Self-Development and the Way to Power

by L. W. Rogers

Desire plays the same role with man at his higher stage of evolution. It stimulates him to action; and always as his activity satisfies his original desire a new one replaces the old and lures him on to renewed exertion. The average young man beginning his business career, desires only a comfortable cottage. But when that is attained he wants a mansion. He soon tires of the mansion and wants a palace. Then he wants several—at the seaside, in the city, and on the mountains. At first he is satisfied with a horse; then he demands an automobile, and finally a steam yacht. He sets out as a youth to earn a livelihood and welcomes a small salary. But the desire for money pushes him into business for himself and he works tirelessly for a competence. He feels that a small fortune should satisfy anybody but when he gets it he wants to be a millionaire. If he succeeds in that he then desires to become a multi-millionaire.

Whether the desire is for wealth, or for fame, or for power, the same result follows—when the desire is satisfied a greater one takes its place and spurs the ambitious one to still further exertion. He grasps the prize he believes to contain complete satisfaction only to discover that while he was pursuing it desire had grown beyond it, and so the goal he would attain is always far ahead of him. Thus are we tricked and apparently mocked by nature until we finally awake to the fact that all the objects of desire—the fine raiment, the jewels, the palaces, the wealth, the power, are but vain and empty things; and that the real reward for all our efforts to secure them is not these objects at all but the new powers we have evolved in getting them; powers that we did not before possess and which we should not have evolved but for nature's great propulsive force—desire. The man who accumulates a fortune by many years of persistent effort in organizing and developing a business enterprise, by careful planning and deep thinking, may naturally enough look upon the fortune he will possess for a few years before it passes on to others, as his reward. But the truth is that it is a very transient and perishable and worthless thing compared to the new powers that were unconsciously evolved in getting it—powers that will be retained by the man and be brought into use in future incarnations.

Desire, then, plays a most important role in human evolution. It awakens, stimulates, propels. What wind is to the ship, what steam is to the locomotive, desire is to the human being.

It has been written in a great book, "Kill out desire," and elsewhere it is written, "Resist not evil." We may find, in similar exalted pronouncements, truths that are very useful to disciples but which might be confusing and misleading to the man of the world if he attempted to literally apply them. Perhaps for the average mortal "kill out desire" might be interpreted "transmute desire." Without desire man would be in a deathlike and dangerous condition—a condition in which further progress would be impossible. But by transmuting the lower desires into the higher he moves steadily forward and upward without losing the motive power that urges him forever onward.

To transmute desire, to continually replace the lower with the higher, really is killing desire out but it is doing it by the slow and safe evolutionary process. As to crushing it suddenly, that is simply impossible; but substitution may work wonders. Suppose, for example, that a young man is a gambler and his parents are much distressed about it. The common and foolish course is to lecture him on the sin of gambling and to tearfully urge him to associate only with very proper young men. But the young gambler is not in the least interested in that sort of a life, which appears to him to be a kind of living death, and such entreaty does not move him. His parents would do better by looking more closely into the case. Why is he a gambler? He desires money. He seeks excitement. He wants to live in an atmosphere of intense life and activity. Very well. These desires are quite right in themselves. It is useless to try to crush them. It is nonsense to argue that he does not want these things. Clearly enough he does want them and that is precisely why he gambles. Then do not attempt the impossibility of killing the desire but change the objects of his desires. Say to him: "You desire money and a life full of turbulence and excitement. Well, you can get all that in a better and a legitimate way and have the respect of your friends besides. You can go into politics. That is a field within the pale of the law and in it you can have scope for all the energy and activity and intensity of life you long for, with all the element of chance which you find so attractive." And when the young man has had his fling there and tires of it then something else can be attempted. But to try to crush desire and curb the outrushing life is both foolish and impossible. We can only direct it.

There are, of course, certain gross desires that must be gotten rid of by the most direct and least objectionable method, and when one really desires to be free from a given vice or moral weakness and sets earnestly and intelligently about it his release is not so difficult as the complete tyranny of most vices would lead one to suppose. There is a process by which any of us may be free if we will take the trouble to patiently put it into practice. This method will apply to any desire from which we wish to be released. For example, let us take the person who has a settled desire for alcoholic stimulants but really wishes to be rid of it forever. Many people who are thus afflicted to the point where they occasionally become intoxicated feel, when they recover their normal condition, that no price would be too great to pay for freedom from this humiliating habit. As a rule such a man tries to close his eyes to his shame and forget it, promising himself that he will be stronger when the temptation again assails him. But it is just this putting it aside, this casting it out of his mind, that perpetuates his weakness. He instinctively shrinks from dwelling upon the thought of whither he is drifting. So he puts the unpleasant subject aside altogether and when the inner desire asserts itself again he finds himself precisely as helpless as before.

Now, his certain method of escape from this tyranny of desire is to turn his mind resolutely to an examination of the whole question. Let him look the facts in the face, however humiliating they may be. He should call his imagination to his assistance. It should be used to picture to himself his future if he does not succeed in breaking up the unfortunate slavery of the desire nature. He should think of the fact that as he grows older the situation grows worse. He should picture himself as the helpless, repulsive sot, with feeble body and weakening mind, and reflect upon the humiliation he must endure, the poverty he must face, and the physical and mental pain he must bear in the future if he now fails to break the desire ties that bind him. This creates in him a feeling of repulsion toward the cause of it all; and if he continues to think daily upon this hideous picture of what he is slowly drifting toward—if he daily regards it all with a feeling of slight repulsion—then even within a month or two he will find that his desire for drink is slowly fading out.

This is as true of all other desires that enslave us. The desire for alcoholic stimulants merely illustrates the principle involved. Any desire from which one wishes to be free may be escaped by the same method. But one who would free himself from the desire-nature should not make the mistake of creating a feeling of intense hostility toward the thing he seeks to escape; for hatred is also a tie. He should merely reach a position of complete indifference. He should think of it not with settled hostility, but with slight repulsion; and if he does that daily, mentally dwelling upon the pain and humiliation it causes, he will find the ties loosening, the desire weakening.

Desire is a force that may be beneficial or detrimental, according to its use. As we may eradicate a desire so may we create a desire. How, then, may one who seeks the highest self-development use desire, this propulsive force of nature, to help himself forward? He should desire spiritual progress most earnestly, for without such desire he cannot succeed. Therefore if the aspirant does not have the ardent desire for spiritual illumination he must create it. To accomplish this let him again call imagination to his assistance. Let him picture himself as having his power for usefulness many times multiplied by occult development. He should think of himself as possessing the inner sight that enables him to understand the difficulties of others and to comprehend their sorrows. He should daily think of the fact that this would so broaden and quicken his sympathies that he would be enormously more useful in the world than he can now possibly be and that he could become a source of happiness to thousands. Let him reflect that as he gets farther along in occult development and in unselfishness and spirituality he may have the inestimable privilege of coming into contact with some of the exalted intelligences that watch over and assist the struggling aspirants on their upward way. He should daily recall the fact that he is now moving forward toward a freer, richer, more joyous life than he has yet known and that every effort brings him nearer to its realization. Thus dwelling on the subject in its various aspects he creates the ardent desire that serves to propel him forward.

If he feels that these things make an ideal a little too high for him at present he may reach that point by degrees. He may at first dwell in thought upon the personal satisfaction that would come from the possession of astral sight. Let him reflect upon what it would mean to be conscious of the invisible world; to have all its wonders laid open before him; to be able to consciously meet the so-called dead, including his own friends and relatives; to be able to have the positive personal proof that we survive the death of the physical body; to be able to become one of the "invisible helpers" of the world; to have available the priceless advantages of the astral region and to bring the consciousness of all this into the physical life. That is certainly something worth all the time and effort required to attain it. Thus thinking constantly of the widened life and added powers it would confer, the desire to move forward in self-development will be greatly stimulated. But the student should always keep it in mind that the real purpose of acquiring new powers is to increase his capacity for service to the race, and that he who falls short of that ideal walks upon dangerous ground.