NOTHING moves on with even flow. It seems to be inherent in the very nature of the universe that there should be ripples in the great Life-Current of Existence, just as there are waves in the sea. A well-known scientist once asked me if I had ever noticed how a stream of water, perfectly smooth, apparently flowing over a sheet of quite smooth glass would nevertheless produce ripples. There is no known explanation of this except it be that the water at its source had received unequal impulse which it never lost. So in the universe, the great impulse of the Creative Word in manifestation stamps cyclic law on all things. We see this in the coming and going of the seasons; in the recurrence of day and night; in the ebb and flow of the sea. Human life too, is made up of cycles great and small. The seven ages of human life, mentioned by Shakespeare, are distinctly marked. The four ages corresponding to the changing seasons of the year, are also well known.
The wise note and take advantage of cyclic law. To educate during the time of youth is like sowing seed in the springtime. Many people have distinct moods at certain times: at one time they are happy, hopeful, buoyant; at another time they are miserable and despondent. No doubt much of this moodiness is the result of people allowing themselves to drift. We can, if we will strongly enough, rise above this condition of things. We can cast out the morose, sullen, discontented states of mind, and make the character firm and strong, calm and hopeful. We can cultivate a good temper and a sunny atmosphere. Just as man can make a clearing in the forest or on the hillside, so we can make a clearance within our minds and in our mental atmosphere. And the happy feeling thus produced will be part of the harvest we shall reap, for it will return and return, it will become cyclic, until at last it will be most truly natural for us to dwell in light and sunshine. And we ourselves shall be producers of light and sunshine. Joy and peace will attend our steps, and wherever we come it will be a sunny place.
We can do this; we can rise above circumstances and control them because at the center of our being the Light of Life ever shines forth. Dwelling in Time, and therefore to some extent subject to heat and cold, summer and winter, joy and sorrow, we can, nevertheless, rise above these things. We can create surroundings for ourselves. The more we are truly alive the more we shall be able to do this. It may be that the birds by some act of will, to them as simple as breathing, can change their polarity and thus remain poised in air without a motion. It should be possible, and it is possible, for us to change our moral or spiritual polarity when we will, and rise above all terrestrial attractions. All holy scriptures regard this as certain. The Bhagavad-Gîtâ on nearly every page speaks of man overcoming his lower nature and being master of circumstances. The Bible teaches the same thing: "Cease to do evil; learn to do well." "Resist the Devil and he will flee from you." "Overcome evil with good." "Do good hoping for nothing again." Jesus treats his disciples as men who have within them a divine possibility, and says: "Where I am, there shall ye be also."
There is much darkness in the world, much evil; but we can lessen it; we can to some extent remove it and annihilate it; and in the end we can, if we so will, produce the reign of light everywhere.
As the moral sense in us is more and more sensitive we shall regard many things as wrong which now we do not so regard. Just as we now regard many things as wrong which people in a less advanced stage do not regard as evil at all. The brighter the light, the deeper the shadows. In this sense Light and Dark are the world's Eternal ways. But a time will come when, as St. Paul says, "Mortality will be swallowed up of Life"; when the Great Light will shine so fully within us and around us that there will be nothing to cast a shadow.
Is this not some of the meaning of such places as that in the book of Revelation, where it says, "and there shall be no night there; and they need no lamp, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light"? Or as we read in the Gitâ, "neither the sun nor the moon nor the fire enlighteneth that place; from it there is no return; it is my supreme abode." It is also written that "the path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."
Surely all this means, if words mean anything, that perfection can be and will be reached; and that even here a large degree of perfection may be attained. "Each victory will help us some other to win." Each step we mount upward over our lower selves gives us a wider horizon and a heavenlier air to breathe. The foes we slay today, we shall never have to fight again. We not only become stronger but we become much stronger relatively as our foes are weaker and fewer.
The more we live with perfect unselfishness then the more we come into the "Path of the Just." But if we do good things even, looking for the reward, we do not take the highest path. It is much to understand the nature of these two paths, for it is written: "Knowing these two paths, O Son of Prithâ, the man of meditation is not deluded." Or, in other words, though we dwell in Time, and our lower nature belongs to it, yet in our inmost and only true Self, we belong, not to Time, but to the Eternal; that is our Home and Place of Peace always.
The man who retires often to this fortress, to this place of peace, though he may have to pass through much suffering, will be raised above its destroying influence. Like the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace he will pass through the fire of affliction and not a hair will be singed nor even the smell of fire be on his garments.