The splendour of Asia: The story and teaching of the Buddha

by L. Adams Beck

Furthermore it is a strange thing and not to be uttered in words how by following the narrow way of right thinking and right doing is the cleansed perception attained. But the Lord said: “Do thus and thus, and you shall know.” And so it is.

And to the weak and poor in spirit as to the great of mind he did not say:

“Believe this, for so it is told you” but “Do this, and little by little, as when a man climbs a mountain the earth unfolds beneath him, for yourselves you shall see and know, needing no testimony from another—No, not even from the ancient scriptures, the Vedas, the Vedanta or any Brahman nor another. For the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Look inward and see it and be glad.” Thus the Lord taught and so it was.

And because this is so I who have seen many teachings of the old writings and of the Brahmans pass away in later knowledge have never seen one jot or one tittle of the Law pass rebuked into oblivion, neither shall I, nor any other. Knowledge is a good thing and a great, but all knowledge that comes through the brain and the five senses shall be rebuked later or sooner by the majesty of the Truth and shall crumble and pass. Only he who perceives beyond knowledge and sees beyond sight can apprehend these matters and so sit above error, being one with the One, and beyond that is the Nirvana, and even beyond the Nirvana it may well be there are states inconceivable in glory.

As for the ignorant, nothing is as they think it and they move through a world of distorted forms most alien to the Truth, just as in the lower consciousness of insect, reptile, and beast the forms perceived by them are still more alien from the Truth, for consciousness evolves from lowly beginnings. And this must be so since the thing seen is shaped by him who sees it through his own fettered consciousness, the limits of which he can in no way escape until he reaches that perception to which the perception of the ignorant is as the snail’s or worm’s to the man’s.

Yet let us not think that Reality is far from us. It lies about and in us and we walk in it and see it not, and in the higher perception bright things move about us and we of the lower perception see them no more than the blind man the sunshine in which he sits, and they touch us with strange instincts and visitings through the dark and we do not know, and our heart calls them to come nearer and there is silence.

So, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, the Blessed One summed up all teachings of the wise men of old and those who are yet to come, and no more can be added to it though it shall be more clearly understood as time and knowledge join hands. Therefore walk in the Way.

And whereas there are wise men of the West who teach that there is but one life in this world of form and illusion, one hope of development and knowledge,—I say this: Very wise and near the Truth must be those men of the West if one life of twenty, thirty, ninety years suffices to free them from the fetters of ignorance and render them perfect as their Father in Heaven (for so they phrase it) is perfect. With us this is not so, nor yet do we hold that any of the Buddhas can pay the debt of another nor lift his sins from his shoulders, holding that the debt incurred must be paid by the debtor, and this for the sake of immortal Justice and for his own sake also. For the Law is evolution in the innermost as in the mortal body. First the lowly beginning, the seed in black earth. Then the tender shoot, the waxing strength of trunk and bough till they can bear the glory of expanding blossom, and last, the perfect fruit. And in one life this cannot be. And so have all the Buddhas taught.

Yet another thing. It was said by our Wisest that the man who truly perceives sits above good and evil and may do what he will. Is this a hard saying? How can it be?

It is because the Truth is now his will. It is his being; he sits in it and it in him, and the Truth and he are one. How should such a man think; “This is right. I will do it. This is evil; I will not do it,” any more than he will think; “I must breathe or I shall die,” considering each breath or heart-beat? How can sin draw him any more than the writhing of the snake tempts to imitation the man who walks erect? These things are the necessary laws of the beginner in the Way. They are stages of the Noble Eightfold Path, but for the Enlightened, they who see things as they are, laws have no meaning, for they themselves are Law.