THE

शब्द

स्वास्थ्य

II

THE mind must learn to know heaven on earth and to transform the earth into heaven. It must do that work for itself while on earth in a physical body. The heaven after death and before birth is the native state of purity of the mind. But it is the purity of innocence. The purity of innocence is not real purity. The purity which the mind must have, before its education through the worlds is complete, is the purity through and with knowledge. The purity through knowledge will make the mind immune against the sins and ignorance of the world and will fit the mind to understand each thing as it is and in the state it is in, wherever the mind shall perceive it. The work or the fight which the mind has before it is to conquer and control and to educate the ignorant quality in itself. This work can only be done by the mind through a physical body on earth, because earth and earth alone furnishes the means and the lessons for the mind’s education. The body offers the resistance which develops strength in the mind that overcomes that resistance; it furnishes the temptations by which the mind is tried and tempered; it affords the difficulties and duties and problems by the overcoming and the doing and the solving of which the mind is trained to know things as they are, and it attracts from all spheres the things and conditions necessary for these purposes. The history of a mind from its heaven world to the time of its entrance into a physical body in the physical world, and from the time of its awakening in the physical world to the time of its assumption of the responsibilities of the world, repeats the history of the creation of the world and of the humanity on it.

The story of creation and of humanity, is told by each people and is given by them such color and form as is particularly suited to the particular people. What heaven was, is, or may be and how heaven is made, is told or suggested by the teachings of religions. They give the history as beginning in the garden of delights, an Elysium, Aanroo, the Garden of Eden, Paradise, or of heaven as being Valhalla, Devachan, or Swarga. The one with which the West is most familiar is the story in the Bible, of Adam and Eve in Eden, how they left it, and what happened to them. To this is added the history of the heirs of Adam and Eve, our alleged ancestors, and how we have descended from them, and from them inherited death. To the early Bible is appended a sequel in the form of a later Testament, relating to the heaven which man may enter when he shall find the gospel or message by which he will come to know that he is heir to immortal life. The story is beautiful and may be applied in many ways to explain many phases of life.

Adam and Eve are humanity. Eden is the state of innocence which early humanity enjoyed. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge are the generative organs and the procreative powers which operate through them and with which mankind is endowed. While mankind generated according to time and season and had no sex relation at any other time and for no other purpose than for propagation of species as suggested by natural law, they, Adam and Eve, humanity, lived in Eden, which was a child-like heaven of innocence. Eating of the tree of knowledge was the uniting of the sexes out of season and for the indulgence of pleasure. Eve represented the desire, Adam the mind, of mankind. The serpent symbolized the sex principle or instinct which prompted Eve, the desire, suggested how it could be gratified and which gained consent of Adam, the mind, to unlawful sex union. Sex union, which was unlawful—that is, out of season and as suggested by desire at any time and for indulgence of pleasure only—was the fall, and revealed the evil side of life which they, Adam and Eve, early humanity, had not before known. When early humanity had learned how to indulge the desire of sex out of season, they were conscious of that fact, and aware that they had done wrong. They knew the evil results following their act; they were no longer innocent. So they left the garden of Eden, their child-like innocence, their heaven. Outside of Eden and acting against the law, sickness, disease, pain, sorrow, suffering and death became known to Adam and Eve humanity.

That early distant Adam and Eve, humanity, has gone; at least, man does not know that it now exists. Humanity, no longer directed by natural law, propagates the species out of season and at all times, as prompted by desire. In a way, each human being reenacts, the Adam and Eve history. Man forgets the first years of his life. He has faint recollections of the golden days of childhood, then later he becomes aware of his sex and falls, and in his remaining life rewrites some phase of the history of humanity down to the present time. There lingers, however, a far off, a forgotten memory of happiness, heaven, and there is a desire for and an indefinite notion of happiness. Man cannot go back to Eden; he cannot go back to childhood. Nature forbids him, and the growth of desire and his lusts drive him on. He is an outcast, an exile, from his happy land. To exist, he must toil and labor through the hardships and difficulties of the day and at evening he may have rest, that he may begin the labor of the coming day. Amidst all his troubles he still has hope, and he looks forward to that distant time when he shall be happy.

For early humanity in their heaven and happiness, health and innocence, the way to earth and unhappiness and sickness and disease was through the wrong, unlawful, use of the procreative functions and power. The wrong use of the procreative functions brought with it to humanity a knowledge of its good and evil sides, but with the knowledge comes also confusion as to good and evil, and what is right and what is wrong. It is an easy matter for man to know the wrong and right use of procreative functions now, if he does not make it difficult for himself. Nature, that is, that portion of the universe, visible and invisible, which is not intelligent, that is of the quality of mind or thought, obeys certain rules or laws according to which all bodies within her kingdom must act if they are to remain whole. These laws are prescribed by intelligences superior to the mind which incarnates as man and man has to live by those laws. When man attempts to break a law of nature, the law remains unbroken but nature breaks the body of the man which he has let act unlawfully.

God walks with man today as he walked with Adam in the Garden of Eden, and God speaks to man today as he spoke to Adam when Adam committed the sin and discovered evil. The voice of God is conscience; it is the voice of the God of humanity or of one’s own God, his higher mind or Ego not incarnate. The voice of God tells man when he does wrong. The voice of God tells humanity and each individual man, whenever he abuses and makes wrong use of the procreative functions. Conscience, will speak to man while man still remains human; but there will come a time, even though it be ages hence, when, if humanity refuses to right its wrong actions, conscience, the voice of God, will no longer speak and the mind will withdraw itself, and the remnants of man will not then know right from wrong and will be in greater confusion than he now is in concerning procreative acts and powers. Then these remnants will cease to have their God-given powers of reason, will become degenerate, and the race which now walks erect and able to look toward heaven will then be like the monkeys who chatter without purpose as they run on all fours, or jump among the branches of the forest.

Mankind have not descended from monkeys. The monkey tribes of the earth are descendants of men. They are the products of the abuse of procreative functions by a branch of early humanity. It is even possible that the monkey ranks are often recuperated from the human family. The monkey tribes are specimens of what the physical side of the human family might become and what some members of it will become if they deny God, shut their ears to his voice called conscience, and renounce their humanity by continuing to make wrong use of their procreative functions and powers. Such an end for physical humanity is not in the scheme of evolution and it is not at all likely that the whole of physical humanity will sink into such abysmal depths of depravity, but no power and intelligence can interfere with man in his right to think nor deprive him of his freedom to choose what he will think and what he will do, nor to prevent him from acting in accordance with what he has thought and chosen to act.

As humanity, the minds, came and come from heaven into the world by means of sex, and similarly as the early child humanity and the human child left and leave their Eden or innocence and become aware of evil and disease and hardships and trials and responsibilities, because of their improper sex action, so also must they overcome these by right use of and control of sex functions before they can find and know the way to heaven, and enter and live in heaven without leaving the earth. It is not likely that humanity as a whole can or will in this age choose to begin to try for heaven. But individuals of humanity can so choose and by such choice and efforts they will see the way and enter the path that leads to heaven.

The beginning of the way to heaven is the right use of the procreative function. The right use is for the purpose of propagation at the right season. The physical use of these organs and functions for any other purpose than for human propagation is wrong, and those who use these functions out of season and for any other purpose or with any other intent, will turn the weary treadmill of sickness and trouble and disease and suffering and death and birth from unwilling parents to begin and continue another doomed and oppressed existence.

The earth is in heaven and heaven is around and upon the earth, and mankind must and will be made aware of it. But they cannot know of it or know this to be true until they open their eyes to the light of heaven. Sometimes they catch a gleam of its radiance, but the cloud which arises from their lusts soon blinds them to the light, and may even cause them to doubt it. But as they desire the light their eyes will become accustomed to it and they will see that the beginning of the way is a cessation from sex indulgence. This is not the only wrong which man has to overcome and right, but it is the beginning of what he must do to know heaven. The misuse of sex functions is not the only evil in the world, but it is the root of the evil in the world and to overcome other evils and such as grow out of them man must begin at the root.

If woman would clear her mind from the thought of sex she would cease to practice her lies and deceits and trickery to attract man; jealousy of him and hatred of other women who might attract him would have no place in her mind, and she would feel no vanity or envy, and this brood of vices removed from her mind, her mind would grow in strength and she would then be fit in body and mind to usher in and be the mother of the new race of minds who will transform earth into a paradise.

When man will purge his mind of its lusts of sex he will not delude himself with the thought that he could own the body of a woman, nor would he lie and cheat and steal and fight and beat down other men in his effort to get enough to buy woman as a toy or to have enough to gratify the whims and fancies of her pleasure. He would lose his self conceit and the pride of possession.

Not indulging in the procreative act is in itself not a warrant for entering heaven. Mere omission of the physical act is not enough. The way to heaven is found by thinking right. Right thought will in time inevitably compel right physical action. Some will give up the fight, declaring that it is impossible to win, and it may be impossible for them. But the one who is determined will conquer, though it take long years. It is of no use for the man to seek entrance to heaven who in his heart longs for sensual delights, for one cannot enter heaven who has the lust of sex in him. It is better for such a one to remain a child of the world until he can by right thought develop the moral strength in himself to become a child of heaven.

Man has never ceased trying to discover where Eden was, to find its exact geographical location. It is difficult to entirely suppress the faith or belief in an Eden, a Mount Meru, an Elysium. They are not fables. Eden is still on earth. But the archaeologist, geographer and the pleasure seeker will never find Eden. Man cannot, would not if he could, find Eden by going back to it. To find and know Eden man must go on. Because in his present condition man cannot find heaven on earth, he passes on and finds his heaven after death. But man should not die to find heaven. To find and know the true heaven, the heaven of which if once known, he will never be unconscious, man does not die, but he will be in his physical body on earth, though he will not be of the earth. To know and inherit and be of heaven man must enter it through knowledge; it is impossible to enter heaven through innocence.

Today heaven is clouded over and surrounded, by darkness. For a while the darkness lifts and then settles down in a heavier pall than before. Now is the time to enter heaven. The unbreakable will to do what one knows to be right, is the way to pierce the darkness. By the will to do and the doing of what one knows to be right, whether the world howls or all is silent, man calls upon and invokes his guide, his deliverer, his conqueror, his savior and in the midst of darkness, heaven opens, light comes.

The man who will do right, whether his friends frown, his foes ridicule and taunt, or whether he is observed or remains unnoticed, will reach heaven and it will open for him. But before he can cross the threshold and live in the light he must be willing to stand at the threshold and let the light shine through him. As he stands at the threshold the light which shines into him is his happiness. It is heaven’s message through which his warrior and savior speaks from within the light. As he continues to stand in the light and knows happiness a great sadness comes with the light. The sadness and sorrow which he feels are not such as he had before experienced. They are caused by his own darkness and the darkness of the world which acts through him. The darkness outside is deep but his own darkness seems darker still as the light shines on him. Were man able to endure the light his darkness would soon be consumed, for darkness becomes light when held steadily in the light. Man may stand at the gate but he cannot enter heaven until his darkness is changed into light and he is of the nature of light. At first man is not able to stand at the threshold of light and let the light burn up his darkness, so he falls back. But the light of heaven has shone into him and has set fire to the darkness within him and it will continue to be with him until he shall time and again stand at the gates and let the light shine in until it shines through him.

He would share his happiness with others but others will not understand nor appreciate it until they have reached or are trying to reach heaven by way of the path of doing of right without looking to the result of action. This happiness is realized by working with others and for others and for and with one’s self in others and others in one’s self.

The work will lead through the dark and light places of earth. The work will enable one to walk among the wild beasts without being devoured; to work for and with another’s ambitions without desiring them or their results; to listen and to sympathize with another’s sorrows; to help him to see the way out of his troubles; to stimulate his aspirations and to do all without making him feel obligated and without any desire other than for his good. This work will teach one to eat from the shallow bowl of poverty and be filled, and to drink from the bitter cup of disappointment and be contented with its dregs. It will enable one to feed those who hunger for knowledge, to help those to clothe themselves who discover their nakedness, to light those who wish to find their way through the darkness; it will allow one to feel repaid by another’s ingratitude, teach him the magic art of turning a curse into a blessing and will even make him immune to the poison of flattery and show his egotism as the littleness of ignorance; through all his work the happiness of heaven will be with him and he will feel that sympathy and compassion which cannot be appreciated through the senses. This happiness is not of the senses.

A philosopher of materialism does not know the strength of that sympathy which is known to one who has entered heaven while on earth and who speaks from out his heaven for those others who are sense lovers and sense sufferers, who laugh as they approach the bubbles and shadows of their chase and who cry out in bitter disappointment when these vanish. The sympathy of one who knows heaven, for earth drawn minds, will be no better understood by the weepy and emotional sentimentalist than by the dry and cold intellectualist, because the appreciation of each is restricted to his perceptions through the senses and these guide his mental operations. The heaven born love for others is not emotionalism, sentimentality, nor the pity which a superior bestows on an inferior. It is the knowing that others are in one’s self, which is knowledge of the divinity of all things.

Heaven to be known and entered by such means will not be desired by those who desire to be the great men of the world. Those who think that they are great men do not know of and cannot enter heaven while they are on earth. The great men, and all, men, must become great enough and have knowledge enough to know that they are as babes and must become children before they can stand at the gate of heaven.

As an infant is weaned, so the mind must be weaned from the food of the senses and learn to take stronger food before it is strong enough and knows enough to seek heaven and there find entrance. It is time for man to be weaned. Nature has set him many lessons and given him examples, yet he howls furiously at the suggestion of his weaning. Humanity refuses to give up the food of the senses and so although it is past time that it should prepare itself for and grow into its youth and the inheritance of its manhood, it still remains a child, and an unhealthy one.

The inheritance of humanity is immortality and heaven, and, not after death, but on earth. The human race wishes for immortality and heaven on earth but the race cannot inherit these until it gives up taking nourishment through the senses and learns to take nourishment through the mind.

The human race today can hardly distinguish itself as a race of minds from the race of animal bodies in which they are incarnate. It is possible for individuals to see and understand that they as minds, cannot always continue to feed the senses and feed in the senses, but that they as minds should grow out of the senses. The process seems hard and when a man attempts it, he often slinks back to satisfy his hunger from the senses.

Man cannot enter heaven and remain a slave to the senses. He must at some time decide whether he will control his senses or whether his senses shall control him.

This so hard and seemingly cruel earth is destined to become and is now the foundation on which heaven shall be built, and the gods of heaven will incarnate among the children of men when the bodies prepared shall be fit to receive them. But the physical race must be healed from its vices and made healthy in body before the new race can come.

The best and most effective and the only way of bringing this new order of life into the life of present humanity is for man to begin and do this silently with himself, and so to take up the burden of one more cripple from the world. He who does this will be the greatest world conqueror, the noblest benefactor and the most charitable humanitarian of his time.

At present, man’s thoughts are unclean, and his body unholy and not fit for the gods of heaven to incarnate in. The gods of heaven are the immortal minds of men. For every man on earth, there is a God, his father in Heaven. The mind of man which incarnates is the son of God who descends into the physical child of the earth for the purpose of redeeming, and enlightening, and raising it to the estate of heaven and enabling it, too, to become a child of heaven and a son of God.

All this can and will be brought about and done by thought. As the after death heaven is made and entered and lived in by thought, so also by thought will the earth be changed and heaven be made on earth. Thought is the creator, preserver, destroyer or regenerator of all the manifested worlds, and thought does or causes to be done all the things which are done or brought about. But to have heaven on earth man must think the thoughts and do the deeds which will make and reveal and bring and cause him to enter into heaven while on earth. At present man must wait until after death before he can have his heaven, because he is not able to control and master his desires while in a physical body, and so the physical body dies and he puts by and is relieved of his gross and sensual desires and passes into heaven. But when he is able to do in the physical body what takes place after death, he will know heaven and he shall not die; that is to say, he as a mind may cause to be created another physical body and enter it without sleeping the deep sleep of forgetfulness. He must do this by the power of thought. By thought he can and will tame the wild beast within him and make it an obedient servant. By thought he will reach up into and know the things of heaven and by thought he will think of these things and cause to be done the things on earth like as they are known to him in heaven. By the living of his physical life according to the heaven-like thoughts, his physical body will be purged of its impurities and made whole and clean and immune to disease, and thought will be the ladder or path by which he may ascend and communicate with his higher mind, his god, and the god may even descend into him and make known to him the heaven which is within, and the heaven without will then become visible in the world.

All this will be done by thought, but not the kind of thoughts which are recommended by thought cults or such people as claim to heal the sick and cure disease by thought or who would do away with disease and suffering by trying to think that they do not exist. Such attempts to think and to use thought will only prolong the suffering and misery in the world and will add to the confusion of the mind and hide the way to heaven and shut out heaven from earth. Man must not blind himself, but must see clearly and must acknowledge truly all that he sees. He must admit the evils and wrongs in the world, and then by thought and act deal with them as they are and make them what they should be.

The thought which will bring heaven to earth is free from all that has to do with personality. For heaven is lasting, but personalities and things of personality pass away. Such thoughts as how to cure the ills of the body, how to secure comforts, possessions, how to attain the objects of ambition, how to gain power, how to acquire or enjoy any of the objects which satisfy the senses, such thoughts as these do not lead to heaven. Only thoughts which are free from the element of one’s own personality— unless they be thoughts of subduing and mastering that personality—and thoughts concerned with the bettering of the condition of man and the improvement of the minds of men and the awakening of these minds to divinity, are thoughts which make heaven. And the only way is by beginning it silently with one’s self.