Why is it that our daily life so often does not reflect our beliefs or our faith? We know, for instance, that reincarnation is true, that karma is an immutable law—that what we are getting, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is the consequence of our own thoughts, feelings and acts in the past, whether of this life or a preceding one; but, in spite of knowing all this, why do we not act in the present on the basis of reincarnation and karma? We put aside all thought of the consequences of our present doings that we will have to face in future lives, and act, think and feel as if this life were all that mattered.
We need to synthesize all aspects of life and knowledge into one whole, and the link that binds them together is none other than the perfect motive for living—"to benefit mankind."
If we take H. P. Blavatsky, or W. Q. Judge, or Robert Crosbie as our models, we shall find that the motive behind all they did was "to benefit mankind." And in order that we may be helped, and in turn may help others, they taught us the science of life—of matter or form, visible or invisible, and of that which lies beyond form and matter. They gave us the idea of the Absolute as a background, as an axiomatic truth in any case, and lead us step by step to perceive that all matter, all spirit, all forces, have their seat in that background and that therefore all is one WHOLE.
We can see the multitudinous details of the workings of these three, matter, force, spirit, on one another, and this gives us the science of matter, visible and invisible. We can understand the Universe, cause and effect, cycles, matter, form. We can watch consciousness unfolding itself through all forms, from the very highest to the lowest; from the greatest of archangels, or the Logos itself, to the insignificant worm. By the law of analogy we can see that everything on the material plane follows the same pattern as on the universal plane. We see that miracles are an impossibility and that immutable LAW reigns supreme.
The practice of religion implies the practice of devotion, and devotion comes from the recognition that there are those who have risen by their own efforts to sublime heights and have made the supreme sacrifice of their own well-earned peace and bliss in order to help mankind to rise to the same heights. We have been told about the Lords of Light, those great souls whose efforts hold back from humanity much of the heavy Karma which would otherwise swamp it. In trouble and sorrow we do, in fact, "lift up our heads," or turn to "something afar from the sphere of sorrow." This recognition of something greater than we are now, of a blissful condition which we can perhaps faintly glimpse, causes hymns of praise and of gratitude to rise from the heart, as a beautiful sunset awakes in us feelings of joy and wondrous beauty. We must turn our eyes to the sun, to the stars, to the Cosmos itself that is so mysteriously pushed on its way to the perfection of form and matter until the latter equals the intelligence or power that ensouls it.
We have been shown the philosophy of life, the reason why certain moral laws are part of great Nature's laws. Judge's Letters are priceless aids in living the life. So are Robert Crosbie's letters in The Friendly Philosopher. The Voice of the Silence goes further and deeper and is the basis for the practices outlined in the writings of Judge and Crosbie.
With all this wealth of information given to us, why do we fail? Is it not because we do not synthesize the teaching in the First Fundamental Proposition—that our consciousness comes from Spirit itself and that the matter we use has its root in the highest state of matter—with the recognition that if this is so, and Fohat is the intelligence and power waking all to life, then the whole world we move in is holy? We look for spirit outside this world we live in, whereas it must be in the earth we tread on and which provides nourishment for our bodies, in the air we breathe and in the water which pours down from the skies to water the earth and make it fruitful, and is then taken up again into the skies to form the wonderful clouds we see. This attitude would make atmospheric pollution, for instance, an impossible nightmare. We would sense God in the spider's web, universal life in the venom of the snake as well as in the mother's milk. Nothing can be left out; interaction is sure and permanent; what affects one affects all.
We do not link the idea that the Absolute, the background of all, is unthinkable because our mind cannot grasp the infinite, with the necessity for us to look always beyond the separative forms of life into the Darkness which is full LIGHT. We do not link up the vision of Arjuna with the idea that all is Spirit-matter. We do not envisage the glory of the Universe and its workings as the playground and the shool and university of life inhabiting the forms.
We do not link up the idea of one LAW with all planes, but limit it to the plane of matter. Science has found that Law works in physical matter; the Great Teachers of Humanity have learnt and taught that Law works also on other planes, and happiness and growth only come as man obeys those laws. They are not "god-given," but Nature's own reactions which produce due effects, and if we would follow the Plan of Life we must follow these laws.
We do not link up the Third Fundamental with its idea of "no privileges or special gifts in man" save those won by his own "self-induced and self-devised efforts" with the method of the scientist who is searching for facts and trying to understand what he finds. We must prove these statements for ourselves since there is no one else who can accept our responsibility to the WHOLE.
Life, therefore, must become a scientific experiment of the laws of Nature outside and inside ourselves, an ideal to follow and an effort to let the god in us create on all planes in terms of law which is beauty and truth. While man is man, his life itself and every act, thought and feeling must have at its root the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy. Life must be lived as a personality, as an individuality and as a divinity. At present these are not synthesized. When synthesized, the three become one, the personality merging with the individuality, the individuality becoming the vehicle of the divine.
