"Truth is the
one reality in the universe, the
Inward Harmony, the Perfect
Justice, the eternal
Love. Nothing can be added to it, nor
taken from it. It does not
depend upon any man,
but all men depend upon it." -- SWAMI
VIVEKENANDA
THE supreme purpose of religion is to
teach man to live a normal life. Ethics
and religion cannot be divorced; they
go hand in hand, they supplement each
other.
The best religion teaches the purest
ethics. Only from true religion can
pure ethics flow. The religion that is
not ethical, that does not teach the
highest morality, is not true. When we
discover a religion of absolute truth,
we shall possess a code of perfect
ethics.
Truth is constructive; error is
destructive. Truth alone is ethical;
error is unethical. Truth expands the
mind; error contracts it. Truth alone
prepares the mind for the reception of
more truth; error, however innocently
espoused, unfits it for the reception
of truth. Error repels truth; it
invites more error. Truth broadens the
mind, error confuses and weakens it.
Truth builds moral character; error
tears it down. Truth emancipates man;
error enslaves him.
Frank Crane observes that "There is
only one thing in the universe of men
and near
men that is always good, full of
health, soundness, and peace, whose
apples are of the substance of the soul
and whose leaves are for the
healing of the nations, and that thing
is truth." Theosophy has well said
there is no religion higher than
truth. Another has said, "Truth is the
property of God; the pursuit of truth
is what belongs to man." Goethe wrote:
"It is not necessary that the truth be
made clear; it is enough if it hovers
about us like a spirit and produces
harmony; if it vibrates through the
air, gravely and kindly, like the sound
of a bell."
If the one great fact could be
impressed upon men, that they can only
come into harmony with God as they
approach truth, and the nearer they get
to truth the closer they come to God,
it would be of more value than all the
theological dogmas spoken since time
began. This one fact would liberate the
human mind and send it on its joyous
discovery for the greatest of all
treasures man can possess, truth. It
would emancipate man from fixed and
narrow beliefs, which are the real
hindrances to the discovery of more
truth. It would prepare his mind for
the reception and assimilation of
larger ideas and a broader
understanding, the first steps toward
true progress and real life.
When the theological mists and fogs
which for so many centuries have hung
like a pall over the race are dissolved
and brushed aside, we find that real
religion is the living a life. Religion
that is kept for speculation and
theorizing and not for use is not
religion. Religion is for use alone,
and no man has any that he does not
use. That religion is best that
fashions men's lives by the highest
ideals of truth, justice, and
morality--that inspires the mind to
reach out for still
higher
conceptions of truth.
To lead man into an honest,
industrious, moral, and unselfish life,
to bring him into harmony with the laws
of Nature, to build character, to
develop his spiritual nature, is the
supreme end of all philosophies and all
religions. Nature and truth are the
basis of man's life, and on them man
and all his interests, relations, and
concerns come to rest as certainly as
the dawn follows the night.
It is his function and office properly
to interpret the symbols of Nature and
open and prepare the mind for the
reception and assimilation of
truth.
Whatever leads man away from selfish
thoughts, whatever elevates his mental
and spiritual understanding, whatever
builds character, mental and moral,
whatever inspires the desire for
knowledge, a longing for truth is in
the truest sense religious and in the
highest degree ethical. The mind
recoils from the thought that a creed
or a dogma that professes to relieve
the individual from personal
responsibility can have any ethical or
moral value. Nature wisely placed us
under responsibility; whatever,
therefore, seeks to evade its just
consequences is immoral.
Likewise the mind shrinks from the idea
that a particular belief will determine
man's future welfare and eternal
destiny. Beliefs are important only as
they have constructive tendencies, only
as they mold character, only as they
fit men to grapple the real things of
life and lead them to higher ideals and
more exalted ethical standards. It is
true that positive beliefs, or more
properly faith, are essential to all
growth and development. The belief in
one's self, in our own illimitable
possibilities and the universal law of
cause and effect, the justice of the
universe, the good in other men, are
essential to all true progress and the
symmetrical development of man. "The
fearful unbelief is the unbelief in
myself," says Carlyle.
For fifteen hundred years or more
theology has dealt in negative beliefs,
the belief in man's insignificance, his
weakness, and inability to build his
own character and now as the light of
reason reveals man to himself and the
potentialities of his own soul, they
lament the decay and loss of those
beliefs. Their contracted vision sees
only darkness in the spiritual sky. Men
of thought see growth and development,
as such beliefs fade and
disappear.
The masters of thought in all ages
taught man how to live, how to act, not
what to believe. They were content to
give man rules for living, not formulas
for believing. The Gentle Seer of
Galilee laid down few rules for man's
guidance, but they all related to
conduct. The essence of his teaching
was realization, not belief. His
directions were so simple, so few that
men have over- looked them or said they
were impracticable in a practical age.
His whole life and career was one grand
protest against formulas and rules. He
was the greatest heretic of his age.
Were he to return to earth again, the
present church would so brand him. The
essence of all his teaching is embraced
in the one incomparable statement,
Whatsoever ye would that men should do
to you, do ye even so to them. How
simple, how fair, how equitable, how
explicit and easily understood. There
was never a truer expression or
completer definition of the term
justice.
Did you ever stop to think what
cruelty, wrongs, and bloodshed would
have been spared the race if this
simple rule had been observed, even by
those who pretended to be the followers
of him who gave it to the world? In
modern times we call this rule the
square deal. A gleam of its wisdom,
utility, and justice is beginning to
penetrate men's minds. It is not only
influencing the minds
of individuals, but also governments,
states, and political institutions. It
is the basis of all movements to
abolish war and bring about
international peace. It is the
foundation of all true diplomacy.
Nations, as individuals, see that it
does not pay to violate this rule of
justice. "The dice of God are
loaded."
Selfishness is the fruitful cause of
all vicious and culpable conduct. Jesus
undertook to tell man how to eradicate
selfishness and remove it from his
life. His antidote was expressed in one
word, Love. Love your enemies, return
good for evil, was the acme of his
thought. "Self is the only prison that
can ever bind the soul; Truth is the
only angel that can bid the gates
unroll. "
Never was a completer code of ethics
given to man than in the Sermon on the
Mount. Its principles are true to the
laws of Nature. Their bare statement is
a demonstration of their truth, to him
who thinks and reasons. Their truth and
wisdom intuitively flash upon the soul.
They embody the wisest rules possible,
for the solution of all life's
problems. They give man the key to a
life of honest purpose, a life of
success, and a life of power.
The Golden Rule is the best business
maxim the world has yet observed. It
had been declared for ages before and
spoken in many languages and dialects,
but Jesus impressed it anew upon the
world. Underneath all the simple rules
and as a basis upon which they all
rest, is the universal law of cause and
effect; as is the cause, so is the
result. If we rob another, we rob
ourselves; we rob ourselves of
our own character and we have nothing
left. "Every wrong is
redressed in silence and certainty."
When men follow these precepts, they
find peace, plenty, and power. When
they violate them, they experience the
opposite results. When they practice
honesty to their fellow-man and are
true to themselves, they have reached
the highest ethical standards.
When Jesus said: "Ye have heard that it
hath been said, an eye for an eye, and
a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto
you, resist not evil," he uttered a
solemn protest against the law of
retaliation, although it had been
taught by no less a personage than
Moses whom the world calls the great
Law Giver. Understanding the nature of
man, Jesus saw that such a law was not
founded on the principles of morality
and could not lead to the betterment of
man. The Sermon on the Mount is a
standing protest against much of the
code of Moses. Man is not made better
by the practice of cruelty or the
exhibition of revenge. Morality is not
thrust into the soul on the point of a
sword. Man can only be made moral as he
changes his thought. Until his thoughts
are moral, his life cannot be
moral.
Yet the world did not believe Jesus,
nor do his professed followers believe
him even to this day. Our
Christian civilizations still follow
the law of Moses and reject the
teachings of Jesus. Society still
persists in murdering men, because they
murdered other men. We still practice
the law of retaliation, the lex
talionis, an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth.
When did the orthodox churches whether
Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, or
Protestant, ever enter a protest
against the horrible spectacle of
capital punishment? We assume the right
of taking human life, which God only
can give. Society, in sending the
homicide to the gallows or the electric
chair, effectually declares him unfit
to live in their commonwealth, although
deprived of citizenship and confined
behind bars at hard labor for the
remainder of his life; yet it always
implores God to accept him in heaven,
restored to his liberty and
citizenship, that he may there become a
resident and permanent inhabitant.
Society says he is not good enough for
us, but recommends him as worthy of a
place in heaven.
What would Jesus say to the proposition
of hanging or electrocuting men, who
said to the woman, "Go, sin no more?"
Could you conceive of him installing an
electric chair, or adjusting the
hangman's noose? You say this is
blasphemy. Is it? Jesus never shrank
from the performance of a duty. He
would not enact a law that he was not
willing to execute.
Has any religious convention or
conference or synod or any of their
branches ever raised a voice against
capital punishment? The horrible
tragedies are still enacted, except
where certain American States,
realizing the folly and atrocity of the
system, have abolished it by
legislative enactment. At any time
during the last thousand years the
Church could have caused its
abolishment, had it so desired, but the
Church loved Moses more than Jesus. We
read of six thousand executions in one
nation during one administration,
although the Church and State are
united. It is only as men have broken
away from Church domination and become
independent, that they have become
charitable enough to abolish the death
penalty even for larceny.
Our whole system of criminal law is
based on the law of Moses. We follow
Moses instead of Jesus. Their
utterances cannot both be true. If the
law of retaliation is right, because
Moses said so, why not follow all his
laws? Why not sacrifice with burnt
offerings? For did not Moses so direct?
When our forefathers killed witches,
they had the sanction of Moses and no
doubt depended upon him for
authority. It has been said that we are
governed by the dead. We are not only
governed by the dead, but by those who
have been dead four thousand
years.
As long as law sanctions a system of
retaliation, cruelty, and hate, and
practices methods of getting even, what
kind of ideals is it setting before the
individual? Must the individual rise
above the standards and practices set
by government? There cannot be two
standards of right, one for society or
the State and one for the individual.
The law should set an ideal of
righteousness for the individual to
work to, not one that would drag him
down to lower levels.
Jesus taught the supreme law of
kindness. He looked into the depths of
man's soul and
understood every law of his nature. The
wisdom of his rules can be demonstrated
constantly in man's everyday
experience. Kindness is the only
solvent for hatred; in all Nature like
attracts like. Men's attitude to us
will be what our attitude is to them.
If we send out kind thoughts, we
attract kind thoughts; if we send out
malicious thoughts, they return to us
as malicious thoughts. Honest men
attract honest men, and suspicious and
dishonest men attract their own
kind.
What we sow, that we reap. We are
governed by laws fixed and eternal. We
are never better than our thoughts nor
grow beyond our ideals. Our conditions
are measured by our mental and
spiritual images. We get what belongs
to us. We attract that upon which our
thoughts dwell. If we commit crime, it
is because we first admitted criminal
thoughts into our minds. The only
reform is to reform the mind.
Some one asks, How can I love my enemy?
The answer is simple enough, the
accomplishment is easy. If you banish
hatred and malice from your mind, if
you treat other men as you want them to
treat you, you will have no enemies. If
you have enemies, blame yourself, you
made them.
The great lesson for man's
consideration is that we are under the
control of a simple yet inexorable law.
We get what we send. We govern not only
the thoughts we send forth, but those
that return to us as well. Our argosies
come homeward bound, laden with the
same kind of merchandise as on their
outward voyage. John Burroughs sang,
"My own shall come to me." Henry Victor
Morgan has beautifully and truthfully
written:
"There comes to my heart more and
more
This infinite spirit of trust,
That in spite of all earth-seeming
wrongs,
The universe ever is just.
"No matter how heavy the load, nor how
bitter
the trials we have known,
Though broken and crushed in the
dust,
We are reaping just what we have
sown.''
We attract the people who are
attracting us. If we are worthy, we
count the worthy as our friends. There
is also a law of repulsion. We repel
what we are not. The honest man does
not attract the criminal, nor vice
versa. Men foolishly think that the law
of giving as taught by Jesus related
only to money or tangible property. As
usual they misunderstood his meaning.
The law as stated by him embraces
everything man has to give, whether
money, tangible property, kindness,
sympathy, or charity. It likewise
includes the opposite, hatred,
malice, envy, and every evil thought
the mind sends forth.
Give and ye shall receive. How simple
the statement, yet how profound the
law! How lightly has the world valued
this great utterance. Nature is evenly
balanced. We cannot disturb her
equilibrium, but we can fail to find
our own. If men value us, it is because
they see value in us. We weigh
ourselves; we judge our own qualities
and defects; we record the verdict,
other men read it.
The ethical lesson of greatest value is
this, that man is under the dominion of
law, that he cannot escape the
consequences of his own thoughts and
acts. Every unworthy deed brings its
own punishment, and likewise every
worthy act has its own reward. Someone
has wisely said, we are punished not
for our sins, but by our sins. Pindar
sang: "The Gods themselves cannot
annihilate the action that is done."
Most creeds have mistakenly taught man
that he is punished by some being
outside himself, sometimes a capricious
and changeable being. They have devised
ingenious methods by which they thought
he might escape the consequences of his
own acts. Such teaching is unethical
and cannot produce high moral
results.
Man is both the actor and the judge. He
must judge himself. He cannot escape
responsibility. Responsibility is the
foundation of all moral teaching.
Without it man cannot develop
character, and without character there
cannot be any high order of morality.
These are self-evident truths. This is
the only creed worthwhile. It gives
strength for worthy living; it impels
us to a realization of our best and
leads to honest thinking, honest deeds
and honest lives.
Since we can never get beyond the law
of cause and effect, and because
absolute truth is the highest ethical
standard, New Thought has one supreme
test for all teaching. It asks one
question, Is it true? It applies the
pragmatic test to all creeds, dogmas,
religions, philosophies, cults, and
systems of thought. Pragmatic
philosophy does not accept creeds,
dogmas, religions, or theories because
they are old and claim the sanction of
authority, nor does it reject
them because they are new.
Indeed, it is difficult to find
religious or philosophic thought that
is new. Much of modern thought is older
than the creeds and is supported by
authority equally as authentic.
Pragmatism is free from all bias and
all prejudice. It weighs all claims in
equally balanced scales; it hears all
the evidence, it listens to all
arguments; it is moved neither by fear,
nor flattery, and then renders a just
and true verdict. It is an impartial
arbiter. It accepts all creeds, dogmas,
and philosophies on their merits, at
their intrinsic worth.
To all institutions and their creeds
and philosophies pragmatism says, the
burden of proof is upon you. You cannot
rely on authority, tradition, age or
precedents, but you must make good. Are
you able to show that you make better
men and women? Do you give men
something worthy and uplifting to carry
into their daily tasks? Do you work
well in everyday affairs? Do you help
men to solve properly and wisely their
life problems? Do you set before them
the highest motive for honest,
upright, and moral living? Do you place
before men the highest
ethical standards? Do you reveal
to man the limitless powers within
himself? Do you make plain that he must
reap what he has sown, and must accept
the consequences of his own thoughts
and deeds?
If your religion, your philosophy,
creeds or dogmas unequivocally comply
with these tests, pragmatism will
accept them as true. If they do not, it
will reject them as untrue; if your
theories are not true, they are not
ethical. If they do not come up to the
standard of truth, you have no right to
impose them upon man. Make good or quit
talking. No religion should be
encouraged which does not make man
strong, that does not constructively
develop his best qualities and point
him unerringly to the highest
standards.
Pragmatic philosophy demands of all
religions three qualities--truth,
utility, and morality. New Thought
invites these tests to all its
teachings, to which all philosophies,
religions, dogmas, and creeds must
ultimately submit their claims. What is
true of men is also true of religions,
philosophies, and creeds, they must be
known by their fruits, by their effects
upon the lives and characters of
men.
The final test of a creed is not
whether it has remained unchanged for
hundreds of years, but whether it is
giving men and women strength to resist
the temptations of life and build
unassailable moral characters. This is
a utilitarian age in more senses than
one. The religions of today must bow to
this requirement. Whatever is
unethical, whatever tends to weaken the
moral fiber of man, whatever would
relieve the individual of
responsibility, whatever belittles man,
whatever seeks to sap the foundation of
the law of cause and effect, finds no
place in the code and philosophy of New
Thought.
New Thought proclaims a religion for
today, a religion of life, a
constructive religion, a religion
founded on the highest principles of
morality, a religion that brings man
into harmony with Nature and God.
Man cannot be brought to practice
virtue, or a moral life, either by fear
or cruelty, but only as his thought
comes into harmony with that kind of a
life, only as his desires prompt him so
to live it. Whatever awakens in him the
consciousness of his own divinity, and
the possibilities of greater and better
things, whatever leads him on the
upward path, is a long step toward a
normal moral and religious life. When
that consciousness takes hold of man,
he becomes moral and religious by
choice, he lives that kind of a life
because it is attractive, because it
leads him to better things, because it
brings him peace and plenty and into
harmony with God.
