The Way of Peace Part 5

"This is peace, To conquer love of self and l.u.s.t of life, To tear deep-rooted pa.s.sion from the heart To still the inward strife."

If, O reader! you would realize the Light that never fades, the Joy that never ends, and the tranquillity that cannot be disturbed; if you would leave behind for ever your sins, your sorrows, your anxieties and perplexities; if, I say, you would partake of this salvation, this supremely glorious Life, then conquer yourself. Bring every thought, every impulse, every desire into perfect obedience to the divine power resident within you. There is no other way to peace but this, and if you refuse to walk it, your much praying and your strict adherence to ritual will be fruitless and unavailing, and neither G.o.ds nor angels can help you. Only to him that overcometh is given the white stone of the regenerate life, on which is written the New and Ineffable Name.

Come away, for awhile, from external things, from the pleasures of the senses, from the arguments of the intellect, from the noise and the excitements of the world, and withdraw yourself into the inmost chamber of your heart, and there, free from the sacrilegious intrusion of all selfish desires, you will find a deep silence, a holy calm, a blissful repose, and if you will rest awhile in that holy place, and will meditate there, the faultless eye of Truth will open within you, and you will see things as they really are. This holy place within you is your real and eternal self; it is the divine within you; and only when you identify yourself with it can you be said to be "clothed and in your right mind." It is the abode of peace, the temple of wisdom, the dwelling-place of immortality. Apart from this inward resting-place, this Mount of Vision, there can be no true peace, no knowledge of the Divine, and if you can remain there for one minute, one hour, or one day, it is possible for you to remain there always. All your sins and sorrows, your fears and anxieties are your own, and you can cling to them or you can give them up. Of your own accord you cling to your unrest; of your own accord you can come to abiding peace. No one else can give up sin for you; you must give it up yourself. The greatest teacher can do no more than walk the way of Truth for himself, and point it out to you; you yourself must walk it for yourself. You can obtain freedom and peace alone by your own efforts, by yielding up that which binds the soul, and which is destructive of peace.

The angels of divine peace and joy are always at hand, and if you do not see them, and hear them, and dwell with them, it is because you shut yourself out from them, and prefer the company of the spirits of evil within you. You are what you will to be, what you wish to be, what you prefer to be. You can commence to purify yourself, and by so doing can arrive at peace, or you can refuse to purify yourself, and so remain with suffering.

Step aside, then; come out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the cooling airs of peace will calm, renew, and restore you.

Come out of the storms of sin and anguish. Why be troubled and tempest-tossed when the haven of Peace of G.o.d is yours!

Give up all self-seeking; give up self, and lo! the Peace of G.o.d is yours!

Subdue the animal within you; conquer every selfish uprising, every discordant voice; trans.m.u.te the base metals of your selfish nature into the unalloyed gold of Love, and you shall realize the Life of Perfect Peace.

Thus subduing, thus conquering, thus trans.m.u.ting, you will, O reader! while living in the flesh, cross the dark waters of mortality, and will reach that Sh.o.r.e upon which the storms of sorrow never beat, and where sin and suffering and dark uncertainty cannot come. Standing upon that Sh.o.r.e, holy, compa.s.sionate, awakened, and self-possessed and glad with unending gladness, you will realize that

"Never the Spirit was born, the Spirit will cease to be never; Never was time it was not, end and beginning are dreams; Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit for ever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems."

You will then know the meaning of Sin, of Sorrow, of Suffering, and that the end thereof is Wisdom; will know the cause and the issue of existence.

And with this realization you will enter into rest, for this is the bliss of immortality, this the unchangeable gladness, this the untrammeled knowledge, undefiled Wisdom, and undying Love; this, and this only, is the realization of Perfect Peace.

O thou who wouldst teach men of Truth!

Hast thou pa.s.sed through the desert of doubt?

Art thou purged by the fires of sorrow? hath ruth The fiends of opinion cast out Of thy human heart? Is thy soul so fair That no false thought can ever harbor there?

O thou who wouldst teach men of Love!

Hast thou pa.s.sed through the place of despair?

Hast thou wept through the dark night of grief?

does it move (Now freed from its sorrow and care) Thy human heart to pitying gentleness, Looking on wrong, and hate, and ceaseless stress?

O thou who wouldst teach men of Peace!

Hast thou crossed the wide ocean of strife?

Hast thou found on the Sh.o.r.es of the Silence, Release from all the wild unrest of life?

From thy human heart hath all striving gone, Leaving but Truth, and Love, and Peace alone?