"THE MAN OF SORROWS"
CHAPTER XIX
"THE MAN OF SORROWS"
"THE man who has caused more controversy than any other who ever lived, Jesus of Nazareth, was the subject of many questions put to Silver Birch during a sitting. A clergyman had written to ask, "Where does Silver Birch place Jesus Christ in the scheme of the universe, and what is the difference, if any, between Jesus the man and Jesus the Christ?"
"The Nazarene," replied the guide, “is the last of the prophets or teachers who came to your world, in whom the fullness of the power of the spirit was made manifest in a form such as it had never been made before or since. There is no mystery about his birth. There is no mystery about his death. He was a man like other men, coming into the world of matter and leav-ing the world of matter in accordance with the natural laws of the Great Spirit. Never before his day and never since his day has so large a measure of inspiration been received in your world. He came to fulfil a task, to teach certain fundamental truths that had been neglected, buried beneath the debris of creed, ritual, ceremony, myth and fable. He attracted the attention of those whom he sought to teach.
"He exercised, after choosing the band of men who could help him, those gifts of the spirit with which he was endowed. He was a medium, using exactly the same gifts, spiritual gifts, that mediums are using today. He never tarnished his gifts. His gifts functioned strictly in accord with all psychical law. There were no miracles, no suspension of the natural laws, no abroga-tion of them and no interference with them. The demonstra-tion of these gifts aroused the attention of the people, and then he proceeded to teach them the simple, eternal, fundamental truths of the spirit which have been stressed by all the inspired teachers throughout all the centuries in which man has trod your planet.
"The rest is known—the incurring of the wrath and displeasure of the conventional and the orthodox. But it is necessary to issue a strict warning that there has been so much tampering with the scanty record. There has been much interpolation, so that all you have is very gravely suspect. You can discount all the stories of miraculous happenings, for they did not occur.
"As to the second part of the question, the same individual, the same manーwho is not the Great Spirit, not the power which created and fashioned all life and endowed mankind with part of its own divinity—is still at work, still using his gifts and his powers, which have been greatly developed, to help the humanity that he loved and whom he came to serve.
"No service is done to him by arrogating him to a position which he does not occupy, by claiming that he sits on the right hand of the Father, or that the Nazarene and the Great Spirit are identical and interchangeable terms. The Nazarene requires no worship, no servitude, no prostration in front of him, no bending the knees, but only that his life shall be an example to others and that they shall go and do greater things. This is but a very sketchy outline of a very large subject."
"What is the Christ spirit?" asked a member of the circle.
"These are merely words," answered the guide. "You have to go back to the days when it was believed that certain people were anointed to indicate that they had preference over others. Usually it was done to those of royal birth. 'The Christ' means 'the anointed one.' That is all."
"I can never understand," was one comment by a member of the circle on another occasion, "why you say the Jesus was the greatest of the masters or teachers and that he lived an exemplary life.”
"I have never said that the Nazarene lived a perfect life," said the guide. “All that I have said, the most I have said, was that he was the greatest expression of the power of the spirit that has ever come to your world, that through him you see the most of the Great Spirit, or the spirit power, that has ever been made manifest in any teacher; that he is the culmination of spirit power in a long line of teachers. I have never said that the Nazarene's life was perfect because that life had to be in con-formity with the habits of the people with whom he dwelt."
"Do you regard his teachings as the highest?" asked another member.
"Unfortunately,” said Silver Birch, "so many of them have become adulterated. I do not say that his teachings are the highest; all I say is that the essence of the teaching is there, as it was in all other cases, but never before was one man so gifted in so far as he possessed a mastery of psychic laws which has never been accomplished before in your world."
"Is it true to say," asked another, that those teachings were too far in advance of the people; they could not understand them?"
"Yes, that is true," replied the guide. "It is like Lansbury and Dick Sheppardーmen who were in advance of their time. The world was not ready for them, and so they were successes of their own failures and failures of their own successes."
"Was Jesus the most evolved spirit that has been on earth?" asked one sitter, and another said, "Would it be true to say that the various spiritual gifts of the Nazarene in the aggregate total the greatest source of spirit power that has been shown?"
"No," the guide said, “it is not that. It is the mastery, it is the knowledge of the psychic law rather than the greatness of the teacher. What you have to try to realise is that here was an individual who was so in harmony with the power of the spirit that, despite all that has happened, despite all the interference with his teaching, all the interpolations and despite all the mis-chief that has been done in his name, it has spread all over the world in such a short time and has endured."
"On the other hand," was the comment of the member of the circle who was formerly a Methodist minister, "would not it be a very good thing if it had not spread all over the world?”
"The teaching of love being pre-eminent is good," replied Silver Birch. "There can be no quarrel about that; therefore the Nazarene who stressed that love was predominant, that love would prevail, was teaching the same simple truths that all teachers are trying to teach. You must differentiate between the teaching and the followers who have made many mistakes and whose very zeal has led them to acts which have re-crucified again and again the one they sought to follow.
"I see in the life of the Nazarene, not a perfect one from the point of it being the highest life lived by any individual in the physical world, rather do I see an instrument of the spirit so perfectly in tune with the power of the spirit that, never once, did he seek to use that power for his own ends; never once did he do anything that would react against the power which sent him into the world and the power which poured through him all the time. Never once did he do anything which would bring discredit on the mission which he was trying to achieve. There was no attempt ever to use this mighty power for any selfish end. He was in complete harmony with the law of the spirit.
"It is very hard to explain and yet it all had to be fitted to the time and circumstance of the age in which he lived. He could not be perfect, otherwise there would be no sense in the teaching that others could do better and greater things. Here was an individual to whom you can point and say, 'See what happens when the power of the spirit finds a full, rich expression.' It is an example of what can be done by all aspirants. And, in our world, the Nazarene is still the highest of whom we have any knowledge, and that, I suppose, is the only test we have.
"When I speak about the Nazarene I am conscious of the fact that I do not want to encourage any Nazarene-worship, in the same way as I do not want guide-worship. You are placed in your world to fulfil a task. You are all eternal pilgrims on an eternal march. Your equipment you must select with reason, common sense and intelligence to guide you. You will find part of your equipment in many books and in many lives. There-fore, you should select that which appeals to you, not because somebody else has said it is good, or wise, or sacred, or should be reverenced, but only because it is helpful to you on your jour-ney. That is the only standard you need adopt.
"Take whatever appeals to your judgment, even if, later, you have to discard it in the light of fuller knowledge. Do not narrow yourself to any one book, to any one teacher, to any one guide. I am not the repository of infinite widsom. I have no monopoly of the world of spirit. I am only one with many others trying to help your world. I make no claim to perfection or to infallibility. I am human just as all of you are human. I have merely trod a few steps further on the road of life, and, because these few steps have given me a little wider vista, I return to share that new horizon with you if you will accept what I have found."
An inquirer wrote to ask Silver Birch if Spiritualists should observe the last supper as the Christian Church does in com-memoration of the Nazarene. He replied:
"If they find any satisfaction to their bodies, minds or spirits in holding any rite or ceremony, let them hold them. We believe in the widest toleration for all. I have no desire to join in such ceremonies. It does not in any way help the Nazarene. It does not help me, and I know it will be of no help or value to thousands who have freed themselves from creedal chains.
"The greatest service that can be rendered to the Nazarene by those who regard him as their exemplar is to follow his example; to strive to lead the kind of life that renders the greatest service; to strive to unfold the powers they possess, which will enable them to comfort the mourner, to heal the sick, to assuage all those who are filled with doubt and perplexity, and help all those who need help.
"Life is more important than ceremony. Religion is not ritual, but service. Do not confuse the issues. You can expunge from all books called 'sacred' every printed word; you can excise all hymns from books of praise and worship; you can abstain from all ceremony and rite and ritual and be profoundly religious because you are living a life of nobility, of service, in which the spirit within you is finding its rightful expression.
"It is not to ceremony that we ask you to turn your attention. It is not to form, but to life itself. It is what you do. It is how you conduct yourself that matters. That is quite apart from the fact that this particular ceremony has antecedents that go back to antiquity, long before the days of the Nazarene."
Another time, asked a similar question on this subject, Silver Birch responded, “Service, that is the one great necessity.”
He went on to explain: "My opinion is very clear. I see that religion has accumulated far too much from the past and a good deal of it has no association with religion at all.
"To me, religion is not worship; it is not prayer; it is not formalities that the minds of men have devised in council. I am not concerned with ceremonies, because to me they are not essential. But always I say that if there be those who in sincerity find that any ceremony or ritual helps them, there is no reason for them to discard it.
"For myself, once you have grown out of childhood, you put away childish things. There is a real communion, the com-munion of spirit with spirit, that requires the attunement of two souls when mind reaches out across the barriers of earth to commune with a mind in another sphere of beingーthat is the best form of communion that there can be. The other en-courages superstition. In truth it has nothing to do with the Nazarene."
Asked, "Why are there so few guides who were Christians on earth?" the spirit teacher said: "There were many who were Christians on earth, but they are not so well known, that is all. People forget that those who have become well known are the mouthpieces, that they have associated with them large numbers who willingly form part of their bands or groups to help in the work, and in those groups there are many who were Christians. Of course, it does not matter what they were."
This query was put to the guide: “As orthodox teaching has changed the lives of so many thousands of people, making them kind and tolerant, can this teaching be summarily dismissed?"
Silver Birch replied: “I am not concerned with any label, I am concerned only with the truth. It is no use saying to me that you should perpetuate falsity because it is unwise to disturb some, or because it has helped others, for it must always be remembered that on the other side of the account must be placed the numbers who have been harmed, who have been kept in ignorance, whose lives have been made miserable by threats of eternal torture and damnation.
"It is not fair to select just that part and say, 'This has done some good,' and to attempt to represent it as the whole. I am concerned in spreading what I know to be the truth about the laws of the spirit, and how they operate, so that those of you who are wise will frame your own lives according to this knowledge, Thus
you will build systems of lifeーindividual, national and internationalーthat will endure because their foundations are those of truth.
"I do not worship the past just because it is the past and an aura of grandeur surrounds it. You are entitled to take from the past all that seems to you to be reasonable, true, helpful, stimu-lating and satisfying. And you are equally entitled to reject all that is immoral, unjust, unreasonable, unsatisfying and unhelp-ful. You have to become as little children so that you can see and welcome simple truth.”
Questioned whether he could give an explanation of the marks of stigmata appearing on people, the guide replied: "The human mind possesses great potency, and the constant dwelling upon certain beliefs and circumstances can enable those happen-ings to be re-enacted on your physical body. Mind is stronger than matter, for matter is but a lower expression of mind. Mind has moulded matter so that mind can have a channel of expres-sion. Mind is dominant, mind is king, mind is ruler. If you focus your mind on the story of the crucifixion and desire long enough and intensely enough for this to be reproduced on yourself, you will succeed in getting stigmata."
The next question was, "How would Silver Birch interpret the words, 'the love of the Great Spirit,' and 'to love our neigh-bours as ourselves'?”
"I would interpret both very simply," Silver Birch said, "by saying—live a life of service, forgetting self, try to help wherever you can to raise those who are fallen, drive out all iniquity, and by your own life prove that you are worthy of your divine heritage."