Читать книгу The Seekers - Jessie E. Sampter - Страница 7

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I spoke of the name of our club, the Seekers. I said that I thought it expressed exactly what we meant to do.

Ruth answered that to her it seemed the only possible, natural name.

Then I read aloud Virginia’s account of the last meeting:

“A great many people think themselves too educated to believe in any of the established religions, and then don’t take the trouble to find out what they really think and what their true religion is. People have a wrong idea of the meaning of the word ‘religious.’ Consequently, as they don’t know what it means, they cannot be it. Many people who go to church or temple every Sabbath, and sleep, or take note of the different costumes of the congregation during the sermon, consider themselves religious.

“We decided that we all believed in the unity of God. The truth has always been apparent to some, such as Moses and Jesus, and some of the Oriental priests. The two former tried to give the true idea to the people, but failed, as they were too poetical, and the people believed too literally. The latter tried to keep the people in ignorance, as it gave them power, and they therefore told the people what they themselves knew to be untruths.

“We differed somewhat in our idea of God. Some thought he was all good and had no evil. I think he is all good, but I also think that all evil is his, but that every evil has a good motive and a good end.

“No idea, no matter how surprising and new it may seem, is new. It has always been, although it has never been thought. The world is like a great bunch of rosebuds, each perfect as a bud, but not developed. Every beautiful idea, when it is thought, is a petal unfolding and revealing more perfect petals beneath. Thus one fine idea brings forth another.

“I think a great many people do not know what they think. If you ask a person belonging to one of the established religions what they believe, I think their answer would be vague. Formerly, these religions were very useful, as they made people love good. Now they prevent people from thinking, and make them dependent. They depend on others to make their beliefs and thoughts, when their brains should be, and probably are, fertile enough to think for themselves.”

I said that was just what I wanted, and I hoped to have one such paper each week.

I said I believed that after we had spoken of God, and decided what we meant, and all agreed, we would not often use the word God, because it was so nearly unspeakable, so vast and holy, that we would take it as a natural background to our thought.

“You know,” I said, “how in the old Jewish temples the name of God was mentioned only once a year.”

“And then only by the priest,” Henry added.

“But if we want to talk of God we shall have to use his name,” said Ruth. The others seemed to agree with her.

“The personal significance always clings to the name of God,” Marian said; “but what other word can one use?”

“Perhaps it would be better,” suggested Henry, “to use some such other word as All-powerful One.”

Virginia said that to her the word God had no personal significance.

Ruth thought we might use the impersonal word “Good.” I answered her that every attribute, even good, was limiting, and God was limitless.

I saw that they did not in the least understand what I meant, that they could not until we went further. So I said:

“I think that after we know what we mean by the word God, you will understand why we shall not want, and not need, to use it.”

Then I asked them what they meant by God.

Virginia said: “God is the whole, good and bad, only what seems bad is really good. Or God is, rather, every feeling, every emotion.”

Henry said God was everything good, but that everything was good, and bad only seemed bad to us.

Alfred said: “I don’t think bad is good, but I think that God must be everything, anyway.”

Marian tried to say that God is the vast unknown—something, which we know because we feel it.

Florence said: “I spoke to brother Arthur about it, and I now think that God is sympathy; that is, sympathy and understanding of our fellow-men; and as we reach that, we get to God.”

The others were surprised and startled by this explanation. I said I knew what Florence meant, but that she had not been able to express it clearly.

Then Ruth said that she agreed with Henry. She called God spirit.

“Yes,” I answered, “if we take spirit to mean everything. For we know nothing except through our senses, our consciousness, our understanding; so that all we know is knowledge of spirit.”

They all agreed to that.

“Now,” I said, “I believe God to be in each of us, to be the self within us, and within all others, and within the universe; to be the knowledge, the light and the understanding. I can explain to you what I mean by reading a passage from the Indian Vedas, which seems to me so true, and so exactly what I want to say, that I could not explain it so well myself.” Then I read the following:

“In the beginning was Self alone. Atman is the Self in all our selves—the Divine Self concealed by his own qualities. This Self they sometimes call the Undeveloped. . . . The generation of Brahma was before all ages, unfolding himself evermore in a beautiful glory; everything which is highest and everything which is deepest belongs to him. Being and not being are unveiled through Brahma. . . . How can any one teach concerning Brahma? He is neither the known nor the unknown. That which cannot be expressed by words, but through which all expression comes, this I know to be Brahma. That which cannot be thought by the mind, but by which all thinking comes, this I know is Brahma. That which cannot be seen by the eye, but by which the eye sees, is Brahma.”

They liked this so well, and said it expressed their feelings so truly, that I offered to copy it for each one of them. Marian said she did not understand what was meant by “concealed by his own qualities.”

I answered: “We know God only because of the universe which we see and feel.”

“Yes,” she said.

“But just that the universe,” I went on, “conceals God, is a mystery as well as a revelation.”

“I don’t quite understand,” said Marian.

“It is like a great light,” I said, “which is so bright that it dazzles you, and you cannot look at it.”

“Like the sun,” said Virginia.

“I think I see what you mean,” Marian answered.

I continued: “Moses spoke of God in that same way, as the vast Self: ‘And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.’

“And so,” I went on, “myself and yourself, the self of every man and the self of the universe, that is God.”

With delightful frankness they said that they liked it better as it was put in “that thing on Brahma.”

“So do I,” I answered. “We know only self. Is it not so?”

“I don’t like the word ‘self,’” said Ruth; “it is too limited. I think only of my little self.”

Marian agreed. Virginia said that to her it seemed the true word, that she felt the whole as a vast self. “But isn’t it more?” she asked. “God is feeling. When I ride in an open trolley, and the wind blows in my face, and the trees blow, and the clouds move in the sky, then the feeling that it gives me I call God.”

“Isn’t it self, within yourself?” I asked.

“Yes, it is,” she answered.

“Now,” I said, “we are little, incomplete, limited creatures, but we need the whole universe to be complete. The whole universe is the rest of self, the rest of myself. That is what I mean by God, and in that sense I am a part of God.”

All the children agreed at once, as if this were the thing they had wanted to hear said. This first definite statement that I made seemed to us all unanswerably true.

Immediately they went on to speak of good and bad; but I stopped them, thus:

“There is one other thing I would like to make clear first, a historic question, but one that leads to the question of good and bad. What did the most illumined and inspired polytheists mean by their many gods?”

Marian answered: “They meant many aspects of the one God.”

“Just so, Marian. But now do you know the inner meaning of Trinity?”

None of them knew, and all seemed particularly interested and anxious to understand. “I never understood,” said Marian, “what was meant by the Holy Ghost.”

I said to them: “I will tell you what it has always meant to me, and to some others beside me, and you can see whether it seems true to you. To me the three are as parts of one. They are the contrast, such as man and God, good and bad, even night and day, and the understanding, the unity that makes these two one.”

This needed much explanation. It was all summed up thus: The three in one—the triangle with three sides, which is still one—are: Myself, the other self, which I love and need for my completion, and the love and understanding which pass between us and make us one. Virginia said that she never thought of herself and the other self, that to her they were one. The idea was very new to them all, and did not at once convince them.

“Now,” I said, “we see, however, that opposites are really one; and so I believe that good and bad are parts of the same thing. I believe that everything called bad is the price of going forward, of progress, that bad things are made by good things. Suppose that the world were in utter darkness, that no light were anywhere, then there would be no darkness, either. But the first flame of light would create the darkness.”

As I developed this idea, the children said very little, only asking me questions, until I had finished. This is how I explained it: We all believe—we seven here—that the good is understanding, love, the complete Divine Self, and everything which leads thereto is good. Then everything bad is that which does not lead thereto; or, rather, that is called bad which has not gone so far as the rest. So that the bad is not an actual state—in this I agree with Ruth—but is a condition of good. All pains are growing pains. Things are bad only because we already have something better. The other day I heard Virginia saying that when reason came into the world, creatures first knew the bad; because they saw that the life they had lived was a bad life. So, you see, everything bad is something which we feel to be behind us, not equal to our best knowledge. Pain and badness are the price of progress, and we would rather go forward and suffer than stand still and be comfortable. We long to go forward to the good, to the vast self of complete understanding. “A criminal,” I said, “may be a man who would have been good if he had lived in savage times among savages, but at present he is bad because we are ahead of him.”

“Then a bad man,” said Henry, “is one who is behind his times, or else ahead of them.”

“Oh, no,” they protested, “not ahead of them!”

“No,” I answered, “but the man ahead of his time, who is better than his time, may appear to be a criminal. You must see that the man who believes in the eternal good, who knows that he is going toward unity and complete love, is in a sense above the human law, and must discover his own laws. He may be a criminal in the eyes of others.”

“Give us an example,” they said.

“Jesus is one example. He was crucified as a criminal.”

“Because,” said Henry, “he broke the Roman law. He refused to worship their images, and he called himself King of the Jews.”

“And they did not know,” I answered, “in what sense he called himself King, so they had to crucify him as a traitor. Can’t you think of some other example? Of course, there were all the heretics of old times.”

Alfred and Henry said that Roosevelt was in a sense an example, because he had been much blamed for exposing the truth and hurting business; but that the hurt was an essential part of progress and good.

Ruth said: “Surely it is better to expose the truth and suffer for it, than to go on in falsehood.”

I gave as another example the Russians, with whom, a short time ago, it was a crime to educate the peasants; and I told how brave men and women had been sent to Siberia for breaking the law in this respect.

“But,” I said, “this is a dangerous subject, and truly, we ought not to have mentioned it until we could probe it to the bottom. For surely in a democratic state one of the essential inner laws is that we shall obey the law which our fellows have made.”

“If a law seems wrong to a man,” said Henry, “he can try to change it, but meantime he must obey it. For instance, a man might believe in free trade, but still he would have no right to smuggle in goods.”

“One ought to obey school-laws, I suppose,” said Marian.

“Surely,” I answered, “for the school is an institution you enter from choice, and if you don’t like the laws you can protest by leaving. But if there were a law unjust to your fellows, you would disobey it. Still, even then, the best way to protest would be by a strike of the students.”

They had a long discussion on the great crime of whispering in school, in which I scarcely joined, as I refuse to be a petty preacher to them. But I tried to explain to them why it was so hard for them to obey these little laws.

“It is,” I said, “because you did not help to make the laws yourselves, that you are tempted to break them out of mere mischief. Still, you would not lie about it, but rather do it openly, because you feel that truth between individuals is an inner law, the first step toward understanding. You know I believe that, even unconsciously, we have all always striven for this unity, this completeness that now we are going to strive for with open eyes.”

“And all bad leads in the same direction, and comes to good,” said Virginia.

“Now I want you to understand that clearly,” I said. “All bad things are bad only because they do not reach up to our idea of the best. But that bad things are turned to good, or used for good is because we use them so; because the desire and the striving for good is so strong within us, that we use them to fulfil that desire. It is not a necessity. It is a matter of choice. If we wish, we can use everything for good. And we often do so, even unconsciously. Everything strives toward that good, which is life itself.”

“Then you believe,” said Marian, “that even every criminal has some good in him?”

“Yes, surely,” I answered, “else he would not be here, alive, at all. Every living being is good; and if he is not so far as we at present, he may go farther than we some day. Surely, we will take him onward with us, else we cannot be complete. You must see that any one who believes the great good to be understanding love and unity, cannot be made whole till every one is made whole with him. He needs all the world.”

“Every one must feel that,” said Marian.

“The other day, Marian,” I went on, “you said: ‘If we can never reach the goal, what is the good of anything?’ Now, I, for one, believe in infinite good; I believe that no matter how far we go, we shall long to go farther, so that what now would seem unimaginably good to us might one day seem bad. Can you imagine stagnant perfection?”

“I think,” said Marian, “that a perfectly good world would be terribly monotonous.”

“That is what I think, too,” I answered. “What we love is the going forward, the achieving, the striving.”

Henry said: “It is like travelling toward the horizon, and we think that is the end. But when we reach it, we see another horizon.”

Ruth asked: “How can we strive for anything, if we don’t expect to reach it? Is not God what we long to reach? Is not God the ideal?”

“Is not God, the real, here, now?” I answered her. “I cannot understand Infinity or Eternity, so I say Infinity is here and Eternity is now, because I am always here and now. So I cannot understand infinite good and unity, but I know that here and now I must strive for it, and that the constant striving, and getting more and ever more, is my greatest joy. Now, Ruth, do you admit that we cannot go forward alone, that all must go together to be complete?”

“Yes.”

“Then the whole is one, and every man and creature is a part of me.”

“If every one believed that,” said Marian, “how different, how much better the world would be! People could not criticize each other.”

“I think it would,” I said, “and I am glad you think so, too; for if every one believed that, no one could condemn another, any more than you could condemn your own sore finger. You might say: ‘My finger is sore,’ but you wouldn’t say: ‘My finger is very wicked, and I hate it.’”

“I believe that,” said Marian. “I am convinced mentally, but I don’t feel it. I don’t think that I could live it yet.”

Virginia asked whether she might say for us “Abou ben Adhem,” which expressed our idea of man and God. And she said it for us. We were all silent for a few moments. Then I said: “And the love of even more than man, of all creatures, of all the world.”

Marian admitted that she did not love animals. Ruth said she did. Marian seems distressed by the fact that she cannot be perfect at once. That is what she means when she says she is mentally convinced, but doesn’t feel it yet. Alfred feels the same lack. These ambitious children!

“Now,” I said, “I want you to feel certain and convinced of each thing as we go on. We all agree at present, don’t we?”

“Yes,” they answered.

“I feel as if something must be wrong, because we all agree,” I went on, “and yet I know you are independent thinkers. Are you sure that all bad is a condition of good, even all physical bad, such things as accidents and loss? For instance, railroads are of value—why?”

None knew the true reason but Ruth. She said they brought nations together.

“And the accidents on railroads,” I said, “are the price of that progress, a price we have to pay for perfecting that system. It would be better to avoid all accidents—as I hope we shall do one day—but, meanwhile, we would rather take the risk than not have railroads. No one can be convinced, however, that all bad is a condition of good, until tried.”

“I have been tried,” answered Virginia.

They all thought themselves convinced, except Alfred. He said: “It might be true nine times, but the tenth time it might not be true.”

“Then,” said Henry, “you would believe it were true the tenth time, even though you didn’t understand how.”

“No,” I answered; “he would test it the tenth time. We will know each thing.”

Now we re-examined our conviction on all these questions, and went over each point again. We probed the possibilities of atheism, and saw that no one who faced things could be an atheist, that atheism was the result of laziness, fear or vanity. Either a man feared to face the truth, or could not bear to admit how little he knew. And we saw that an atheist might be a very good man, only he would build his morality on a philosophy he did not understand or examine. We might be good without any religious convictions, but this conviction, this belief, would give us a reason for goodness, and make us strong in the face of uncertainty, temptation and trial. Henry said things were worth while only when they were hard to do.

“There,” said I, “you have a proof of our instinctive feeling that pain is a necessary part of progress.”

Virginia said she wanted to believe what would make her happy; that she would choose the optimistic faith. I answered her I wanted to believe the truth, happy or unhappy, but I had come to the conclusion at last that the truth was very good. I told them how at their age I had been in great doubt, how I had thought the truth might be very bad.

“Pain is real,” I said, “but we will not fear to face that, or anything bitter, when we know it to be a condition of going onward.”

Virginia said I was shaping her thought for her. I reminded her how she used to be my “little disciple.” All the others, and especially Marian, said that this meeting was far more satisfying than the last; that we had reached something definite. Marian said: “I seem to see already what we will have to say on every subject, but we shall have no end of things to speak of.”