship he is at peace in her and at ease in himself.

And as he sits quietly in the cockpit, his hand on the tiller, his eye on the sail and the wind filling it, he will be aware of the other boats around him, turning in their circles.

And he will see men standing up and shouting at each other with abuse at collision or advice on handling;

And some cover their irritation with a smile, smug in their superiority ;

And some are weary as they collide yet again, and their eyes have the sadness of the resigned;

And some drift by themselves, silent and lonely, with hope gone from the face;

And some are putting forth mighty effort, greater perhaps than his own had been, yet still they are but inching this way and that and speed is denied them.

He will remember his own plight and he will feel love for them; and compassion; and the wish that they too may discover what he by good fortune has come to:

That they too may realize the presence of the sail and find how to unlash its fastenings.

For on each boat that sets out from the one shore bound for the other there is a sail to carry it there: For the sail is the soul of man.

And in this channel, which is the spiritual life of man, the Trade Winds of God are always blowing and blowing fair and blowing with a steady strength.

Ah Lord! May the sail that is of each be opened to the wind that is for all!

CHAPTER XLI

When a man looks into himself

WHEN a man first looks into himself, he may see nothing. For if he sees beyond the surface, there is stillness.

It is like a man who has been swimming on the surface of the sea, with its waves and spray and constant movement, who dives below and finds sudden stillness.

At first he will see nothing: perhaps even he has unconsciously closed his eyes. But after a little if his eyes be open, he will see a muted scene.

And in the quiet he will see new forms; and the fish moving in suspension; and grass waving slowly; and the mountains and valleys of a different world.

So too a man who has dwelt for all his life on the surface of himself, if for a moment he comes to stillness, may feel as though he has come to a point of emptiness.

And he may strive quickly to regain the familiar surface.

But the stillness is to be entered: and penetrated: and be- yond the stillness is the life of a new world.

A man who practices the true worship to God will be able, as quick as the flip of a fish's tail, to abandon the turbulent surface and enter the world beneath.

As with practice his eyes can open and accustom themselves to the new conditions and the different light, he will begin in the dark to see and in the stillness hear.

He will be aware of the presence of himself: and it will be an awareness different from that which he has known at other times: and in contrast the other times will seem trivial and unreal and as though truly he had never been in himself when buffeted by the waves.

And if suspended in the muted green there is an emptiness around him, with only the occasional passage of a shadowy fish before him, he should plunge deeper.

If he goes down he will come to a new land and new continents, and a whole new world will open out before him.

And among the rocks are many fish, and of many kinds, and of great brilliance.

Yet without practice he should not stay too long, and there is a limit to his powers of endurance.

He should not crave too much too soon, lest he find no way to return.

When he comes again to the breaking waves and the sound of the wind and the splash of the water on his face, he will already know of the world beneath its surface.

And he will understand that the turbulence is in but a few feet, but the stillness is in many fathoms;

And that the sea is mighty indeed, but the sea that is seen is but the skin of its body.

Once accustomed to life in both, he can at will in a moment pass from one to the other, and be at ease in either.

Even when his face is at the surface it is but his face: and he will know that with the whole of him he is in two worlds at once: and he will be aware of both and of himself in both. For man is the meeting-place of matter and spirit; and as the wind meeting the surface of the water makes turbulence, so man at the surface of himself is in turbulence.

If spirit be permeated with matter, higher with lower, through the action of forces below, then what was higher descends to what is lower:

As water in the clouds by cold descends to the earth. If matter be permeated with spirit, lower with higher, through the action of the force that comes from God, then what was lower ascends:

As moisture drawn to the air ascends by the warmth of the sun.

Man must dive deep if ever he would plumb the ocean of himself;

And, as a drop, he must surrender himself to the heat of the sun if ever he would ascend to the heavens.

CHAPTER XLVI

Blessed is he

WATER cut off from the stream becomes stagnant: blessed is he who has contact with God.
Fire without fuel only smoulders to ashes: blessed is he who has contact with God.
Earth without rain is soon burnt and unfertile: blessed is he who has contact with God.
Air that is closed becomes speedily lifeless: blessed is he who has contact with God.

Self is at the centre of non-self: enclosed and surrounded by non-self.
Open the channel, cutting through non-self: self and God commune.
Who can discriminate self from God! Flame from fire!
If wind fans a wood fire to flame, is the flame of the fire or the wind or the wood!
And whom God makes alight none can extinguish.
Blessed is such a man.

In the space between two fingers are the radio waves of the world: is God's omnipresence less?
But the waves without radio cannot be contacted: nor is God's force received save through soul that is opened to Him.
Blessed is such a man.

Blessed is he whose without is as within: below, as above: present, as eternal.

Beyond point is line, circle, mass, Time: beyond Time, Eternity: beyond Eternity, God.
Blessed is he for whom God and Eternity, Time, mass, circle, line are in the point of his self.

The dense complexity of a whole creation is synthesized, condensed, reduced to the unity of one point and contained therein:
Ah past, all future, in the present of one point.
From another creation all too is reduced to the unity of one point and contained therein.
The two points become one: through union, a new unity. From the one, containing all of both and uniqueness of itself, arises, expands, develops the dense complexity of a whole creation.
Thus with man and woman: and child.
Thus with God and man: and the unnamed.
Blessed is such a man.

Between magnet and iron there is force to compel them together: like to like, of differing gender.
But if alien be between, communing is unmanifest. To wood interposed, neither draws near; nor to each other.
If wood be removed, magnet and iron instantly join.
No pause, no reflection, no doubt, no decision: join.
So man's soul and God.
Blessed is such a man.

Only one among men is accursed: he who leads others from God pretending he leads them to Him.
Showing pictures of beauty, stolen from others, he entices them to his way: but instead of to Truth they are lured to a whore; for his part in the profit.
In the name of piety there is prostitution: and there are the pimps of piety.
Let such beware.
Before God there is no protection. And where are robes when a man is naked! And if knowledge of His laws was claimed, can ignorance be pleaded?
God is the All-Merciful: but also the All-Just. And is His Justice corrupted by His Mercy?
Let such beware.
If God offered not the way and the leading, their act might be against men: when God gives the way and leads, is the sin not against Him?
When God sends His Holy Ghost, against whom is the sin? And whence forgiveness!
Let such beware.
But blessed is he who submits himself to God in time. Nor is Paul the less for that he was Saul.

The waterlily floats on the dark water, risen from the fertile mud:
Pure, its petals open, its leaves resting unwetted on the water.
White or yellow, blue or pink or red: clear and calm, of wondrous beauty: transmuted from sunless mud and the complexes of slime.

Only following its innate nature, it rises in a single stem to the surface and sunlight: buds; and opens its flower.
Did it demand explanation or advice? Did it argue or compare or plan? Did it look outside for its guidance in growth?
So for man who follows the innate nature of his self: to the contact with God. to the forming of the bud: to the unfolding of the flower that is within.
Blessed is such a man.

ISBN 0 227 7852 4
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