The Crest-Wave of Evolution: A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19Morris, Kenneth
Philosophy
The Crest-Wave of Evolution: A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19
Morris, Kenneth
Theosophy
He speaks of the dangers of externalism, even in the pursuit of
virtue; then says: "The man who has harmony within, though he
sit motionless like the image of a dead man at a sacrifice, yet
his Dragon Self will appear; though he be absorbed in silence,
his thunder will be heard; the divine power in him will be at
work, and heaven will follow it; while he abides in tranquillity
and inaction, the myriads of things and beings will gather under
his influence."--"Not to run counter to the natural bias of
things," he says, "is to be perfect." It is by this running
counter--going aginst the Law, following our personal desires and
so forth,--that we create karma,--give the Universe something to
readjust,--and set in motion all our troubles. "He who fully
understands this, by storing it within enlarges the heart, and
with this enlargement brings all creation to himself. Such a man
will bury gold on the hillside, and cast pearls into the sea."--
sink a plummet into that, I beseech you; it is one of the grand
utterances of wonder and wisdom.--"He will not struggle for
wealth or strive for fame; rejoice over longevity, or grieve at
an early death. He will get no elation from success, nor chagrin
from failure; he will not account the throne his private gain,
no look on the empire of the world as glory personal. His glory
is to know that all thigns are one, and life and death but phases
of the same existence."
Why call that about burying gold and casting pearls into the sea
one of the supreme utterances?--Well; Chwangtse has a way of
putting a whole essay into a sentence; this is a case in point.
We have discussed Natural Magic together many times; we know how
the ultimate beauty occurs when something human has flowed out
into Nature, and left its mysterious trace there, upon the
mountains, or by the river-brink,
"By paved fountain, or by rushy brook.
Or on the beached margent of the sea."
Tu Fu saw in the blues and purples of the morning-glory the
colors of the silken garments of the lost poet Ssema Hsiangju, of
a thousand years before--that is, of the silken garments of his
rich emotion and adventures. China somehow has understood this
deep connexion between man and Nature; and that it is human
thought molds the beauty and richness, or hideousness and
sterility of the world. Are the mountains noble? They store
the grandeur and aspirations of eighteen millions of years of
mankind. Are the deserts desolate and terrible? It was man made
the deserts: not with his hands, but with his thought. Man is
the fine workshop and careful laboratory wherein Nature prepares
the most wonderful of her wonders. It is an instinct for this
truth that makes Chinese poetry the marvel that it is.--So the
man of Tao is enriching the natural world: filling the hills
with gold, putting pearls in the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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