A NEW PHILOSOPHY?

　　CHAPTER TWELVE

　　　A NEW PHILOSOPHY?

　BEFORE one sitting there had been a discussion on exis-tentialism. As so often happens, Silver Birch commented on the arguments, saying, "I have been most fascinated to listen to your conversations and to hear your expressions concerning the nature of truth.

　He was asked, Were you in disagreement, or were we on the wrong road?"

　"No, you are all on the right road, for you have knowledge to guide you, but, being human, you all travel at different rates. Evolution is a constant process. Growth is eternal and you do not achieve the same measure of development at the same time. Each soul must accomplish its own destiny. Each soul must learn its own lessons, according to the light that has been vouchsafed to it and the difficulties that confront it. And this must be done alone. However much others can help you with their know-ledge, the growth, unfoldment and development of the soul are individual matters which only the soul can accomplish for itself.

　Truth is eternal. It has many facets because it is eternal. The mistake that is made is to assume that the facet with which you ate acquainted is the whole of truth. It is not. As you evolve, your appreciation of truth grows and thus you are able to receive Other facets. Life is an expanding, continuous, unfolding process. The search for truth is infinite. You in your world, I in mine, we are all fellow-pilgrims on the highway of knowledge, some a little ahead of the others, but none of us has reached finality.

　"As we discard more and more of our imperfections, as we grow in spiritual grace, so naturally we are able to receive a great measure of truth that hitherto was inaccessible to us. There is no single pattern for all mankind to follow. Not only is the Great Spirit infinite, but there are an infinite number of variations of paths that lead to truth. Do I make myself clear?"

　"Yes," he was told. "I suppose some of these paths are more direct than others, aren't they?"

　"Yes, some are more direct than others, but it all depends upon the stage of development reached by the traveller, because until he is ready for the direct path he cannot tread it. Circumstance is

conditioned to the nature of the individual. All life is regulated by natural law. You cannot set any circumstance outside the circumference of natural law, neither can you set yourself out-side the working of natural law.

　"Thus, whatever the experience, in your world or mine, it is determined by natural law. It is not an accident or a miracle, it is part and parcel of your evolution. It must be. Cause and effect are always intertwined."

　"Are circumstances created for us by something outside of our own evolution?"

　"How can that be?" asked the guide.

　"Tomorrow I may have to suffer in some way because of somebody else's actions," he was told.

　"Yes, but unless you had reached the stage of evolution where you could suffer, then would not be able to suffer."

　"Unless the person had elected to act in this way, I would not suffer at all," said the sitter. To which Silver Birch said: "You are trying to judge eternal standards by physical measurements and looking at the problem not from the viewpoint of the soul but only from the viewpoint of the physical body, or that por-tion of the mind which is incarnated in matter."

　"Do you mean that those circumstances would make you suffer at one point of your evolution?" he was asked.

　"Yes, because if you had evolved beyond the ability to feel suffering you would not suffer. Suffering is relative to your evolution. Pleasure and pain are polarities, opposite ends of the same pole. Love and hatred are both expressions of one force. The same ability to love can be transmuted to hate and vice versa. And that which enables you to feel pain enables you to experience pleasure. What determines the nature of your experience is your evolution. If you have evolved sufficiently, then you cannot feel hate; you could only feel love; you cannot feel pain, you could only feel happiness. This is difficult, but it is true. There is no circumstance that could touch you if you had arrived at the stage of growth where you were immune to it."

　"If two people had the same circumstance, one could react with love and the other with hate," said one member.

　"Should not we suffer for other people?" asked another. "Jesus, for example, suffered for others."

　"I do not understand the question," said Silver Birch.

　"You said that other people could make you suffer, but there is a suffering caused through the knowledge of other people suffering. Could we do away with that and would it be a good thing?"

　"We are now entering into deeper waters," was the spirit answer. "Still, let us take the plunge. The experienced soul is the one that has experienced all the vicissitudes. You cannot obtain soul-mastery unless you have plumbed the depths. You cannot reach the heights unless you have plumbed the depths. There is no other road to spiritual attainment. Unless you your-self have suffered, unless you yourself have experienced tribula-tion and pain and all those circumstances that seem to belong to the dark passages of life, you cannot evolve because evolution is a growth from the lower to the higher.

　"Now, what is suffering? Suffering is a condition of the mind or the soul when it feels pain because of a hurt or wrong that is demonstrated to itself or to others. But if the individual is familiar with the natural laws of the universe, and understands the divine justice which they demonstrate, then he should not feel any suffering because he would know that all circumstance is the result of the 'evolution of those concerned at the time. The evolved soul will feel compassion, tenderness, mercy, pity; it should not feel suffering."

　"No, that is what I really meant, it was the wrong word I used," said the sitter whose question had led to this explanation.

　"You suffer only because you do not understand," added the guide. "When you understand you do not suffer any more, or you should not."

　"The Bible says that Jesus suffered for our sakes," said another member.

　"It says many things which are not all true," replied Silver Birch. "No individual can suffer for anybody else but himself, because the law is that you can only control your growth, you cannot control the growth of others. That is one of the examples of theological interpolation to suit the belief of a time. If you have done wrong, your back must groan under the burden of your wrongdoing, that is how you will learn the lesson. If somebody else groans with the burden, there is no lesson for you to learn.

　"Pleasure and pain, sorrow and happiness, peace and anger, storm and sunshine, all these are part of the soul's evolution. You cannot grow until you have experienced them and mastered them, for mastery means the realisation that the universe is ruled by love, and the laws that infinite love have devised will not fail. It is indeed true, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added unto you.' If you are prepared to take that stand, if you are prepared to have complete, unwavering confidence in the laws of the universe, you cannot fail, because the act of the assertion of confidence releases the inner power that you possess and makes it possible for all these things to happen.

　"It is fear that dries up the divine spring and prevents it from functioning. Perfect trust, not blind faith, perfect trust, perfect confidence founded on knowledge should enable you to face all of life's experiences without fear, without worry, without anxiety, knowing that as children of the Great Spirit there is no fire that can consume you, there is no storm that can lay you low for always there is the sanctuary that the law has provided."

　"Very wonderful," was the member's comment.

　"Very true, very true," was the guide's answer. "It is so hard for souls incarnated in matter to appreciate it. The soul knows it, but it cannot burst the bonds, and that is what evolution is. If you look at all these problems with the eyes of the spirit, they fall into their appointed place. If you look at them through earthly eyes, there are confusion and difficulty and misunder-standing. This, then, is our function, to show if we can the light of spiritual truth.

　"When the Nazarene said, 'Within you is the kingdom of heaven', that was not a parable, that was a truth. The Great Spirit is the centre of all life. The universe exists because of the Great Spirit. Everything in your world exists because of the Great Spirit. You are the Great Spirit in miniature. That power can grow, expand, unfold, enlarge, flourish, bloom, as you allow it to do so. You determine its growth, none else can do it for you; that is the purpose of earthly life. Realise that you are the Great Spirit and you realise that the kingdom of heaven is within you. It cannot fail. You cannot want, you cannot go hungry or thirsty once you have adjusted yourself to the laws of eternal supply. You will not receive more than is necessary, but you will receive according to your growth, no more, no less, no higher, no lower. It cannot be any other way."

　At another sitting there had been a discussion on the powers of the mind. Silver Birch's comment was:

　"Very little, comparatively speaking, is known about the mind, even after these centuries of development in your world. Generally speaking, the amount of mind which is expressed is intinitesimal compared with that which is waiting to be expressed. The mind is to the spirit what the brain is to the mind. It is the mind that is the means by which the spirit expresses itself, and the mind, being infinite as the spirit is infinite, has infinite possi-bilities. The Great Spirit is infinite and your relationship, mind with mind, spirit with spirit, means that you possess, in miniature, all that the Great Spirit possesses.

　"If you could harness, if you could express, if you could release all that the mind contains, all its vast potentialities, then you would be supermen and superwomen. You would be ex-pressing now what will be the normal means of expression in generations to comeーnot that you will ever be able, either here or hereafter, to express the whole of the mind; that is not possible because an infinite mind has an infinite variety of expression. What I am trying to say is that here and now, in your world, you could by thinking, concentration, exercise, attunement, release far more of the Great Spirit that is within you than you are in the habit of normally doing. That is the important point. Too many people are concerned with the brain; few are con-cerned with the mind or the spirit."

　Here mention was made of the splendid healing done by Harry Edwards. "There again," said the guide, "the mind is attuned so that he becomes an instrument through which, for a short time, a tremendous energy is released, an energy that being spiritual in its nature is part of the life-force itself. And thus, through healers in spirit, plus the power that comes through him, you have demonstrated, where it is possible for the demon-stration to be made, what can be achieved even in these appar-ently hopeless cases.

　"Now, within the framework of natural law, which must be the overriding consideration, there are apparent miracles still to be achieved, only because your world is so ignorant of the pos-sibilities of the incarnate mind, especially when incarnate mind is co-operating with mind that is outside the realm of earth. The whole stress of your thinking has to be altered, your whole focus and perspective must be enlarged. You must not think of your-selves as bodies, but as spirits. If you think of yourself as a body, then the spirit gets very little chance for expression, but if you think of yourself as spirit, thus not only will spirit get its chance of expression, but the body will fall into its proper place."