The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul Part 14

The starting point and the keynote from first to last is Self-Control.

Then come high Ideals, intelligent choice, and the will backed by discrimination and judgment. These lead to understanding and wisdom.

The "courage of one's convictions," can be neither conceited nor blatant egotism, but a readiness to a.s.sume full responsibility of motives, acts, and results.

This recognition of Personal Responsibility is what we call _Conscience_.

It is the Judgment-seat of the Individual Intelligence in the Kingdom of its own Soul, or realm of consciousness. The moment this throne totters, or is obscured, devolution begins, and degeneration, insanity, and Inferno lie that way.

It does not change one principle involved, or weaken either Modulus or Theorem when we reflect that most equations are ended by death, long before being brought to successful solution. For the time they are certainly interrupted.

Neither do the babel of tongues, the theories, theologies, or philosophies change either Modulus or Theorem, because they are grounded in demonstrated facts, recognized, either vaguely or clearly, in the conscious experience of every intelligent thinking man and woman.

Constructive Psychology, based upon Science, for the building of character by persistent effort, increasing continually all personal resources, means the normal higher evolution of man.

So-called religions and the life after death have been purposely left unconsidered.

If we really have a Science of the Soul--the Individual Intelligence--based upon psychological facts, demonstrated in the daily experience of every healthy individual, it touches religion at its most vital point, viz.: ethics or morals. If these ethical principles are true and demonstrable, they must const.i.tute the foundation of religion as of ethics. If morals are strengthened and made clear, and Personal Responsibility as Conscience, is recognized and accepted, the Vicarious Atonement will have to go, and Theologians will have to change their mystical and miraculous interpretations from Vicarious Atonement to personal at-one-ment with _Christos_.

The "miraculous conception," and "virgin birth," held equally in regard to Christna centuries before, and also the literal resurrection of the physical body will have to be otherwise explained.

The purposive view as one full term of the psychological equation, will find uniform law and order in place of the credulous legends of ignorant and superst.i.tious monks, while the Divine Man will be taken down from the cross and restored to the heart of humanity, as the Modulus of Nature, _realized_ as a normal evolution, under natural and spiritual law.

Salvation from sin, ignorance, superst.i.tion, and fear, will be recognized as the result of "Leading the Life," and Vicarious only through a divine example; or, if you please, _legitimate Suggestion_; with personal effort, rational volition, and personal responsibility working in harmony toward the desired result.

SECTION TWO THE NEW AVATAR OF NATURAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER VIII

OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO ANCIENT INDIA

It is more than thirty years since in Southern Europe, England, and America, a genuine Renaissance of Vedic literature, philosophy, and religion began to a.s.sume a popular form and to become accessible to the general reading public.

Scholars, like Sir William Jones, had for the past century been familiar with the ancient civilization and the Vedic literature and the study of Sanscrit had made some progress in the Universities.

The idea, however, that these antiquities had any vital interest to us, beyond curious myths and obsolete superst.i.tions, had not been perceived, much less admitted.

The antiquity of man, and the Philosophy of Evolution, had opened new fields for thought, and necessitated a revision of all previous concepts of man and nature.

Old records and interpretations were everywhere revised, and the interpretations of the Mosaic records were challenged at every point.

Popular religions were up in arms and were compelled to adjust themselves to the new regime.

But even after this century of progress and enlightenment, it has scarcely yet dawned on the mind of theologians that the challenge of science was, after all, insignificant, compared with that which was to come, and for which modern science had paved the way.

The whole realm of theology, and the foundations of religion, were to undergo revision.

Facts incontestable were being gathered and proofs established beyond all possible denial, or controversy, that all modern theologies and religions were copied and adapted from Vedic and ante-Vedic sources, antedating our present era by more than two thousand years.

The superficial and devout churchman, whose faith is fortified on the one hand by superst.i.tion, and on the other at least borders on fanaticism, is apt to be resentful in the presence of these facts, and, falling back on the infallibility and plenary inspiration of the Bible, to declare that if his own superficial interpretations are questioned or denied, Religion will be done for and mankind left in utter darkness.

He does not perceive that the facts of nature and the essentials of religion are one thing, and man's _interpretation_ of them another thing entirely.

He does not perceive how these ignorant and superst.i.tious interpretations of men have set at naught the real life of Jesus and the teachings of the Christ.

He does not realize how doctrine has usurped the place of duty, and dogmatism has hardened the soul of man.

One thing, however, is inevitable. Facts and evidence as to origin, a.n.a.logies, and adaptation of the Christian Mysteries from ancient India, are widely known, and the time has come when these mysteries are being examined as to their intrinsic meaning and their bearing on the daily life of man and the progress of the human race.

The author of this little book has only attempted a bare outline of these great facts, and to put them in such shape that the reader may perceive their general bearing, and the sources whence they are derived.

The following extracts made almost at random, the quant.i.ty of evidence being so redundant, from Jacolliot's "Bible in India," a translation of which was made in this country as early as 1873, and Prof. Max Muller's Lectures, "India, What Can It Teach Us?" printed here more than a quarter of a century ago, will give the reader the evidence and the a.s.surance that these ancient sources of wisdom are scarcely yet known in outline to the Western World.

Jacolliot spent many years in India, studying its present civilization and its ancient lore, while Prof. Max Muller derived his knowledge largely from study of Sanscrit and the Vedanta.

"Soil of Ancient India, cradle of humanity, hail! Hail, venerable and efficient nurse, whom centuries of brutal invasion have not yet buried under the dust of oblivion! Hail, fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry, and of science. May we hail a revival of thy past in our Western future.

"I have dwelt 'midst the depths of your mysterious forests, seeking to comprehend the language of your lofty nature, and the evening airs that murmured 'midst the foliage of banyans and tamarinds whispered to my spirit these three magic words: Zeus, Jehovah, Brahma.

"I have inquired of Brahmins and priests under the porches of temples and ancient paG.o.das, and they have replied:

"'To live is to think, and to think is to study G.o.d, who is all, and in all....

"'To live is to learn, to learn is to examine and to fathom in all their perceptible forms the innumerable manifestations of celestial power.

"'To live is to be useful; to live is to be just; and we learn to be useful and just in studying this book of the Vedas, which is the word of eternal wisdom, the principle of principles as revealed to our fathers.'"

("The Bible in India," p. 15.)

Plotinus, the Neoplatonist, said: "G.o.d is not the princ.i.p.al of beings, but the principle of principles."

This was the Hindoo concept of _Para Brahm_ two thousand years before.

"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life--it will be the solace of my death. [Schopenhauer, quoted by Max Muller.] ... If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow--in some parts a very paradise on earth--I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind had most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant--I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life--again I should point to India."

The reader should remember that this is not the _opinion_ of an ignorant enthusiast, but the mature judgment of one of the most profound scholars and Sanscritists in Europe in his day--Prof. Max Muller.

"The study of Mythology has a.s.sumed an entirely new character, chiefly owing to the light that has been thrown on it by the ancient Vedic Mythology of India.

"Buddhism is now known to have been the princ.i.p.al source of our legends and parables."

The story of the two women who claimed each to be the mother of the same child is found literally in the Kanjur, translated from the Buddhist Tripitake, and the "Judgment of Solomon" is only a copy of the older story.

"The history of all histories, and yet the mystery of all mysteries--take religion, and where can you study its true origin, its natural growth and its inevitable decay better than in India, the home of Brahmanism, the birthplace of Buddhism, and the refuge of Zoroastrianism.