"THE SELF IS THE FRIEND OF SELF
AND ALSO ITS ENEMY"
THIS sentence in the Bhagavad Gita has
been often passed over as being either meaningless or mysterious; on one hand
worthless to consider, and on the other hand impossible. Some students have,
however, made good use of the teaching contained in it. It is a verse that
bears directly upon Theosophy as applied to our daily life, and therefore may
well be scrutinized.
It indicates two selfs, one the enemy and also
the friend of the other. Evidently, without the suggestions found in Theosophy,
two selfs in one person cannot seem otherwise than meaningless, except in those
cases, admitted by Science, where there is a aberration of the intellect, where
one lobe of the brain refuses to work with the other, or where there is some
cerebral derangement. But after a little study of the constitution of
man-material and spiritual-as we find it outlined in the Wisdom-Religion, we
easily see that the higher and the lower self are meant.
The next injunction, to "raise the self by
the self," clearly points to this; for, as a thing cannot raise itself
without a fulcrum, the self which will raise us must be the higher one, and
that which is to be raised is the lower.
In order to accomplish this task we must gain an
acquaintance with the self which is to be raised. The greater and more accurate
that acquaintance is, the quicker will proceed the work of elevating the being
who attempts it.
Let us for a moment look at the obstacles in the
way, the reasons why, with so many, their understanding of themselves is so
plainly deficient.
Everyone knows that he can see the defects in
the actions and character of other men better than his own. Some, of course,
there are who do not allow that they have defects.
St. James says that a man looketh in a glass and
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he is. While I have often doubted
this, yet it is true in respect to that looking-glass which is often by others
held up to us to see ourselves in. We see for a moment our appearance and then
forget it.
There are some things, however, as to which it
is often impossible for us to know ourselves. Such of our tones as are harsh or
disagreeable we often cannot hear as others do. For there is hardly anything so
difficult as to really hear our own voice in its entirety of tone and accent.
We are so accustomed to it that we cannot tell whether it be pleasing or
repellent, musical or discordant. We have to rely upon the statements of those
who hear it. Indeed, I doubt seriously if anyone can ever fully hear, in the
way those to whom we speak do, the tones of his voice, because it is conveyed
to us not only through the medium of the outer ear which receives the
vibrations made without us, but we receive it in addition through the
vibrations made within all through the skull, and hence it must ever be a
different voice for ourselves. So it would not be profitable to pay too much
attention to the sound of our voice if we do so to the exclusion of that inner
attitude which nearly always determines the tone in which we speak; for if our
feelings be kind and charitable, it is more than likely that the vocal
expression of them will correspond. The cultivation of the voice, so far as it
is possible, can safely be left to those teachers who aim to soften and polish
it.
By taking a few examples from among the many
about us and assuming that they represent possible defects and peculiarities of
our own, we may arrive at something useful in our Theosophic life.
Here is one who will constantly tell you that
several others are always very fond of talking of themselves and their affairs,
and appear to take no interest in the conversation unless it has themselves for
center. And after thus depicting the failings of the others, this person-man or
woman- immediately proceeds to show that that is his own particular fault for
from that moment the burden of the conversation is "I" or
"my" affairs.
Our next subject is one who talks a great deal
about altruism and brotherhood, but would not give a dollar to any good cause.
Not perhaps from intentional niggardliness, but from sheer habit of not giving
and not helping.
Here is another who exemplifies the prominent
defect of the century, inattention. He listens to you, but only hears a part,
and then, when repeating what he says he heard you say, he gives a version
entirely at variance with yours. Or, listening to an argument or discussion, he
only attends to that part which being familiar to him strikes him favorably.
Next we have the bigot who, while exalting
freedom of thought and the unity of all men, displays most frightful bigotry.
Then there is another who illustrates a variety
of the first to which I referred;-the man who wishes apparently only to impose
his own views upon you, and is careless about knowing what your opinions may
be.
Now all of these are only samples; but in some
degree every one of us has them all, perhaps slightly, but still there. They
are all the result of the predominance of the lower self, for they all show a
disposition to put the personal I to the front. They are the present
triumph of the lower self over the efforts of the higher. They may be abated in
some degree by attention to their outer expression, but no real progress will
be gained unless work upon the hidden plane is begun. Such a defect as that one
of not listening long to another man's views, but hurrying to tell him what you
think yourself, is one that affects the acquiring of new ideas. If you
constantly tell others what you think, you are gaining nothing. For your
experience and views are your own, well known to you. The repeated expression
of them only serves to imprint them more strongly on your mind. You do not
receive any of the new lights that other minds might cast upon your philosophy
if you gave them the opportunity.
There are other factors in our constitution
which are powerful for the production of faults. Every man has two lines of
descent. One is that which comes through his parents and has to do with his
mental and physical makeup. This line may run back into the most strange and
peculiar places, and be found winding in and out among manners and minds not suspected
by us. Suppose your physical line of descent comes through Danes or Norwegians
and mine through the French. There will be to some extent a want of sympathy
and appreciation on the mental plane between us. Of course this effect will not
be apparent if the period of time is long since our blood ran in those bodies,
but still there will be left some trace of it. There will be a tendency always
for the physical, including the brain, to show the characteristics which result
from the preponderance of inherited faculties and dispositions. These
characteristics belong wholly to the physical plane, and are carried down from
the centuries past by inheritance, affecting the particular body you may
inhabit in any one incarnation. It is your Karma to have that sort of physical
environment about our inner self. Now the obstacles to the perception of truth
and to the acquirement of knowledge of self which are in consequence of the
physical inheritance, are difficult to perceive, involving much study and
self-examination for the bringing them to light. But they are there, and the
serious Theosophist will search for them. These differences in the physical
body, which we will call for the time differences in inheritance, are of the
highest importance. They resemble the differences between telescopes or
microscopes made by different opticians, and tend to cause us to see truth
clearly or blurred, or surrounded by many-colored mists. What we most desire to
have is mental telescope that is not only powerful, but also devoid of the
colors which achromatic quality only will dispel.
The second line of descent is that one which
belongs purely to the inner man; that is, the psychical line. It is obscure,
and, indeed, can only be discovered and defined by an adept or a trained seer
whose clairvoyance permits him to see that intangible yet powerful thread which
has so much to do with our character. It is just as important as the physical
descent, in fact more so, because it has to do with the ever-living man,
whereas the physical tenement is selected by or follows upon the actions which
the inner man compelled the former body to perform. So it may be altered at any
time with ease if we live in obedience to the higher law.
Passing from the broad line of descent in a
nation, we find each individual governed also by the family peculiarities and
faults, and they are not as easy to define as those that are national, since
few men are in possession of any facts sufficient to ascertain the general
family tendencies.
Coming down now to ourselves, it is almost
axiomatic that each one/s mind acts in a way peculiar to itself. There
is a tendency that daily grows stronger after our earlier for the mind to get
into a rut, its own rut or mode of looking at things and ideas. This is of
great importance. For the man who has freed his mind so that it is capable of
easily entering into the methods of other minds is more likely to see truth
quicker than he who is fixed in his own ways.
We must then at once constitute ourselves our
own critics and adversaries, for it is not often that anyone else is either
willing or capable to take that part for us.
Our first step and the most difficult-for some,
indeed impossible-is to shock ourselves in such a manner that we may quickly be
able to get out of, or rather understand, our own mental methods. I do not mean
that we must abandon all our previous training and education, but that we shall
so analyze all our mental operations as to know the certainty, to easily
perceive, the actual difference in method between ourselves and any other
person. This is a thing seldom undertaken or accomplished by men nowadays. Each
one is enamored of his own mental habits, and disinclined to admit that any
other one can be better. When we have become acquainted with this mental path
of ours, we are then in position to see whether in any particular case our view
is false.
This is the psychological and metaphysical
equivalent of that scientific process which classifies and compares so as to
arrive at distinguishing differences in things in order that physical laws may
be discovered. For while we remain in ignorance of the method and path of our
mind's actions, there is no way in which we can compare with other minds. We
can compare views and opinions, but not the actual mechanics of the thought. We
can hear doctrines, but are unable to say whether we accept or reject from
right reasoning or because our peculiar slant on the mental plane compels us to
ratiocinate wholly in accordance with a mental obliquity acquired by many years
of hurried life.
The value of thus understanding our own mental
bias to that we can give it up at will and enter into a bias of another's mind
is seen when we consider that each of us is able to perceive but one of many
sides which truth presents. If we remain in the rut which is natural, we pass
through an entire life viewing nature and the field of thought through but one
sort of instrument. But by the other practice we may obtain as many different
views of truth as the number of the minds we meet. When another human being
brings his thoughts before us, we may not only examine them in our way, but
also take his method and, adopting his bias for the time as our own, see just
that much more.
It is very easy to illustrate this from ordinary
life. The novelist sees in the drawing-rooms of society and the hovels of the
poor only the material that may serve as the basis for a new book, while the
social schemer drives thought of hovels away and sees in society only the means
of gratifying pride and ambition, yet the artist can only think of the play of
color and arrangement of figures, the harmony that delights his artistic sense.
The plain man of affairs is not attracted by the
complex events of every day which have no relation to his business, whereas the
student of Occultism knows that very obscure events point to other things yet
in the future. In every stratum of society and every art or profession we
constantly have it brought home to us that each man looks at any subject from
but one or two standpoints, and when a well-balanced mind is found looking at
events and men and thoughts freely from all sides, everyone sees at once a
superiority in the person, albeit they may not be able to explain it.
But it is in Theosophic study especially that it
is wise for us to constitute ourselves our own critics and to adopt as far as
possible the practice of leaving our own mental road and taking up some other.
The truth is simple and not so difficult to arrive at if we will follow the
advice of the Hindu Upanishad and cut away error. Error grows largely
out of notions and preconceptions educated into us by our teachers and our
lives.
The influence of these preconceptions is seen
every day among those Theosophists who are seeking for more books to read upon
Theosophy. Their minds are so full of old notions which are not violently
expelled, that truth cannot be easily perceived. But if they read fewer new
books and spent more time in re-reading those first attempted, meanwhile
studiously endeavoring to enter into all of the author's thought, much more
progress would be gained.
Take, for instance, the Key to Theosophy.
It is full of all the main doctrines of the Wisdom-Religion, and of hints
towards others. Many persons have read the book and then sought another. They
say they have mastered it. Yet if you put to them some questions or listen to
their own, it is apparent that only that part of the work which in some way
coincides with their own previous training and line of thought has been
grasped. Now this is just the part they need not have dwelt upon, because,
being like to themselves, it may at any time be understood. But if one will
ever stand as one's own critic, then those parts which seem obscure will be
attacked, and, being viewed from all sides, may be soon turned into a
possession. And just because such has not been the practice, it has come to be
the fact that some extremely valuable presentations of doctrine and philosophy
remain buried in earlier Theosophical books and magazines, while those who once
read them have gone feverishly on to other works and forgotten that which have
enlightened them.
The Theosophist who delights to call himself
practical and logical, an abhorrer of mysticism, should try to see what the mystical
Theosophist means, and the mystic one should read carefully the words of the
practical member to the end that he may counterbalance himself. A wholly
practical or entirely mystical mind is not well balanced. And as long as the
logical and practical man in our ranks scouts mysticism and never reads it, so
long will he remain deformed and unbalanced in the eyes of those who see both
sides, because he is wrapped up in ideas and methods that are only right in
their own domain. The attitude of mind proposed is not to be observed only
toward our literature and the philosophy studied; it is to be that of every
hour and applicable to our dealings with our fellow-men. It will lead us to
discern the common failings of refusing to consider the thoughts expressed by
another because his or her personality is disagreeable to us. Often in our
ranks we can find those who never pay any attention to certain other members
who they have decided cannot reason properly or talk clearly. Now aside from
all considerations of charity and politeness, there is an occult law much lost
sight of, and that is that everyone is led insensibly by Karmic law to address
others on these topics and to afford an opportunity to the person addressed of
taking a leap, so to say, out of his own favorite way, and considering life as
seen through the eyes of another. This is often brought about, if we permit it,
through the endeavor to control the irritation or dullness caused by the way in
which the other person presents the thought in his mind. But if we refuse to
use the opportunity, either by absolutely running away or by covering our minds
with a hard coat of indifference, the new and bright idea just trembling into
the field of our consciousness is thrown back and lost in the dark recesses of the
mental plane. Or, taking another view, we may under Karmic law be the one and
only person just then fitted to elucidate our brother's ideas, and we remain
still the debtor to him if we do not accept the opportunity. On either hand the
result is demerit.
Let us, then, conquer self in the field
indicated, and thus turn the inward insidious enemy and deceiver into the
friend and guide.
William Q.
Judge
Branch Paper No. 5
August, 1890.
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