The Christ in me

Shall behold the Christ in all men.

I shall behold naught but Him

Resting on the altar of wisdom in all people.

It is through delusion that I perceive evil.

Behind the veil

Of apparently unjust occurrences

Is the presence of God,

Eternal good,

Which I shall perceive

By lifting the shades

Of my self-created evil thoughts.

The eternal protection of God

Surrounds me always like a robe,

No matter

Whether my soul

Moves through the corridors

Of Life or Death,

Disease or health,

Sorrow or happiness.

I am the laughter of flowers,

The joy of the dawn,

The smile on the lips of all laughter.

The eternal life of God

Is now flowing through me.

I am immortal.

Behind the wave

Of my consciousness

Is the ocean

Of Cosmic Consciousness.

Behind the ripple of my mind

Is the ocean touch

Of God’s vastness.

I am protected

By Divine Mind,

Which is just behind

My consciousness.

The aureole of Thy love encircles me

And I am living

In the castle of Thy love.

I am the peace

In all hearts.

The river of my peace

Flows through all minds.

The ocean of God’s abundance

Flows through me.

I am His child.

I am the channel

Through which

All Divine Creative Power

Flows.

I will hear God’s whispers

In the temple of my conscience.

He speaks with me

Through my sacred thoughts.

I will hear His guiding voice

In the temple of my daily silence.

Standing in the sunshine,

I shall consciously feel

His life-giving rays caressing me

And pouring life in me

Through all my body cells.

I shall feel Him

As the fragrance

Pouring from the temple of petals

To bless me invisibly

And to lure me

To seek His comforting Presence

Hidden in the garden of flowers.

Bless me, Father,

That I may seek Thee first

Above all things,

And be Thy true child again.

I am no more a prodigal child.

I have returned

To Thy mansion of all power.

I know now

That I have always been Thy child

And that

I have never really been separated

From Thee.

Therefore,

I claim all my rights

As a child

Of the Ruler of the Universe.

I shall receive power

From Thy Almighty Hands

By clasping Thee in meditation.

I shall receive prosperity

From Thy limitless resources

By first

Recognizing Thee as my Father.

I shall listen to Thy wisdom

From the lips of intuition

By visiting Thee

In the Temple of Samadhi

(Oneness with God).

I shall listen to Thy song

Beneath all soul songs.

I shall watch the play

Of Thy muscles

In the billows of the sea.

I shall follow

The trail of concentration

As I wander in the forest

Of my restless thoughts.

Thou art the love which I feel

Behind parental, conjugal, filial,

And friendly affection.

I shall hear Thy all-solacing lullaby

As Thou dost swing

In the cradle of peace.

I shall fear no more,

For through many deaths

And many incarnations

Thou hast shown me

That I still live

And that I shall live

Forevermore.

Father, teach me to worship Thee

On the altar of silence

Within me

And on the altar of activity

Without.

Finding Thee as peace within,

Teach me to worship Thee

In the peace

Of all spiritually-minded people.

Through the portals of my silence,

I shall behold Thee

Hiding behind the screen

Of my thoughts and perceptions.

Teach me to serve others

As I wish them to serve me.

Teach me to seek

The prosperity of others

With the same zeal

That I seek it for myself.

"You cannot believe in honor

Until you have achieved it.

Better keep yourself clean and bright;

You are the window

Through which you must see the world."

—George Bernard Shaw.

YOU could not read that question, were you dead. You could not think of death if you were not alive, but are you living that more glorious life which is the heritage of all who claim their own?

"If a man die, shall he live again?" This is a very old question, but who has ever proven that anyone who ever lived has ever died? Life we see and change we see, but death remains a concept, the truth of which has never been demonstrated.

Those whose inner eyes have been opened have discovered that death is a dream which serves its beautiful uses, but Life is the one eternally inescapable fact. So swiftly the Spirit goes from a moment’s rest to vibrant consciousness that one has hardly time to say: "I die," before he finds himself in the midst of Life!

There can be no degrees of that which does not exist. Consequently, there are no degrees of darkness nor of death, for there is no absolute darkness nor absolute death. There are degrees only in that which has existence; hence, there are degrees of light and life. There are no degrees of poverty nor ignorance, because there is no complete ignorance and no positive poverty. There are degrees only in wealth and knowledge, for riches and wisdom are universal truths, manifest everywhere.

In all the grand ascension of Nature to that of which it is an essential part, there is forever only a manifestation of beauty, goodness, truth, and love. All that seems to die, including man, only passes from one life to fuller consciousness and greater joy. The purpose of so-called death is resurrection, and the reason for resurrection is "Life more abundant."

"I am the resurrection and the life," said the white-souled, crimson-hearted Christ, and that which he said of Himself, He said for all men and of all men, and desired that they should say it for themselves. He who does not realize in himself and for himself the truth of that sublime saying has not yet learned what Jesus meant.

The "I Am" that is the resurrection and the life is forever in yourself, and that which, for the sake of God’s great drama, has seemed to be outside of you, has always been and always will be within you, for you are not less than He who fashions every form that flits across the screen of Time. The gods you worship and the saints you love are dwellers in that kingdom of heaven which is within your heart.

Is resurrection a fact? It is a transcendental fact in every realm of the star-gemmed universe. There is only one thing more wonderful than resurrection and that is "the life," which makes resurrection possible. And all resurrection is to the end of more abundant life.

CHRIST consciousness is the intelligence governing all finite Creation. Christ intelligence resides secretly in all the atoms of Creation and directs them to form into nebulae, island universes, and solar systems, and binds them with cords of thermal, electro-magnetic, gravitational rays, and keeps them swimming and soaring in the endless void of Eternity.

Jesus, the man, through step-by-step methods of Self-Realization, freed His consciousness and Life Force from all body objects of material attachment, such as muscles, heart, spinal plexuses, brain, and medulla, and let them expand into the cosmic energy and Christ intelligence pervading all finite vibratory matter.

Jesus, the man, could feel His consciousness and Life Force pulsating in the space cells of His cosmic material body as well as in the little body named Jesus. This expanded state of consciousness is called Christ consciousness.

Jesus, with His power over atoms, did not use material miracles to subdue his enemies. He, on the other hand, used the super-subtle all-alluring power of love to conquer His erring brothers.

Because God gave independence to man, He cannot contradict Himself when man does wrong and suddenly deny that right of independent choice and punish man with material miseries. Man suffers from his own ignorance, and from misuse of his God-given freedom of choice. He suffers because of the lack of harmony between his own nature and the blessedness of God. Thus, God in His wisdom and with all His power, uses only the Almighty Power of love to lure man back from his wanderings in the world of delusion to the abode of blessedness. This method of persuasion involves delay and, therefore, God has to wait for man to gain understanding while the world goes on suffering with its self-created scourges of sin, disease, accident, war, famine, and cataclysms of Nature.

Nature evolves earthquakes, spitting volcanoes, and cataclysms through the accumulative wrong thoughts of men. These destructive thoughts distort the ethers and throw the atomic and thermal combinations out of balance, thus creating natural disasters.

When Jesus resurrected, or lifted, His consciousness from the consciousness of the body to the consciousness of the universal intelligence in all space, He realized that He was not only the little body called Jesus, but that He was also all forces and all substances. Jesus, in the human consciousness, thought of Himself as circumscribed by the physical body. This state is called the son of man consciousness. Jesus, as the Son of God, actually realized that He was the intelligence in all manifestation and that all matter was His body.

When the body of Jesus was crucified, He carried out His statement: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19.) Jesus knew that He was not like other mortals who could not separate their souls from their bodies, and who could not perceive their existence apart from the body. For that reason it was possible for Him to say that He would rebuild His body after its destruction. He knew that He was the omnipresent Christ intelligence in all matter and that He had the power to command the atoms to grow another body or to rebuild the crucified body into a new one.

The resurrection of Jesus was not performed to glorify the little material residence of flesh, but to show man what can be done by tuning in with Christ Intelligence. Any man who can receive Christ in his consciousness through expanding it in meditation can become a Son of God and can perceive the universe as his body.

The omnipresent Christ intelligence is caged in the little physical body of every man. Everyone should try to release this vast consciousness from imprisonment behind the walls of material possessions and body consciousness, and let it realize its own vast omniscience.

Just as sound may be caged in the mouth but when uttered travels all over the universe, ever expanding spherically in all directions, so the soul, caged in the body, when resurrected into the ether by right meditation, forgets the confinement of the little body and expands with the Cosmic Vibration into the Eternal Omnipresence.

The celebration of the resurrection of Jesus on the first Easter morn should not end only in gifts of colored eggs to the children, feasting, and new spring hats. Man must learn to resurrect his soul from its long sleep and from its sense attachments.

Just as a rich prince, if brought up in the slums, would forget the wealth and vastness of his kingdom, so also, the omnipresent soul (made after the image of omnipresent Spirit) forgets its omnipresence and omniscience through being held in a consciousness limited by the imperfect body. However, if the prince were made to realize his own position, and were brought back to his kingdom, he would feel himself rich and unlimited. In the same way, the soul, made to realize its superconscious state, can know again its vastness and omnipresence.

Therefore, pass this Easter, at least a few hours of it, in lifting your consciousness from the domain of matter into the vastness of the Silence within your own temple and commune with the risen Christ there. Rise above the body consciousness. Resurrect yourself from the tomb of ignorance. Sit on the throne of Christ Consciousness and say in Realization: "I and my Father are One."

IN THESE times, when the world is counting its troubles, speaking most of the time of losses and failures, it will be comforting, and hopefully inspiring, to think a little about success. Our American standard of success is due for a radical change. So long, however, has it meant financial achievement—money making—that the substitution of any other yardstick, any less material measurement, will not be easy. The "boy who made good" with us is always the one who made money. No matter how high a mark he may have scored in his profession, his art, his career of public service, if he has not made money, to the public mind he has not "made good".

"Nothing succeeds like success." That is the essence of our philosophy. But there is a success that lies in failure—in what materialists call failure. It is of this success that lies in failure that I want to bring to your attention—just four illustrations. All of them the world might, actually did, call failures.

1. The humblest of individuals, an ordinary man known to the writer, who represents a larger number of persons than might be admitted.

2. A monarch of the ancient world who sacrificed an empire for his faith.

3. The most persecuted race in history, a failure throughout the ages, and yet an admitted success.

4. The "despised and rejected of me," whose name now stands for the most resplendent success in the history of the planet.

What is success? May it not be described (perhaps not exactly defined) as the fixing of the effort and attention of a human being on some worthy object and then "holding on" until this has been attained? The object, of course, must be worthy and desirable in the estimation of the striver. What boots it is he amasses great wealth and is called a success by his fellows if he himself cares but little, if at all, about riches, chafing only under his failure to accomplish some other thing which he considers more desirable?

Sometime ago an average man was questioned by a friend returning from a far country, in which he had gained a large fortune.

"My boy," said the homecomer, "are you rich?"

"No," was the reply.

"Never mind, (consolingly) you will succeed some day."

"Bless you," came back the answer, "I have succeeded already."

"But, I don’t understand. How can you succeed without making a lot of money?"

"I will tell you. I have my health. I am happily married. My children are growing up as I would wish them to. I am doing the kind of work I love and it is returning me compensation enough to pay the bills approximately as they become due. I have suffered much and had many defeats. I have seen the world, played a man’s part, and have been permitted to serve. I have the dynamic good will of many friends who say: ‘God bless you, we believe in you,’ and most important of all, I have made an inner adjustment to life. I have learned to see God in everything and to want to do His will at all times. In the words of the affirmation Swami Yogananda taught us to repeat after our morning exercises:

‘I am healthy, I am health,

I am strong, I am strength,

I am successful, I am success,

I am blessed, I am bliss,

I am peaceful, I am peace,

I am immortal, I am immortality.’"

The rich friend, who had only money, was silenced. He admitted that his kind of success was not the highest, although, of course, he did not in the least understand the other person’s ideals.

But now for a dip into the past. Ancient Egypt, in the second millennium before our present Era began, that is, more than 3,000 years ago, was almost at the height of its power in the world. After the great conqueror, known as Amenhotep III, had passed away, a new Pharoah sat on what was then the proudest throne on earth. Amenhotep IV , a boy of only 11 years, was married according to the Egyptian custom, to his half-sister, a beautiful little girt of 9, the Princess Nefertiti.

At that time there were many gods in Egypt. Almost every city had one. There was Amen of Thebes; Ra, the Sun God of Heliopolis, and Osiris, the God of Resurrection, and many others. The Egyptians were growing tired of so many gods. They began to believe there might better be only one for the nation at large. Everyone felt grateful to the river Nile, which, by overflowing its banks every year, fertilized the land and made the grain harvests possible. They also revered the Sun as the giver of Life. They could see its disc—which they called Aten-every day. In time, the life-giving power of the Sun, represented by Aten, its visible disc, became the principal god of the Egyptians.

Now we come to the young Pharaoh and his ideas. Aten, he reasoned, was god not only of the Egyptians, but of all the world as well. Amenhotep was of the stuff of which saints and martyrs are made. Nothing could hold him back from his spiritual ideal. He became an enthusiast, and, in the words of an old inscription on a monument, "loved the new Truth with a passionate devotion that made everything else seem small in comparison." When he was about 20 years old, he issued a decree commanding the whole nation to worship one god—not Amen, Ra, or Osiris, but Aten, who loved all mankind.

Then, as has so often happened, the priests of the established religion became his enemies. He had cast disfavor on their gods, so they conspired against him and, finally, although the people accepted the new belief, these priests drove the young Pharaoh from his capital. On the banks of the Nile, near the modern city of Cairo, he built another capital. He built it on the East bank, where all the cities of the living were located. The Egyptians had already begun to observe that strange, but beautiful, custom of lining the West bank with cities of the dead—cemeteries of monuments, tombs, crypts, pyramids. Thus, as some writers explain, arose the custom of saying of a person when he dies: "He has gone West."

From this new city the young spiritual enthusiast and his lovely wife began to teach the new faith. The records tells us that the people heard him gladly. The name Amenhotep had the odor of conquest and blood about it, so he changed it to Akhenaten, meaning: "The Aten (Sun) is content."

This god, he taught, was the only true one. He was all-powerful, but, more than that, he was a god of "loving kindness." He loved not only Egyptians, but all other races of men, even Egypt’s enemies, the Syrians and Babylonians; also all the myriad races of Palestine, from the Canaanites to the Hebrews, and Negroes and Philistines and Hindus. Think of such a belief in those days!

Akhenaten wrote hymns and psalms, some of them as lofty in thought and melodious in poetic expression as any of those we attribute to the Hebrew King David. These very Hebrews, later, were also to teach the sublime Truth that there is only One God and that all men are His children. But that is ahead of our story.

From this belief of Akhenaten there flowed certain tremendously important and far-reaching consequences. If all men are brothers and the One God of the Universe is their Father, there could be no more war against Egypt’s neighbors. Henceforth, the land of the Pharaohs must live at peace and in friendship with the surrounding nations she had so often fought in the past—the Syrians, Hittites, Amorites, Amalekites, Moabites, Babylonians, and Assyrians.

the news of the Pharoah’s strange faith spread and Egypt’s enemies began to crowd in on her outposts. The border commanders were soon sending frantic appeals to Akhenaten to help, and for troops. The Pharaoh had an army that could have scattered the rebels, the foreign enemies, like dust. He knew his power, but he did not send his armies to fight. He sent, instead, offers of peace and friendship. He was indeed the first proposer of a peace pact between nations.

The inevitable happened. The outposts gave in. Invasion and war followed and, in the end, Akhenaten sacrificed an empire for his faith. He had no son; his wife Nefertiti bore him only daughters—seven of them. The youngest married the Pharaoh whom we know as Tutankhamen.

At the age of 29 Akhenaten died and his widow followed him soon after, victim, some accounts say, of a broken heart. The priests dishonored his body and his memory. They cut out his name from all tombs and monuments. For more than 3,000 years he lay "unwept, unhonored, and unsung," and no man knew his burial place. Then a modern archaeologist, an American, only a few years ago found his tomb and mummy, and told us his story. Perhaps Akhenaten made a mistake. Perhaps he was a failure, but, at this distance of the ages, we say perhaps he was a great success.

Just about the time Akhenaten was reigning in Egypt, perhaps a little later, and proclaiming this wonderful new faith, another people, one of the most extraordinary and gifted in all human history, was beginning to feel its way from the valley of the Biblical rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, westward toward the Mediterranean. Under Abraham, from Ur of the Chaldees, the Habiru (the Hebrews) trekked toward the setting sun, developing and holding passionately to a faith in One God, a Spirit, not an idol of wood or stone.

In a book published some years ago, entitled, "Stranger Than Fiction," there is given a fascinating story of the Jewish people, a people of wonderful, tragic, ghastly, glorious experiences. The one great glory of the Jew—divided, quarrelsome, cruel, unruly, as his enemies call him, and as he may have been at times—has been his faith in One God. He began, like his fellow Semites, acknowledging no god except the blind forces of Nature. Throughout the ages he fought a terrible, and in the main, a losing battle against terrific odds for political rights, social equality, sovereignty, and for many other blessings. One thing he did and did it gloriously. At untold suffering, he developed and preserved an inner spiritual life for centuries when paganism and idolatry were the rule of life for other people. Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome, with irresistible legions, rode roughshod over him. Rome razed his holy capital, Jerusalem, to the earth and utterly destroyed the temple of his Jehovah, but Rome has gone from the face of the earth and the Jew remains more vital, more influential in the world’s affairs than ever before.

"That silent, defenseless army, though always defeated, never loses, never flinches, nor turns back. Always suffering, it is ever victorious; physically cowardly, it never quails in danger; vanquished by all, yet seeing all its conquerors, proud Kingdoms and mighty empires though they be, crumble into forgotten dust, while it rises once more with eternal agony and untiring patience, always failing, ever a success."

The Jew has failed? Yes, and yet, in the very widest, truest sense, he has succeeded. He has contributed to the entire Western world his idea of One God, the Father of all men, and on his faith have been reared the faiths of the Moslem and the Christian. The Jewish is the race which, in a worldly sense, perhaps, has been the most conspicuous failure in human history. Yet, at the same time, from a non-material standpoint, it is the most impressive, outstanding success. Without national sovereignty, with a "National Home" only by courtesy of the outside worlds, under "mandate" of a non-Semitic great power, the Jew is still a world force and a success in almost every sphere of human activity—pubic and private. No honest man, friendly or hostile to the race, can deny this.

Finally, in this study of success, let us approach, with becoming reverence, the "life and words" of Jesus, the Christ. Let us consider this epoch-making personality, not as God, but as the "Son of Man." Was there ever a being in physical form on this planet so undeniably a failure in the sight of what we call the world? "Despised and rejected of men," deserted by his disciples and spurned by his former friends, beaten and tortured, mocked, reviled, and done to a cruel, horrible death—this Jesus of Nazareth. "He saved others, Himself He cannot save." But was there ever recorded in human annals a more glorious, all-pervading, resplendent success?

After the Roman persecution and the sufferings in many lands during the Middle Ages, a strange, new, and subtle form of warfare began on the faith of the Nazarene. For nearly a thousand years men (of various groups and turns of mind) have been trying to kill Jesus a second time. They have attacked the gospel story as a legend. They have tried to prove that Jesus was a myth, that he was a crank, a fanatic, that he never really existed. They contended that science and religion are in mortal conflict. Finally, they proclaimed that Jesus was "anti-Christ." "Zarathustra" tried this, but now where is even the memory of Nietsche?

Despite these efforts, Christ has not been expelled from the earth. His memory is everywhere. Churches, schools, tombs, museums, art galleries, literature, and oaths keep it alive. He is the very basis of our chronology. We all say B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (In the Year of our Lord). Measured by any test of success, the life and influence of Jesus have been the most outstanding. Even those who do not love Him, who do not admit His divinity, or His message from God to mankind, acknowledge His influence on the race. It would be a very different world had He never lived in the flesh. "The very people who devote themselves to denying His ideas and His existence pass their lives in bringing His name to memory."

It is within the power of every man, woman, and child to succeed, provided he or she has an adequate idea of what success means. Some keen thinker has well said: "He who fails while putting forth his best, his utmost cheerful effort, he has not failed."

May it not, after all, be that, in our present economic difficulties, we are suffering from a lack of perspective as to what success really is—worth-while success? We talk much of "frozen assets" in referring to our financial situation, but the really frozen asset is character. Not very long ago that keen observer of human life, William James emphasized this lack. His words, speaking of a preceding depression, are worth recalling.

"In much of the modern literature of today there is a scornful attitude toward the old-fashioned idea of the essential value of character. There is an effort to eliminate from our vocabulary such words as conscience, obligation, responsibility, duty. It is declared with more heat than light that we have outlived these ideas. What is needed today in order to face the depression and prepare for prosperity when it comes is the reaffirmation not only in thought, but in practice, of the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between right and wrong."

They said unto him: "Rabbi (which means Master) where dwellest thou?" He said unto them: "Come and see." They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him: "We have found the Messias," (which is, being interpreted, the Christ) and when Jesus beheld him, He said: "Thou art Simon the Son of Jona: Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone."

Andrew, after staying with Jesus for a day, was so saturated with His spiritual magnetism that he understood who Jesus was. After a short acquaintance with Jesus, Andrew became filled with the vibration of Jesus, the Christ. Christ Consciousness cannot be intellectually inferred, but has to come through intuitional awareness. There is a difference between Jesus, the son of man, and Jesus, the Son of God.

The Cosmic Energy and Cosmic Consciousness enter the medulla oblongata as positive and negative currents, forming a series of attracting magnets. Each individual is a bundle of these magnets and attracts others according to their strength. Jesus was a Christ magnet empowered to attract all men, as compared with the ordinary man who can attract very little.

All the parts of the body which come in pairs—eyes, ears, big and little tongues, hands, feet, and so on, receive and radiate positive and negative currents, and each pair forms a magnet with more or less power. The optical magnet can charm, enthrall, and draw people so strongly that they may feel the magnetism of one’s soul through the eyes. Some highly developed people are able to spiritualize or heal a whole audience just by the magnetism of the eyes.

The laying of the hands on sick people is done to send the healing X-Rays of the hands into the body of the patient to electrocute the disease germs. There is no power greater than the Life Force flowing through the hands, provided it is made strong by an indomitable will. Man’s strong will, which refuses to be discouraged by anything and which flows continually and energetically toward the accomplishment of an object, becomes divinely empowered. The strong will of man is Divine will.

The best way to know an individual is to reside with him in the same house. Two people living in the same room, even if they did not talk, would attract each other with their consciousness, nature, vitality, and so forth. Each would feel the silent emanation of the other’s thought, Life Force, and the range and strength of his vital magnetism.

Each man carries a tell-tale silent evidence of his own vibrations with him. All unbiased, spiritually sensitive souls, can know people simply by looking into their eyes, or by merely coming in close contact with them and feeling their emanating vibrations. Worried, calm, timid, brave, cruel, wise, or godly people can be felt instantly even by people with little spiritual perception.

People with ordinary perception can feel others only when within close range of their magnetism. Great minds, however, can feel one another from a distance, although perception is stronger if they have been closely associated for a while. Thus it was that Andrew’s great soul, after remaining with Jesus for a day, felt His Christ magnetism and he was able to say to his brother Simon: "We have found the Messias."

We find Christ defined in the bible as "The first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth." Rev. I:5.

This definition is very deep and subtle. It means that the soul wave is usually encased in the physical body of sixteen elements and in the astral and ideational bodies of nineteen elements. It is corked in these three bodies by ignorance and material desires and is unable to mingle with the ocean of Spirit which surrounds it. With the change of the physical body, called "death," the soul remains encased in the astral and ideational bodies and is still unable to loosen its Life Wave to join the ocean of Spirit. It is possible by higher meditation for the soul to free itself from the physical and astral worlds and then to merge itself in the ocean of Christ Consciousness.

That is why, in the above passage, it is stated that this Christ Consciousness can be experienced only by those souls who have seen the complete death or dissolution of their encasing physical, astral, and the ideational bodies, and not by all who are merely physically dead.

In the human consciousness, the soul experiences itself as identified with the physical body, name, titles, possessions, nationality, and so forth. In the subconscious state, the soul cognizes itself as the restless power of dreams, or as the formless peace of deep sleep. In the superconscious state, the soul feels itself as undiluted, formless, ever-new joy. In the state of Christ Consciousness, the soul, emerging from its three dead bodies, feels the Christ Intelligence in all Creation as the conscious, supreme, princely intelligence guiding all other kingly powerful forces which govern the earth and all matter.

Jesus, the man, could feel His consciousness, not only as residing in and governing the body, but He could also feel it as the Christ Intelligence pervading all the space cells of His finite Cosmic body.

OCCASIONALLY, there arises a clever sophist whose word-wielding power is so great that he can make all but the "elect" believe that black is white, that there is no difference between Truth and error, that sympathy is folly, that the attempt at self-control is futile, and that freedom of the Spirit is a fallacy. Do not be deceived. Purity will always be at a premium; character is better than mere mental culture; Truth will always be recognized by the heart, and error will forever be repudiated by the Spirit. Sympathy and self-control have ever been and shall forever be the first sign and last test of spirituality—and the road to wisdom and peace.

That which does not govern, must be governed. The mind is a winged horse, at the service of man. It will carry his soul to the highest Heaven if he but guide it, but he who falls into such admiration of his beautiful steed that he forgets to hold the reins, will find himself at the mercy of that which was meant to serve him. Freed from restraint, the steed will plunge madly through space, and, since falling is easier than rising, will land himself and his rider in the inferno instead of in Paradise.

Purge me, Oh Spirit,

With Thy fire—

Let the storms of temptation descend on me.

I would know Life in its fullness—

It’s worst and best.

Let adversity come;

I ask no miraculous deliverance.

No weapon would I,

But the two-edged sword of Truth.

Send that which shall make

My will strong as the poplar tree,

Yet leave my mind receptive to thoughts

As the poplar flower is to bees;

Sensitive as the leaves to warmth

Of summer sun, and cool at eve.

Cross-legged, bony, still,

Within the prison walls

He sits;

Spinning his thread of Hope—

The thread To bind our hearts in unity;

The unity of love, the unity of purpose.

Red,

The flame of war, of anger, passion,

And the ruling power—

Red, the British Coat—

White,

The robe of peace, of love and purity—

White, the robe of Gandhi—

And on, and on he spins in his robe of white; Silently, with an inward Light.

List!

Oh ye millions, to the beating

Of thy leader’s heart—

Press on, yet bind your hands

With Gandhi’s thread of Peace—

Press on, defy this evil flame,

This degradation,

Blood, and shame—

White,

The morning dawn,

With Venus regal in her light;

The Star of Hope, the Star of Morn.

Oh India!

Why forlorn?

Press on—Press on—

Asmakamtu bishista ja tannibodha Dwijottama

Nayaka mama sainyashya samgartham tan brabeemi ta.

Dwijottama (Oh you flower of the twice-born).

Asmakam (of us) tu (also) ja (those) who are bishista (renowned and important); mama (of my) sainyashya (army); Nayaka (leaders); tannnibodha (know them); ta samgartham (to inform you); tan (them); brabveemi (I speak of).

Listen, too, Oh flower of the twice-born Brahmins. The generals of our army who are prominent among ourselves, these I speak about for your information.

Bhaban Bheesmascha Kripascha samitrinjyah

Aswathama bikarnascha Saumadattir-jayadrathah.

Bheesmascha (Bishma and); Bhaban you); and Karna, and Kripa, Samitinjaya, the victors in war. Aswathama, Bikarna and Jayadratha, Saumadatti (the son of Somadatti.)

You Bhisma, Karna, and Kripa, the victors in battles, Aswatthama, Bikarna, and Jayadratha, the son of Somadatti, all belong to our party.

Tasamanaditwanchashisonitwat—Yogasutra kaibalyapada.

King Material Desire is very anxious to win the bodily Kingdom, but as soon as he tries to do so he is confronted with the war between its sense-soldiers and the metaphysical soldiers.

King Material Desire realized that the Preceptor Past Habit Tendency, though principally on the side of his wicked sense soldiers, was also the preceptor of the good, metaphysical soldiers of self-control, and therefore he was afraid that the skillful metaphysical soldiers would defeat his strong evil soldiers.

The idea is, that as soon as the soul descends into the body, its entire consciousness begins to flow toward the body. Hence, the material habit is predominant in almost all individuals. Material Desire, being born of material habit, is also predominant in the early stages of life. For that reason, on the eve of a psychological battle, when the soul and its metaphysical soldiers became awakened and try to reclaim the lost, the Past Tendency is especially liable to side with the evil soldiers of the senses. That is why we hear King Material Desire speaking of Preceptor Past Tendency as fighting for him.

Still, King Material Desire knows that Preceptor Past Tendency was also the tutor of the following metaphysical soldiers:

One, devotion; 2, vital celibacy; 3, spiritual memory; 4, Samadhi (Oneness); 5, discriminative intelligence; 6, extreme dispassion; 7, power to resist evil, or negative good power; 8, power to follow positive rules or positive good power; 9, proper bodily posture, helpful in mind control; 10, inwardly controlled Life-Force reversed toward God; 11, faculty of withdrawing consciousness from the senses. (Dhyana, or meditation.)

Therefore, King Material Desire wishes the evil Past Habit Tendency to know first about the error-resisting opposing metaphysical soldiers, their principalities, and their strength. This was done to show Evil Habit the strength of Good Habit, and how Evil Habit could be overpowered.

After doing this, King Material Desire tells his Preceptor Past Evil Habit about the following sense soldiers:

One, delusion; 2, only seeking Ego; 3, attachment; 4, repulsion; 5, flesh infatuation; 6, Karma, action; 7, past evil tendency; 8, desire, and so forth

King Material Desire is afraid that the metaphysical soldiers and the Preceptor Good Habit Tendency will be able to defeat the sense soldiers plus the preceptor of the bad habit tendencies.

Evil Habit Tendency, along with King Material Desire and his soldiers, could not possibly rule the body without having a serious clash with good habit and its metaphysical soldiers.

Stanzas IV, V, and VI in Chapter I of the Bhagavad Gita describe the metaphysical soldiers which were arrayed against the sense soldiers mentioned in Stanzas VIII and IX. Now, it will be seen that the two sides are about equal in strength.

Birat, or Samadhi, is the leading general of the metaphysical soldiers, as Bhisura, Asmita, or Delusion-Born Ego Consciousness, is the most famous general of the sense soldiers. The Ego consciousness in man is always ready to resist Samadhi, or the consciousness of Oneness with God.

The Ego consciousness in man tries to keep the soul attached to matter in the form of individual traits and mortal desires born out of them. The Soul, being a reflection of the Omnipresent Spirit, ought to reflect its omnipresent, all-knowing character. It is the pure, perfect reflection of the Spirit, but when it forgets its own real nature and becomes identified with the body and its attachments, it loses its consciousness of Omnipresence and becomes conscious only of the limitations of the body. This body-bound soul is called Ego. The soul in the Ego state is a prisoner of the flesh and its limitations.

The soul, through meditation, can reach the state of Samadhi and thus can do away with its Ego or matter consciousness. Reaching Samadhi, or Oneness with God, is the only method by which the Ego consciousness can be completely defeated.

Samadhi is the great general of the metaphysical army which leads the soldiers of devotion, vital celibacy, spiritual memory, discriminative intelligence, extreme dispassion, negative good power, positive good power, proper bodily posture, reversed Life-Force, and withdrawn consciousness from the senses to battle the soldiers of Ego, Bhisura, or King Material Desire.

There are different stages in the realization of Oneness. There is the realization of Oneness of the Ego and the soul, and that of Oneness of the Soul and Spirit. There are really three kinds of Samadhi: Jara, or unconscious trance; Swabikalpa, or perception of Spirit without the Waves of Creation; and the third and highest state is that of perception of the Ocean of Spirit with the Waves of Creation.

The unconscious state is useless for the most part because it is produced by a physical control, or by the mental anaesthetic of keeping the mind blank. In this state a sense-bound soul can only be kept from increasing its attachments. It can never acquire wisdom or roast the seeds of pre-natal or post-natal bad habits. In this state, the mind is unconscious within and without.

It is related in the Hindu Scriptures that a wicked snake charmer went into a trance and fell into a well. The well dried up and became full of dirt and the man remained buried there for a hundred years with his body perfectly preserved in a state of suspended animation. At the end of a hundred years some people who were digging out the old well found him and revived him by the application of hot water. As soon as he regained consciousness, he began to scold and curse the people for stealing the musical instruments with which he charmed the snakes. His hundred years of unconscious trance had not roasted the seeds of bad thought habits or cured him of his wickedness.

In the Swabikalpa Samadhi state the attention and the Life-Force are switched off from the senses and are kept consciously identified with the ever-joyous, ever-wise Spirit. In this state, the soul is released from the Ego consciousness and becomes conscious of Spirit beyond Creation. By repetition of this state of Samadhi, the soul absorbs the fire of Spirit Wisdom, which roasts out the seeds of mortal desires. In this state, the soul, as the meditater, its meditation on the Spirit, and the Spirit as the object of meditation, become one. The Wave of Soul meditating in the Ocean of Spirit becomes merged with the Spirit. It does not lose its identity, but only expands into Spirit. In this state, the mind is conscious of the Spirit within only. It is not conscious of Creation without.

In the most advanced, or Nirbikalpa Samadhi state, the soul does not expand itself into the big Spirit, but realizes itself and Spirit as existing together. This is the highest and most enjoyable state in which the Ego consciousness, the soul consciousness, and the Ocean of Spirit are seen all existing together. It is the state of watching the Ocean of Spirit and the Waves of Creation at the same time. In this state, the individual does not see himself any longer as John Smith related to his body and his outer environment, but he sees that the Ocean of Spirit has become not only the Wave of John Smith, but also all the waves of all lives and of all things. In this state, the soul is conscious simultaneously of Spirit within and of all Creation without.

The Swabikalph Samadhi and Nirbikalpa Samadhi states are described int he following ancient Hindu song:

"In the Swabikalpa Samadhi Yoga (union)

You will drown (melt) yourself (Ego) in yourself (Spirit).

In the Nirbikalpa Samadhi Yoga

You will find (see) yourself (Ego) in yourself (in Spirit)."

The Ego consciousness tries to keep the body under its control by reminding it of the limited physical relations of country, race, nation, family, possessions, characteristics, and so forth. The soul is held to the body by the Ego consciousness. Struggling of the state of Samadhi through meditation is the way to overcome the Ego consciousness. In the highest Nirbikalpa Samadhi state the soul unites its Ego consciousness of race, country, family, body, possessions, and characteristics with the omnipresent, omniscient, all-blessed Spirit. The Ego reminds the Soul of its limitations, while Samadhi reminds the Soul of its omnipresence.

Before General Samadhi can defeat the body-bound Ego, it is necessary for the Soul to call out its other metaphysical soldiers to defeat the army of the senses. This battle will be described in the next issue of East-West.

EVERY man and every woman has a world of his and her own. Some adorn it with songs and throbbings of the golden dawn, and enrich its horizon with the molten laughter of the silvery moon. Some weave the fabric of their world with the silken threads of fragrance and joy, and water the tender roots of life with the caresses of undying smiles; yet, there are those who darken the light of day by the gathering clouds of their saddened hearts. Even on the face of the rose they see the terrors of death, but the streams of tears that flowed sparkling on my eyes, and the sighs that heaved in the center of my life, are gone, gone forever. I have built a new world, a gay world of my own. There life sings with the dreams of the morn; it dances in tune with the darkness of the night; there hearts speak the language of the hearts; there heaven and earth have blended into an ecstacy of fulfillment.

In my world, tragedies and comedies are like two fluttering wings of one Eternity. I have built there a tower of silence to give vent to the Eternal Urge of my soul. Above my tower of silence spreads the eternal void, below rings the muteness of fathomless space, around it runs the timeless time, and inside that home of peace, Eternity kisses the lips of Eternity. My world is safely built in the heart throb of Eternal God. In this world of mine death has surrendered its scepter to the hands of Life, and Life has given itself up to the love and harmony of Humanity.

A NEW industry, one with possibilities as great as the now crowded field of electrical refrigeration, is in process of being perfected. It is founded on air conditioning methods of cooling, cleaning, and humidizing air in rooms and buildings.

In the Era now beginning, air conditioning will be made widely available for homes and commercial buildings. Working and living will no longer be hampered by excessive heat. Air conditioning simply means heating air if it is too cold, cooling it if it is too warm, cleaning it if it contains dirt, moistening it if it is too dry, and drying it if too moist, and moving it to create pleasant currents. In other words, it means making the atmosphere in which we live as conducive as possible to comfort and health. Think of a home where draperies and furniture stay clean of dust, where antiques don’t crack apart, and pianos stay in tune for years.

It has been estimated that the potential market for air conditioning equipment in America is at least $5,000,000,000. This sounds large until we realize that there are 30,000,000 dwelling houses, 2,500 large theaters, 1,000 department stores, 1,500 large banks, and countless other prospects. A new industry of this importance cannot come without great opportunities for employment of labor and capital.

PROF. AUGUSTE PICCARD, world-famous Swiss-Belgian, meteorologist and stratosphere conqueror, has twice penetrated the stratosphere, that frigid and mysterious region ten miles above the earth, where there is no weather, where the temperature is always about 70 degrees F. below zero, and where the air is so thin that no human being could live on the small amount of oxygen in the air. In the stratosphere the air is not only greatly rarefied, but it is filled, in part, with lighter and strange gases. There is no rain or fog, or clouds, up there to obscure the sun or other heavenly bodies, which shine brightly in a black sky.

So far, only three men—Piccard twice, and his aides once each—have pierced these freezing regions, but France, Germany, England, Russia, and the United States are all working on stratosphere ships to penetrate and travel through this rarefied "upper deck." Because of the greatly rarefied air ten miles up, scientists are agreed that this region offers great possibilities for really rapid transportation. Some day we may travel through the stratosphere at about 500 to 1,000 miles an hour.

Prof. Piccard has evolved some theories that after man has used up all his coal, oil, and other power-producing fuels, he may be able to use the Cosmic Rays as a source of energy. The energy from three drops of water, for instance, according to Prof. Piccard’s theory, would be sufficient to light New York City for about 24 hours.

Prof. Piccard also thinks that rocket planes, flying through stratosphere, are also sure to come, and he estimates that six hours will be a reasonable length of time for a trip from Europe to America. He says that 30 years ago people who talked about flying in airplanes were considered to be "nuts." "Today," he said, "the same thing applies to the rocket plan advocates, but they are not ‘nuts’ any more than were the airplane advocates of a previous generation."

MR. IRVING LANGMUIR, who has just received the greatest recognition any scientist can receive, namely, the Nobel Award for Chemistry in 1932, made possible a saving of $1,000,000 a night to the American people in electricity costs by his development of the high-intensity incandescent lamp, which contains small quantities of either nitrogen or argon. He is the second American chemist to have been honored by the Swedish Academy of Science in 31 years. He is now engaged in working out the laws according to which atoms and molecules distribute themselves over surfaces to form monatomic layers—laws of great importance in understanding many simple phenomena.

"INFRA-RED rays offer the next great field for exploration with electronic apparatus," says the Industrial Bulletin of Arthur D. Little, Inc. "Navigation, industrial applications, remote control, and safety appliances all present striking opportunities for infra-red detection.

During a recent broadcast demonstration of the Macneil thermo-electric sextant, which can measure the position of the sun through thick, obscuring clouds, the sensitive thermo-couple was pointed out from the studio window and used to "feel" heat from smokestacks six miles away. Commander Macneil is now experimenting with locating airplanes flying above the clouds at night, by "feeling" the heat from their exhausts. This instrument will detect the heat of a man’s face a mile away, and a horse’s face two miles away.

Detection and warning against icebergs will undoubtedly be another service of the future to be rendered navigation. During the broadcast mentioned, a cake of ice was hidden in the studio behind a thick sheet of black rubber, to simulate fog, and then all the lights were turned out. Under these conditions, simulating a thick, foggy night, the thermo-couple was swung around the "horizon" and instantly located the concealed "iceberg" there in the dark. Many potentialities at once suggest themselves for such wonder-working apparatus.

When all life has been rich in experience,

Shall not Death be rich in experience also?

Hold fast to the actual,

And do not go outside good sense.

Do not let your mind stray

Into a world of negations and impossibilities,

Or try to imagine some future time

When it will be unable to image anything

—For there is no sense in that.

Do no wander too far into Time at all,

Lest with the everlasting Now

—The center of all life and experience,

And your own true lover

—You fail to keep your first appointment.

4 cupfuls of water.

Boil one hour. Then put the cooked lentils through a meat chopper. Add two cupfuls of finely cut onions, two eggs beaten well, two teaspoonfuls of Savita, one teaspoonful salt, one-half teaspoonful pepper, and two tablespoonfuls of cooked beets, mashed with a fork. Make this mixture into small cakes and fry slowly in butter. This will serve five persons.

1 cupful whole wheat flour

1 teaspoonful baking powder

1 teaspoonful salt

1/4 cupful butter

1/8 cupful water

Butter a large Pyrex pie plate thoroughly. Cover with the above mixture, molding into shape. It cannot be rolled. The crust can be made the day before needed. Bake about three-fourths of an hour in a slow oven.

Mix two cupfuls of sugar with the juice of two lemons and the grated rinds, and one cupful of water. In another dish stir four eggs (saving two of the egg whites for the meringue) with one cupful of water and two large tablespoonfuls of cornstarch. Mix thoroughly, then put together with one teaspoonful of butter in a double boiler, stirring constantly for about twenty minutes, or until thick. Then pour into the crust, let stand four hours until set, decorate with one-fourth pint of cream and the two egg whites, the cream and egg whites to be beaten separately until stiff, then put together. Serves eight persons.

NO one wants to have appendicitis in order to enjoy the efficient services of a skilled surgeon. No one desires to suffer a terrible disease in order to utilize an effective, well-advertised patent medicine. Surgical help, successful amputations, bacteria-killing chemicals, sugar-coated pills, salves, ointments, lotions, disinfectants, and tonics—all these exist because diseases exist.

Disease signifies discomfort, and we do not like sickness. Disease comes to us because of our conscious or unconscious transgression of the laws of health and hygiene, and we desire to be free of its pain and discomfort.

Imagine what the world would be like if we could always keep healthy. All the painful operations, choking anesthetics, sawing of limbs, injection of poisonous vaccines, strong stimulants, burning antiseptics, and gallons of drugs, would vanish from the earth and the mind of man.

Some people may ask what the poor doctors would do under such ideal conditions. The answer is, that doctors are necessary not only to cure disease, but also to teach people how to prevent sickness, because most people know very little about the laws of preserving their health.

When wealth only is lost, nothing real is lost, for if one has health and skill one can still be happy and can make more money, but if health is lost, then most happiness is also lost, and when the principle of life is lost, all happiness is lost.

Myriads of wise fools eat themselves into their graves. Many people shatter their nerves by overwork and worry, and many others lose their health by irregular habits of living. Few people know the right kind of food to eat, and that all the things that satisfy hunger do not satisfy the laws of nutrition.

Doctors are needed to teach busy people the laws of right living, and thus show them how to prevent sickness to the end of their days, when they will fall from the tree of material existence like ripe fruit, and not be pulled down in the freshness of youth by the storm of disease.

To be health does not mean just to drag along in a miserable existence. It means the expression of health with vigor and joy.

It is said that the Chinese pay their doctors to keep them healthy, and if they get sick, the doctors are not paid until they are healed again.

Prevention is better than cure because every disease leaves its mark in some form, and it is only by following the laws of health that man can be happy. Without health, happiness is almost impossible. Therefore learn how to live, and then act upon that knowledge if you would be happy.

Poor winged insect!

Why do you lie there

Curled up in pain?

What injury befell

Your little body as you wandered forth

In search of blossoms rich with joy for you?

Poor creature!

You whose life has been

One note of praise and peace,

The while you labored on,

Under the guiding hand

On some great Power,

To garner sweets from smiling,

Growing things

To help increase the gladness of mankind.

Why should I leave you here in agony?

Perchance I came this way to set you free.

May we not think that He who made us both,

For purposes which He alone may know,

Has sent me here to bring relief to you?

Believe me kind. Good-by, my gentle friend.

Go back to Him who sent you to this world.

Surely, you have your place among the stars.

That conscious something in your tiny form,

Which knew to gather nectar

From the flowers—

Who knows it does not,

Somewhere, live again?

"In the same way," writes this great French scholar, "as modern society jostles antiquity at each step; as our poets have copied Homer and Virgil, Sophocles and Euripides, Plautus and Terence; as our philosophers have drawn inspiration from Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle; as our historians take Titus Livius, Sallust or Tacitus as models; our orators, Demosthenes or Cicero; our physicians study Hippocrates, and our codes transcribe Justinian—so had antiquity’s self also an antiquity to study, to imitate and to copy. What more simple and more logical? Do not peoples precede and succeed one another? Does the knowledge, painfully acquired by one nation, confine itself to its own territory, and die with the generation that produced it? Can there be an absurdity in the suggestion that the India of 6000 years ago, brilliant, civilized, overflowing with population, impressed upon Egypt, Persia, Judea, Greece and Rome, a stamp as ineffaceable, impressions as profound, as these last have impressed upon us?"

In another place, Jacolliot says: "The Greek is but the Sanskrit. Phidias and Praxiteles have studied in Asia the chefs d’oeuvre of Daouthia, "Ramana and Aryavosta. Plato disappears before Jaimini and Veda-Vyasa, whom he literally copies. Aristotle is thrown into the shade by the Purva-Mimansa and the Uttara-Mimansa, in which one finds all the systems of philosophy which we are now occupied in re-editing, from the Spiritualism of Socrates and his school, the skepticism of Pyrroho, Montaigne and Kant, down to the positivism of Littre."

Jacolliot proves by parallel textual reference (see La Bible das l’Inde, pages 33-47) that the famous Code of Justinian, Roman basis of modern jurisprudence, was copied from the Laws of Manu, great Hindu legislator whose origin, Jacolliot points out, "is lost in the night of the ante-historical period of India; and no scholar has dared to refuse him the title of the most ancient law-giver in the world."

Another case which verifies the Equinoctial Age-Chart is that of Vyasa, the great expounder of Vedanta, whose date is given in Brahmanical records as 10,400 B.C., and whose works assign him to a Golden Age of the world. We have no difficulty, then, in placing him in the last Equinoctial Golden Age of the Descending Arc.

Although the scholar Jablonski admits that the Egyptians were familiar for centuries before the historical period with the heliocentric system of the universe, he adds: "This theory Pythagoras took from the Egyptians, who had it from the Brahmans of India." Pythagoras, whose great learning was described by Aristotle, was an Initiate of Egyptian schools, and learned there the truths of the earth’s spherical form, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the reflected light of the Moon, the presence of fixed stars in the Milky Way, and other astronomical facts, knowledge of which was subsequently lost to the Western World for the two thousand years of the last two Kali Yugas. All this knowledge is contained in the ancient Hindu Brahmagupta, which points out the fixity of the starry firmament as compared with the dual movement of the earth upon its axis and its yearly circuit around the Sun.

With, then, these few remarks on the enlightenment of India as she passed through the last Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of her civilization, we shall leave the subject, recommending to the attention of students the scholarly works of Max Muller, Colebrooke, St. Hilaire, Sir William Jones, Weber, Strange, Lassen, Hardy, Burnouf and Louis Jacolliot, all of whom have attempted, with at least some success, to do justice to ancient India. Isis Unveiled, especially Vol. I, Section II, by Mme. Blavatsky, is full of well-documented references to the glories of the ancients, and a number of quotations in this article have been culled from its pages.

Though many of the ancient books have been lost, the majestic ruins of pyramids, labyrinths, caves, palaces and temples, many of them dating from the last Golden Age, still exist, exciting the awe and admiration of all those in the modern world who can read their majestic story aright. "Near Benares," Mme Blavatsky writes, "there are still the relics of cycle-records and of astronomical instruments cut out of solid rock, the everlasting records of Archaic Initiation, called by Sir William Jones old "back records" or reckonings. In Stonehenge (England) they exist to this day. Higgins says that Waltire found the barrows of tumuli surrounding this giant-temple represented accurately the situation and magnitude of the fixed stars, forming a complete orrery or planisphere. . . . In recognizing in the gods of Stonehenge the divinities of Delphos and Babylon, one need feel little surprise." In another place, the same writer says:

"The religious monuments of old, in whatever land or under whatever climate, are the expression of the same identical thoughts, the key to which is in the esoteric doctrine. It would be vain, without studying the latter, to seek to unriddle the mysteries enshrouded for centuries in the temples and ruins of Egypt and Assyria, or those of Central America, British Columbia, and the Nagkon-Wat of Cambodia. If each of these was built by a different nation of whom none had had intercourse with the others for ages, it is also certain that all these structures were planned and built under the direct supervision of the priests. And the clergy of every nation, though practising rites and ceremonies which may have differed externally, had evidently been initiated into the same traditional mysteries which were taught all over the world. In order to institute a better comparison between the specimens of prehistoric architecture to be found at the most opposite points of the globe, we have but to point to the grandiose Hindu ruins of Ellora in the Dekkan, the Mexican Chichen-Itza in Yucatan, and the still grander ruins of Copan in Honduras. They present such features of resemblance that it seems impossible to escape the conviction that they were built by peoples moved by the same religious ideas, and who had reached an equal level of high civilization in arts and sciences. There is not, perhaps, on the face of the whole globe, a more imposing mass of ruins than Nagkon-Wat, the wonder and puzzle of European archaeologists who venture into Siam." Of these ruins, the French traveler Mouhot says they are "grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome" and credits their construction to "some ancient Michael Angelos." Frank Vincent confesses the inability of archaeologists to trace their origin. "Nagkon-Wat," he says, "must be ascribed to other than ancient Cambodians. But to whom?"

Look where one will, the ruins of ancient structures give mute but eloquent testimony that their builders were no primitive Neolithic men, but intellectual and artistic giants. The great Labyrinth of Egypt, already a mass of ruins even in the day of Herodotus, is well described by that historian. He considered it superior to even the pyramids, and as "excelling all other human productions," with its 3000 chambers, half of them subterranean.

Karnak at Thebes is fully as ancient, Champollion, the great French Egyptologist, gives his impressions: "One is astounded and overcome by the grandeur of the sublime remnants, the prodigality and magnificence of workmanship to be seen everywhere. . . . the imagination . . . falls powerless at the foot of the 140 columns of the hypostyle of Karnac!"

The walls of Tiryns, the Cyclopean fortresses of ancient Greece, and the Cyclopean remains of Easter Island, cannot be denied an antiquity less remote than the first pyramids.

The origin of the ruins of ancient Mexico and Peru, the palaces and temples of Palenque, Uxmal, Santa Cruz del Quiche, Copan and Arica is so far lost in the mist of time as to give rise to such diverse theories as that (1) they are the work of the ancient Phoenicians, the most enterprising seafaring people of antiquity, whose excursions into the Arctic regions have been chronicled in the Odyssey of Homer, or (2) they were built untold centuries ago by the Atlanteans. Whatever the verdict, it will not be likely to uphold the theory of modern historians who claim, like Wells, that the first civilization started about 6000 B.C. with a mysterious Sumerian people in Mesopotamia.

"Eridu, Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Larsa (Sumerian cities)," writes the historian Winckler, "have already an immemorial past when first they appear in history." The "immemorial past" and civilizations of Egypt, India, China and other countries with less glamour of "mystery" about their origin and achievements than the Sumerians have little interest for the representative modern historian, since he cannot reconcile these facts with his prejudiced misconception that only a primitive Norlithic culture reigned throughout the ante-historical periods.

The sincere student, then, goes not to the dull and materialistic pages of present-day historians for an understanding of the spiritual wisdom which inspired the ancients and instructed their arts and sciences, but seeks to find the universal message and revelations contained, under diverse allegories, in the sacred scriptures of all the peoples of pre-Kali Yuga antiquity—the Vedas of the Hindus, the Books of Thoth or Hermes of the Egyptians, the Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster, the Kabbalistic Zohar of the Hebrews the Woluspa of the ancient Scandinavians, the Popol Vuh of the ancient Mexicans, the Tanjur of the Tibetans, the mystical Hymns of Orpheus, and the Chaldean Book of Numbers.

The pre-Kali Yuga scriptures, as well as many of the Iron Age, cannot be understood without a key to their symbolism, and to this face may be ascribed the endless colossal blunders which modern scholars have made in translation and interpretation. A literal rendition is often absurd and meaningless, but this fact is the clue that the proper key and insight will yield the most profound knowledge.

Religion intolerance and vandalism were so rampant through the period of the last two Kali Yugas (702 B.B. to 1698 A.D.) that ancient writings, tell-tale evidence easier to destroy than granite walls and pyramids, were consigned by millions to the flames of fanatical prejudice or artful design.

A third reason for the limited knowledge of the modern world in regard to the depth and extent of bygone civilizations is the strict vow of silence imposed on all Initiates of the Ancient Wisdom, and the necessary caution and ambiguity with which they imparted their great knowledge. The teachings of the Kali Yuga Initiates, such as Pythagoras, a student of the Mysteries or sacred wisdom of Egypt, Babylon, (India, Byblos, Syria and Tyre, and those of Thales, Plato, Lao-Tze of China, Simeon Ben Jochai, the great hebrew kabbalist, many of the Old Testament prophets, St. Paul, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, the Essenes’ Brotherhood, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Plotinus, Proclus, and Paracelsus, all concealed more than they revealed, so that sacred truths might not be profaned nor knowledge of godly powers abused. The two greatest teachers of the last Kali Yuga of the Descending Arc, Buddha and Jesus the Christ, also "spoke in parables."

Thus we have seen, in the facts pointed out in this article, some of the grandeur of the ancient nations of pre-Kali Yuga civilizations, as testified to by the imposing ruins of their stupendous structures, which still embody their knowledge of great arts and sciences, and we have also seen some of the difficulties that face us in our effort to accord a just appreciation to their wisdom and their achievements. With these facts before us, we avoid the delusions of our modern materialistic historians and see the ancients, not as primitive "New Stone Age" men, but as sages and builders enjoying the superior light of intelligence and spiritual perception conferred by the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of the Equinoctial Cycle in which they lived.

I’ve travelled far in many lands,

The open road I’ve trod:

And through the devious ways of men

I’ve searched with them for God.

The ancients found Him in their groves,

The Wise Men saw the Star.

God comes to some in paths of peace,

To some in flaming war.

Before the Buddha some men bow;

Some love the Nazarene.

The mystic feels a Presence near,

Although no form is seen.

On desert sands the vision comes,

As men turn toward the East.

And while some, fasting, see His face,

Some find Him at the feast.

In temple, mosque, cathedral dim,

Through vigil, chant, and prayer,

Wherever man cries out to God

The Living God is there.

Wherever man has fought for right,

Where man for man has died;

Beside him stands, could we but see,

One that was crucified.

Alone I have communed with Him

Beneath a star-lit sky,

And I have touched His garment-hem

Where crowds go surging by.

And this is clear in all my search,

As clear as noon-day sun;

The name and form are naught to God,

To Him all shrines are one.

THE voice of Easter is the cry of Life! Its faith is the conviction that no matter how bad things look to the uninitiated, there is yet a preponderance in favor of goodness. It is a revelation of the balance of Life.

The most productive elements of a sound strategy, and the first step to take in its formulation, is the recognition of the two worlds of experience in which we live, and the proper rating of their respective elements. The outside material world is a part of every one’s experience. Life is partly made up of those things which can be measured, weighed, counted, tabulated—food, clothing, housing, automobiles, street cars, climate, seasons, country, neighborhood, and so on. The program of living must include a proper relation to all these things.

One must know how to ride in automobiles, how to use them, or at least how to get out of the way of them. One must know how to adjust oneself to the outer, material conditions, which are a part of one’s life. At any given moment, they are in a certain condition, and no amount of self-deceit can alter the fact that they are just that way. When the temperature is at zero, that is where it is, and when bread is the only food available, that is the situation to which one must adjust oneself. A life cannot be completely well lived without a proper approach to the world as it is.

But, upon analysis of the elements of human life, one soon discovers that this material world is not nearly as important as most people think it is. The other world is vaster and more meaningful. In the world of the unseen lie the large spheres of life—in thoughts, feelings, attitudes, motives. In these two worlds we live—the world of the seen, which is the world of miles, pounds, and horse power, and the world of the unseen, which is the great inner kingdom.

I do not mean to suggest that we live in a dual universe. These two worlds mingle and affect each other. They are manifestations of the same basic urge of existence. At their base is a profound and practical unity. The two fields come together in such a way that by worry one may change the chemical nature of one’s blood, and by fear break down the organs of one’s body. Love, like sunshine, is a healer of disease, a bringer of strength, but as a problem of practical strategy, it is necessary to distinguish them so that the proper technique may be used in meeting them. The methods of solution of their problems are as different as a thought is form a stone.

We are just recovering from a period of inner blindness, when the race, led by nineteenth century materialistic science, believed that Life consisted entirely in the measurable and tangible. "How can I weigh a thought?" shouted the skeptic, and imagined that he had disposed of the influence of thinking in human life.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, when science had almost as powerful a grip on the minds of men as religion had in earlier centuries, science, too, betrayed humanity. Its false materialism led millions astray. Today science faces about and begs to be forgiven for its arrogance and superstition.

Of that nineteenth century materialism, with which science interpreted all phenomena, Dr. Robert Millikan says: "The childish mechanical conceptions of the nineteenth century are now grossly inadequate." and with still stronger denunciation, the eminent British scientist, J. S. Haldane, reveals that now "Materialism is nothing better than a superstition on the same level as belief in witches and devils."

The third grade thinkers are always a generation behind the leaders, and we find in our contemporary life a horde of them coming to the viewpoint of discredited nineteenth century materialism and, like hucksters who sell tainted fruit, crying their wares to the people. More to be deplored is the fact that in the lives of the people there is only one world and that consists of size, quantity, and glitter. These are the things men live for, that women sigh for, and children cry for. We see it in the staggering "wantlessness of the soul," with which American pursues the superficial, outer elements of life. Our desires are great enough for materialities, but the inner life is a vast, barren desert, unalive, unaroused, unstirred. We attempt to live only in the great world of the measurable. How we need to cry with Miriam Teichner:

God—Let me be aware.

Let me not stumble down the ways,

Just getting somehow safely thru the days,

Not even groping for another hand,

Not even wondering why it all was planned,

Eyes to the ground unseeking for the light,

Soul never aching for a wild-winged flight,

Please, keep me eager just to do my share.

God—let me be aware.

God—let me be aware.

Stab my soul fiercely with others’ pain,

Let me walk seeing horror and stain.

Let my hands, groping, find other hands.

Give me the heart that divines, understands.

Give me the courage, wounded, to fight.

Flood me with knowledge,

Drench me in light.

Please, keep me eager just to do my share.

God—let me be aware!

The vaster world of human experience is the inner world. This is what Prof. Landon Davis calls: "The World of Make-Believe," because it consists in the interpretations which one puts upon life, elements entirely within control of the individual. Regardless of circumstances around a man, his world is the one he has made of his fears and hopes, his doubt and faith, his love and hate, his joy and sorrow.

This same world Prof. Overstreet calls "The Unknowns," because its elements are not measurable, predictable, or countable. One cannot say that a man has a bushel of happiness, fourteen grams of love, or one hundred grains of tenderness. It is a certain distance from the sun to the earth and one can measure the effect of the sun’s rays upon the skin, but not so with the storms in a man’s soul, the inspiration that dwells in a woman’s heart, the love and fear struggling within the personality of a child.

Many of the world’s tragedies have resulted form attempts to measure, define, and make static the world of the unseen. The conceptions of love and of God, the programs of salvation—these cannot be standardized and put into formulas. Stagnation and lack of balance always result from such attempts. Herein lies one cause for the sterility of religion. It has consisted too much in definition of the undefinable. Instead of seeking a vital experience and a successful strategy for living, people, guided by their authorities, seek in religion for weights, measures, and counts of that which cannot be so handled.

An example of that viewpoint is seen in some questions which came to me recently in a letter from a soul seeking light. With great sympathy the understanding individual reads these questions, seeing under what kind of teaching she has sat, and how impossible happiness is for her until her attitude toward the world of the unseen is entirely changed. She asks: "Is the man made in God’s image immortal? And is immortal in mortality? Can immortality sin? Is it possible to put off mortality and put on immortality in this life, and live it? Is our government controlled by mortal man?"

The error of dogma is not its incorrect definition, but its attempt to define. Its entire procedure is faulty. Every theology is in error. Definitely to label any of the inner experiences is to run the risk of disaster. Life is the key to the unseen. Foolishly we select our theory, philosophy, or religion, and then attempt to build life in harmony with it. A far wiser course would be to find the strategy of life, its nature and its needs, and then construct our theory, philosophy, and religion in harmony therewith. Life is the authority for theology, not theology for life. Instead of accepting any theoretical or theological interpretation of the universe, and twisting life into a semblance of agreement with it, let us find life and set up a philosophy and a relation which shall completely harmonize with it. Find life first, and then find religion.

Our two worlds mingle. When an outward disaster occurs, it is often matched by an inner disaster, and we attribute the entire pitiful result to the uncontrollable events. But only one part of the experience belongs to the unalterable; the other part is subject to change and control.

It is not possible to tell what will be the net result in a person’s life of any given event or circumstance. That which destroys one individual builds up another. Temptation may break down or strengthen. Loss may wreck or make. Good fortune may lead to dissipation or enlarged service.

It is failure to distinguish these two worlds, which lends truth to Ouspensky’s charge that "The whole of life is composed of small things which we continually obey and serve. Our ‘I’ continually changes, as in a kaleidoscope. Every external event which strikes us, every suddenly aroused emotion, becomes caliph for an hour, begins to build and govern, and is in its turn as unexpectedly deposed and replaced by something else. And the inner consciousness, without attempting to disperse the illusory designs created by the shaking of the kaleidoscope and without understanding that in reality the power that decides and acts is not itself, endorses everything and says about those moments of life in which different external forces are at work, ‘This is I, This is I’."

The first element of a true strategy of life is the understanding that one lives in two worlds, the seen and the unseen, the world of physical reality and of make-believe, and the worlds of the known and the unknown. We must understand that they are both important. We can do much to meet the outer world with good sense and success, and we can so master our own inner world as to turn every event to goodness, and all life to beauty.

Y O G O D A

A Practical, Scientific Technique of Concentration and Meditation

Leading to Conscious Contact

With Inner Divine Forces

A Method of RECHARGING your Body, Mind and Soul Batteries from

Inner COSMIC ENERGY

YOGODA is a scientific system for conscious control of involuntary Life Forces, originated by Swami Yogananda, A.B., Hindu educator and metaphysician.

The basic exercises of YOGODA can be practiced anywhere, any time, in public or private, sitting or reclining, walking or standing, unobserved by others, and without apparatus or expense of any kind. Ten minutes by this system exceeds in benefit hours of ordinary exercise.

This science of applied Life Vibration, technically known as YOGODA, endorsed by foremost scientists and educators, teaches the student how to draw through concentrated absorption from Cosmic energy, a recharge of life-giving elements into the physical and spiritual system. YOGODA teaches how this principle can be put into CONSTANT operation within your Being, proceeding without interruption in its constructive processes even while your physical body is in repose.

Parts unaffected by any other system of development are reached and brought to their maximum powers through the faithful practice of Yogoda recharging.

Teaches how to RECHARGE body-batteries with fresh life-current by increasing dynamic power of will, how to overcome Fatigue, insure lasting Youth, and improve (a) Beauty of Form; (b) Grace of Expression; (c) Center of Consciousness; (d) Power of Mental Receptivity; (e) Contact with the Infinite Reservoir of Power.

YOGODA teaches you actually how to see the light of the VITAL FORCE in the body, how to hear the COSMIC VIBRATION, and, through a definite simple technique, how to contact the Omnipresent Source of Infinite Divine Power.

YOGODA teaches how to prevent hardening of the arteries and how to insure lasting youth by stimulating even circulation and helping to eject foreign matter from the system. The right practice of Yogoda drives away headaches instantly, harmonizes all muscle actions, makes colds impossible, and prevents constipation and stomach troubles.

YOGODA teaches how to exercise those parts which you think you cannot exercise, how to put on or take off fat, as desired, and how to control your material and spiritual destiny.

The use of this YOGODA system has accomplished wonderful results in several residential schools for boys in India, established by Swami Yogananda, and has been used by 20,000 Yogoda students in America to overcome physical, mental, and spiritual inharmonies.

Amelita Galli-Curci—Luther Burbank—Luigi von Kunits, Conductor of the New Symphony Orchestra of Toronto, Canada—Huston Ray, brilliant pianist—Countess Ilya Tolstoy—Homer Samuels, distinguished pianist—Vladimir Rosing, eminent tenor and director of the American Opera Co.—Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch—Maria Carreras, famous pianist—George Liebling, pianist-composer—R. J. Cromie, owner-publisher "Vancouver Sun"—Louis Van Norman, Commercial Attache, U. S. Dept. of Commerce—Douglas Grant Duff Ainslie, English poet and author—Alfred Human, editor "Singing"—Rev. Dr. Arthur Porter, pastor, Salem Congregational Church, York, England.

MAKE my eyes behold what Thou dost see.

Make my ears catch the burst of Thy voice

In the billows of all Creation.

Make my speech

The fountain of nectared words

Showered o’er souls

Scorched with bitterness.

Make my lips utter naught

But the songs of Thy love and joy.

Beloved, work through me

The work of Truth.

Keep my hands busy

Serving all my brothers.

Keep my voice

Forever casting seeds of love

For Thee

On the soil of seeking souls.

Keep my feet ever moving

On the pathway of right action.

Lead me from dark ignorance

To Thy light of Wisdom.

Lead me from temporary pleasures

To Thy ever-new joy within.

Make my love Thy love,

That I may know all things as mine.

Father, throb through my heart

And make me feel sympathy

For all living creatures.

Kindle in me the flame of Thy wisdom

And burn the dark forest

Of my mundane desires.

Let Thy reason

Be the preceptor of my reason.

Think through my thoughts,

For it is Thy Magic Power

Which uses my mind as Thy mind,

My hands as Thy hands,

My feet as Thy feet,

My soul as Thy Spirit,

To perform Thy Holy Works.