Читать книгу The Middle Way - Poems and Essays from 'The Theosophical Path' - Talbot Mundy - Страница 16
ОглавлениеPublished in The Theosophical Path, January 1924
THE WORD "international" has come on evil days, inevitably, since it was adopted as a panacea. In its very origin it presupposes the existence of a barrier between the nations. Every international theory hitherto invented has stirred more rancor than it healed, sometimes by denying the obvious, more often by asserting the absurdly untrue, always by raising material standards, which by their very nature invite conflict of opinions. Quot homines tot sententiae.
The so-called international control, set up by jealous governments to check the scramble for political advantage, resembles as much as anything a bandage wrapped around all the fingers of a hand, to prevent any one finger from acting independently; and the result is what might be expected — numbness and exasperation. Even international sports, conceived in the spirit of friendliness, develop into international rivalry, as instanced when an English crowd applauds the bad strokes of an American golfer, or an American crowd hisses an alien contestant — extreme instances, but neither rare nor on the wane.
Material standards, of whatever kind, inevitably lead to quarreling and chaos, because the standards in themselves are false. And nothing can be gained by calling black white, or by taking the result of false premises and trying to force it into more convenient shape. Dame Partington trying to sweep back the Atlantic with a broom, was acting no more illogically than the nations, the classes, the mobs and the dogmatists who seem disposed to strive forever to offstand Karma. In fact, she was wiser than they; for she made her experiment on a scale on which her finite human mind might grasp the absurdity of the attempt.
Truth is universal. Consequently all its proofs, if apparent at all, are universally apparent — as apparent in a bowl of water as in one drop of the same fluid or in an ocean. And it is easier for us to take the middle way, that our senses can grasp with least effort. There is no need to study drops under a microscope, or to sweep the vast expanse of the Pacific, in order to learn the elementary lessons of the Law. Its proofs, its demonstrations, its examples are all about us, in every move we make, in every sight we see, in every sound we hear. They always were; they always are; they always will be. There is no stage in our development as individuals, at which sufficient illustration of the Law as it applies to each one of us is not immediately at hand and comprehensible. It is impossible to invent a condition or a state of mind, out of which observance of the working of Universal Law can not, and will not, show a spirally progressive way.
A simple illustration is that one of the bandaged fingers. Loose them and the brain, which has no apparent connection with them, controls them separately; but each finger serves the hand, the hand the arm, the arm the man, the man his fellows, his fellows the world — and so on, up to heights beyond our present comprehension. The absurdity appears at once of any jealousy between the fingers or between the left hand and the right; yet it is no more absurd than international rivalry. The same law applies in either instance.
The United States' Declaration of Independence declares that all men are born free and equal; and that is a sturdy and honest effort to express a profound interpretation of the Universal Law. But to misinterpret that into the assumption that all men have the same grade of intelligence, that the same food, the same work, or even the same creed must suit all of them, that they all have the same ability, must speak the same language; that their immediate interests are all identical — would be, and is, as absurd as to say that they all experience the same weather and that the sun shines on all of them at once.
The fact is that, whatever their degree of present attainment, the same Universal Law applies to each, and that the possibilities for each and every one are absolutely limitless — beginning at the point at which he is, and progressing infinitely. The goal of us all is ineffable harmony. But to try to attain that harmony by preaching materialist theories of internationalism resembles the advice of the man on one side of a deep chasm to a stranger on the other side:
"Jump. I think you will make it in two jumps!"
We are confronted by conditions. We are governed by unalterable Law. Knowledge is the proof of Law; wisdom its application. Theories of internationalism, being based on local points of view, can accomplish no more than to reduce all nations to one dead-level of suppression, leading ultimately to explosion more terrific than the outbursts of Vesuvius — matter seeking to imprison force.
It is Universal Law that makes possible the playing of Beethoven's magic compositions by orchestra of a hundred pieces. To compel the first and second violins to use their bows simultaneously, would accomplish a result as futile in degree, and in its way, as any effort to bind the nations in one man- governed league. It is enough, and difficult enough, that nations should govern themselves; and they will never attain harmony by all striving to be first violins. Order is attained by listening, self-government, and work; and not by listening to the next piece in the orchestra but to the universal symphony.
An illustration comes to mind from memory. On a night in the Ituri Forest in the Congo Free State, many years before the recent world-war, there met more than a dozen men of different nations in one of those great clearings made by the Forest Administration, into which paths led from every direction, and in which travelers might pitch their tents. It was a bright oasis in a gloomy wilderness of trees so dense as to be impenetrable except along the paths, two meters wide, that threaded the forest like the filaments of a gigantic spider's web.
The men met quite by accident. There was a German grand-duke with a Prussian friend and a Bavarian non-commissioned officer; a Swiss merchant; two Roman Catholic priests, one a Hollander, the other a Portuguese; two Belgians with a handcuffed Greek prisoner; an Englishman; an Italian; a man whose identity remained in doubt, but who might have been a Lithuanian or Russian; an American big-game hunter suffering badly from malaria; and one or two others, including an East-Indian trader, whose names and nationalities I have forgotten.
We met on territory then being administered by Belgium, subject to an international treaty expressly devised for the protection of the natives and to prevent rival nations from coming to blows for possession of the rich, then hardly explored area. The only discoverable points of agreement between the various nationals assembled in that oasis were, that the natives were being cruelly exploited rather than protected; that war undoubtedly would come for the possession of the so-called Free State; and that, whatever local laws there might be, any man with brains and sufficient lack of scruple might break them with impunity.
The latter subject of conversation was brought up by contemplation of the Greek prisoner, who boasted openly to his captors that he had sufficient influence of the right sort to procure his release, no matter what the evidence against him, and he more than hinted that the influence was international, to be brought to bear through more than one legation. However, for the time being, he was a helpless and a pitiable prisoner, with red sores where the handcuffs chafed his wrists.
The whole company was at loggerheads. The German grand-duke and his friend were suspected of political intrigue and kept themselves as much aloof as possible. One of the Belgians was an atheist and took malicious satisfaction in offending the two priests. The East-Indian trader was regarded by all and sundry as an unfair competitor. The Belgians came in for pointed criticism as the uniformed representatives of misgovernment, and naturally replied in kind. Hardly any three were on speaking terms; and the Congo native, who had charge of the clearing, was thrashed by the Italian for giving the Germans' orders precedence. There were all the makings of an international "incident," when the Greek prisoner produced his flute.
For hours after that, the stars looked down through the circle of tree-tops in the midst of those leagues of forest on a scene that illustrated almost perfectly the difference between the working of Universal, as opposed to international Law.
The Greek was a musician — so excellent a musician that his captors, who were afraid of him, removed his handcuffs, and he played, after the first five minutes, with two rifles pointed at him over the knees of guards who leaned their backs against trees to listen in comfort. At the end of ten minutes not a man was sulking in his tent; everyone came out into the open and lay, or sat, or sprawled, in a semi-circle around the Greek. The night became full of eyes, as the natives who had fled from the clearing to avoid contact with the terrifying white men crept back to swell the audience. And the Greek played Chopin, Mozart, Handel — until the very night seemed full of exquisite music, and he ceased, after hours of it, from physical exhaustion.
Followed proof of what he had accomplished; laughter in place of snarling ill-humor. He had changed an international tragedy into a chapter of the Universal comedy — he, who stood charged with atrocious crimes and who needed to brag lest his own unlawful hope should perish in him. Men had forgotten their evening meal, and mutual dislike along with it; now they made common contributions to a bivouac-feast, although none could have told who proposed that. Conversation, once begun on that new basis, lasted until the stars grew pale in the morning sky; and when day dawned, all went their separate ways with at least the feeling that they had lost nothing by the ebb and flow of good-will with their fellow men.
So works the Universal Law; and nothing less than that can ever overcome the international inharmonies. Whatever presupposes separateness leads to separation and to selfishness and all the strife inevitably consequent on that. The universal, presupposing nothing, since it includes all truth, unites all life in the limitless scope of evolution, playing no favorites, excluding none. The Path lies straight ahead. The guides, the illustrations, the examples, are so near that they can not possibly escape us, if we look.
Therefore we, members of this Theosophical Peace Congress, may in confidence pursue our efforts to establish universal permanent Peace
