SELF-DISCOVERY
W.
John Murray
New
Thoughts on Old Doctrines
Divine Science Publishing Co.
New York, N.Y., 1918
[33] “Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God: therefore the
world knoweth us not, because it knew him
not.
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and
it doth not yet appear what we shall be:
but we know that, when he shall appear,
we shall be like him; for we shall know
him as he is.
"We know that whosoever is born of God
sinneth not; but he that is begotten of
God keepeth himself, and that wicked one
toucheth him not.
"And we know that the Son of God is come,
and hath given us an understanding, that
we may know him that is true, and we are
in him that is true, even in his Son
Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and
eternal life.
"Him that overcometh will make a pillar
in the temple of my God, and he shall go
no more out: and I will write upon him
the name of my God, and the name of the
city of my God, which is New Jerusalem,
which cometh down out of heaven from my
God: and I will write upon him my new
name.”
[34]
BLANK
[35]
SELF-DISCOVERY
“After that day
ye shall know that I am in the Father,
and ye in me and I in you.” -ST.
JOHN 14:20.
In the world of
scientific discovery, there is nothing
that is quite so important as the
discovery of self. We are very much
concerned about discovering new
continents, new planets and North and
South Poles; rarely ever do we bestow a
thought upon the greatest of all these
discoveries, which is the discovery of
that which constitutes the reality of
man.
We seem to have
innumerable selves. In fact, modern
psychology speaks of multiple
personalities. Every man seems to be a
duality of selves at least. In some
instances, as in the instance of Sarah
Beauchamp, we have what we call a trinity
of personalities, but there is in all of
us a veritable gallery of personalities.
Sometimes I am reminded of [36] this when
I look in shop windows and see a
photograph of the same individual taken
evidently at the same time in various
positions. One looks at us directly,
another casts a side-long glance at us
and another has its back quite turned to
us. This is one of the tricks of modern
photography. We see seated at a table the
same individual, but it looks like a
veritable host of individuals. And so it
is with this strange thing that we call
the human self, a peculiar mixture of
moods, emotions, temperaments,
sensations. We speak of ourselves as
being ill one day and well another. We
speak of ourselves as being capable of
doing almost anything one day, and the
next day we are quite incapable of doing
anything at all. Surely these concepts of
self--which is all they are, by the
way--cannot bear any real relation to the
self that is. When all of these selves
are paraded before our mental vision,
when we sit on the reviewing stand of
divine Intelligence and see these varied
selves of ours that pass in review before
us, we are inclined to smile because they
are so peculiarly unlike [37] what we
want ourselves to be. The self of
yesterday is not the self of today; the
self of today is not the self of
tomorrow; the self of our childhood, of
our adolescence, youth and early manhood
is something upon which we look back very
frequently with regret and wish that we
might recall a great many of the things
that the self of those days thought and
did. The self of tomorrow, with its
suggestions of old age and weakness, is
not the self that we like to think about.
And yet, all of these together seem to
form the composite photograph of the real
you.
What is it that sits
in judgment upon all of these varied and
various selves? Is it not you, you, your
own very self? Are you not the reviewing
judge, because back of all these varied
phenomena of the self, there you sit
calmly enthroned thinking about the days
of your infancy, youth, middle life, if
you happen to be getting along in years,
or perhaps thinking of the time in your
middle life when you will be that which
you desire to be, or perhaps dreaming of
what you desire [38] to be in old age;
all of these selves are paraded before
you for your own examination and review
and criticism, if you
please.
Surely the self as
knower must be something different from
the self as known, the self as knower
must be something different from that
which the self seems to be, because the
self which seems to be is little more
than merely physical, a body, if you
please, with a mysterious Soul supposedly
inside of it, but back of all this
strange parade of your own multiple
personalities, there you are, the quiet,
thoughtful, and I may say, dignified
spectator of the whole phantasmagoria. It
is you who are passing judgment upon the
whole situation.
And what is this
you, for the necessity of
self-discovery leads up to this giant
inquiry--What am I? Where am I? Whence
came I? Whither go I?--these are the
questions which always perplex the
inquiring soul. They never trouble the
stupid person. They never trouble the
confirmed inebriate. Nor do they ever
trouble the chronic idiot. They are the
questions which [39] are always agitating
the soul of him who would know, because
he is the knower. He must know what he
is; not what he has been, not what he is
going to become, but what he is, because
this the science of ontology insists
upon. In this it differs from the science
of evolution. In this it differs from the
science of immortality or theology. The
science of ontology demands that a man
know not what he has been in a past
incarnation, not what he is going to
become in a future incarnation, but what
he really is today, this moment, now; he
must know himself. The oracle of old is
just as new as it ever was--know
thyself.
What is the most
popular concept of self? Is it not that
of one who apparently comes out of
nothing into visibility and disappears
again out of something into invisibility?
Is it not that of a mortal who dances
across the stage of human experience,
entering by one wing and making its exit
by another, applauded perhaps or hissed,
as the case may be, according to its
successes or its failures, approved or
condemned according to its [40] successes
or its failures--and this by the self as
knower?
It is very evident
that if we are to succeed in life, that
if we are to rise above the limitations
of sense and time and trouble, we must
come to a larger and a more complete
understanding of what we are, because no
man can know his capacities, his
capabilities, until he knows what he
himself is. And, when he knows what he
himself is, then begins the slow, gradual
ascent above what we call personal
limitations, because when the individual
comes into a consciousness of the reality
of himself, then does he discover his
potential powers, then does he realize
his unity with that great Self of the
universe which is God.
The unity of man with
God is not a new truth. It may be a new
thought to some of us today, but a new
truth--not at all. It was emphasized in
the Upanishad long before the birth of
Jesus. It was re-emphasized, reiterated
and demonstrated, which is better, by
Jesus. The recognition of man's unity
with God is the basis of all [41]
success. It is the very foundation-stone
of all that is great and noble and
worthwhile in this world. The stream of
consciousness upon which floats all the
good, bad and indifferent experiences of
the individual is not the self, the body
is not the self, nay, the mind is not the
self. The body which has repeatedly
changed itself, according to physiology,
which is not the self that it was last
year, which is assuredly not the self
that it was in youth or childhood or
before birth; the body, which, according
to physiology, has put off every cell of
itself during the past eleven months,
surely this is not the self. The
evanescent, the ever-moving, the
ever-appearing and disappearing, surely
this is not the self. And yet, how many
people think of it as the self, look upon
it as the self, regard their state of
life and health and strength by what they
call bodily conditions, judging
themselves by the bodily appearances,
doing exactly what Jesus said man should
not do.
The mind is not the
self. Why? Because the mind is mutable,
the mind is torn [42] between its varied
and various emotions, now filled with
fear and terror and again with courage,
and hope, and strength; now pure, again
impure; now thinking aesthetic, spiritual
thoughts, tomorrow vulgar and unspiritual
ones; at the mercy of every wind that
blows, whether it be a doctrinal wind or
a wind of adversity or pleasure. Surely
this is not the self!
Self-discovery
consists in getting back of the body,
getting back of the mind which forms the
body, to the divine Reality, to that
immutable Center which is always one with
the great, changeless Self of the world.
When Jesus said, "I and my Father are
one," the vulgar people of his day did
not understand him, because it requires
ears to hear; that is, it requires
spiritual perception to take in such a
wonderful spiritual truth. In like
manner, the vulgar of today do not
understand it. The "I" of you is indeed
one with the Father, because it is that
which has never known sin, has never
known sickness--which is the direct
consequence of sin; it has never known
anything but that which is [43] true; it
is incapable of beholding anything but
the brightness of its own glory. It is
like the sun; it sees only that upon
which its vision rests. It never beholds
the shadows of fear or failure, sin or
sickness. It is always serene with the
serenity of the great, universal Self. It
is not to be touched, as the ancients
said, by fire or flood. It is that center
of man's being which is ever the same,
like God, yesterday and today and
forever. Until we find ourselves as a
spiritual entity, subject neither to
birth, growth, maturity nor decay, we
shall never know the self, we shall ever
speculate about the self and that will
appear to be the self which is not; we
shall be self-conscious,
self-condemnatory, self-approving, and
all of the time that which we condemn and
approve will not be the self at all, but
the shadow cast by our wrong thinking;
the Self in reality remains ever the
same.
The self is never
found by looking outside. The self is
ever found by entering into the great
within. It is not enough that we quiet
bodily emotions, it is not enough that
[44] we subdue bodily twitchings, it is
not enough that we quiet turbulent
thought, though these are the necessary
steps leading to the great valley of
silence. The silence is not the control
of the body nor the control of thoughts
by mental forces or powers quite so much
as it is the deep, tranquil,
self-conscious communion with God. Out of
this and through this and by this the
mind becomes tranquil and serene and the
body responds to it in terms of health
and joy, gladness and
power.
Self-discovery is the
most essential thing in the universe. Of
what avail is it that we discover new
planets, that we find the North Pole, of
what avail is it that we discover oil,
precious pearls in the sea and rubies in
the mines? Of what avail is it that we
convince ourselves that Mars is
inhabited, if we have no spiritual sense
of self? "For what shall it profit a
man,” said Jesus, "if he shall gain
the whole world and lose his own soul?"
Soul means spiritual self. What doth it
profit a man, indeed, if he acquire all
the things of earth and all the joys of
the orthodox [45] heaven, if he doesn't
know himself and his capacities and
capabilities? Of what avail is it? What
pleasure would an idiot find in heaven?
What pleasure would a sick man find in
the orthodox heaven? All of the joy and
all the gladness and all the peace and
power in the universe consists in finding
one's self.
And, when the self is
found, what do we find? We find God,
because the discovery of self is really
the discovery of God. The reality of one
is the reality of the other, and herein
lies the explanation of these wonderful,
mystic words of Jesus, at that day, at
that day when your eyes are opened to
the facts of Divine Science, at that
day when Truth dawns upon your
awakened consciousness, ye shall know,
know beyond peradventure, know beyond the
shadow of a doubt, "that I am in the
Father and the Father in me,” I in
you, ye in me and, we in all. Here is the
mystic statement of the inseverability of
Realities. Here is the mystic utterance
of one who knew that cause and effect and
consequence are inseparable [46] as is
the sun and the light and the warmth
thereof.
Man cannot exist
without God, and may I say without being
accused of blasphemy, that God cannot
exist without man? Effect cannot exist
without cause and neither can cause exist
without effect. The Father cannot exist
without the Son; neither can the Son
exist without the Father. Here is the
inseparability of God and man and the
faculties and functions of the
individual. When this truth concerning
the self becomes more apparent to human
consciousness, we shall see how
impossible, how utterly and absolutely
impossible it is for anything to injure
the self. In moments of temptation, it
will be the grand safeguard against
difficulties, against pains, against
perplexities; in moments of temptation,
when the temptation always comes to
believe that self can in some wise be
injured by someone else, by something
else, by some event or prospective
calamity, when the temptation comes to
believe that the self can become ill,
poor and die--then arises this wonderful
consciousness [47] that says to the
individual, the self is superior to all,
the self is greater than all the selves
that are paraded before us, because,
after all, these are nothing more nor
less than more or less imperfect concepts
of what the self really
is.
We can conceive of
ourselves as human beings, mortal,
mutable, and, according to our
conception, we are, because verily, as a
man thinketh in his heart so must he be
in his external manifestations. We can
conceive of ourselves as going through
all the ramifications of human
experience. We are born, we go to school,
we graduate, we go into the great
university of hard knocks, we suffer all
kinds of tribulations and temptations,
and then we marvel about what is going to
become of us after death. All of these
are speculations, foolish speculations,
based upon foolish concepts of what the
self really is. The old oracle, "Know
thyself," was not amiss, after all,
because to know the self does not lessen
man's vigorous pursuits of knowledge
along other legitimate lines. It would
not interfere with Peary [48] going after
the North Pole. It would not interfere
with the legitimate pursuit of wealth. It
would not interfere with the legitimate
pursuit of pleasure. On the contrary, it
would add zest to inquiry. It would add
to discovery strength and not fatigue.
Men would pursue all their legitimate
investigations through the knowledge of
what the self really is with greater
power. We should increase not only in
heavenly Truth but in worldly wisdom that
is not illegitimate. As the soul expands
in the direction of its own reality, the
intellect also expands as a natural
consequence. But how many men have
developed the intellect at the expense of
the soul? By the soul, I mean the self,
the self that is at-one with God.
If we could always keep before us, and
may I say we can--I use the word "if"
because it has been a habit with most of
us to feel that we can't always retain a
spiritual consciousness of ourselves,
that we must occasionally go down
into the depths,--we must from
time to time be impressed by one or many
of these varied [49] selves of ours that
parade before our vision like ghosts of
the night. This is not so, however,
because there is a science, which, like
all other sciences, requires
concentration, which will enable the
individual to rest sublimely, serenely,
comfortably in the thought of the reality
of self as a spiritual
entity.
Some say this is
altogether too idealistic, that this
philosophy is quite apt to take an
individual out of the world of common
affairs, that this is quite apt to make a
man an impractical visionary. My dear
friends, it doesn't make an automobile
less useful because you see that the tank
is filled with gasoline and that the
machinery is in good running order. It
doesn't make machinery in a factory less
useful because you take excellent care of
it and govern it from below in the
engine-house. It ought not to make an
individual less useful in the world
because he is able persistently to
contemplate his reality, his divinity. On
the contrary, is it not the storehouse of
refreshment? Is not the great Self
understood a reservoir of strength
and power and majesty and sublimity? [50]
Is it not to this that you turn in a
moment of fatigue for refreshment, in a
moment of sickness for health, in a
moment of temptation for a power of
resistance? Is it not to this always that
you turn? In some mysterious way, we seem
to feel, long before we come into the
larger study of things, that all of this
that is transpiring on the surface is not
us. The we of us, the
us of us, the you of
you and the I of
myself seems to reason about all
of these experiences, and we sometimes
ignorantly or instinctively arrive at the
conclusion that these are no more a true
part of our being than is the wart upon
the hand,--an excrescence, a sediment
that is gathering in the water of life, a
something that is interrupting and
interfering with our natural progress.
But, heretofore, in our ignorance we have
come to the belief that this was just as
natural as the other part of it, that
sickness is just as natural as health.
You can’t be well always, says one;
and the great majority say, “But
you must die sometime or other.”
How persistently we have [51] argued for
the necessity of death! And yet Jesus
said, “If a man believe on me, he
shall never taste death.” Was he
speaking of the physical? Ah! there is
the thing, you see. My dear friends, when
you come into the larger idea of the
self, the physical disappears; the
spiritual is all. When this fuller
thought of man’s individuality, of
man’s true ego dawns upon your
consciousness, the physical disappears
just as does your old garment,--you no
longer think of the physical; you live in
the spiritual.
Ah! says one, if you
live always in the spiritual, the body is
quite apt to suffer from neglect. For
centuries men have bestowed the greatest
care upon the body, and yet it has died,
not from neglect but from overcare. We
have pandered to it. We have patted it
and comforted it. The flesh doesn’t
give life to the Spirit. The very
reverse,- "the spirit that quickeneth" is
the deep, underlying conviction of the
individual that the all of him from
center to circumference is purely
spiritual. That is what [52] makes him
immune, which renders him superior to the
elements. He says of himself, "I am
spiritual through and through; I am not
physical and subject to physical laws.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and disease and death." He takes
refuge in the great truth that his self,
his real self is divine, not mortal;
spiritual not material.
The discovery of the
self, then, you see, is not the least
important discovery in the world. Yea,
though we discover all the planets in the
planetary system, though we discover all
the pearls in the sea and all the rubies
in the mine and all the oil in the land
and all of the new continents, and
strange, mysterious hemispheres, and we
do not find ourselves, of what avail is
it? No wonder that Jesus, that simple man
who reduced all these great complexities
of life to simple utterances, said, "what
shall it profit a man, if he gain the
whole world," of what advantage is it;
naked we came into it, naked we shall go
out of it. Why lay so much stress on this
little song and dance on the vaudeville
[53] stage of human experiences, coming
in at one wing and going out at the
other? Why emphasize it? It isn’t
all there is of being. It isn’t all
there is of self. It isn’t anything
of being. It isn’t anything of
self. It is the great illusion, and yet
it is so real to the majority, and
because it is so real we suffer, we
sicken, we die. Because it is so real, we
minister to what we call the body, its
passions, its pains--they are all catered
to, loved and feared. And all of the time
the self, as Emerson puts it, “lies
there stretched in smiling repose,”
watching the great procession of things
and not paying any attention
particularly. The self of you is mighty
and the self of you is in God; the self
of God is in you. The self of God and you
are in your neighbor, and the self of
your neighbor is in you and God. There is
only one, Supreme Self in the universe.
It can neither sin, suffer nor be sick.
It is never born, never grows, never
matures, never dies. It is always the
same, and it is this which sits in
judgment upon that which comes into
birth, grows, matures and dies. [54] It
is that which sits the silent, observant
witness of a lot of
foolishness.
What are YOU?
According to one system, you are mud,
made of the dust of the ground, a soul
breathed into your nostril. According to
another system, you are mind. Well, you
may take your choice. No man, when the
question is put squarely up to him, wants
to be mud. No man, when he thinks
seriously about himself, wants to think
that he is confined to a mortal body
subject to mortal laws. When you present
the picture of the divine self, which is
the only self, to an individual and his
eyes are opened so that he can see what
you are showing to him, then he says,
"This is the idea of self I want. I want
the self that is forever indissolubly
connected with God. I want the self that
never varies. I want the self that
realizes all the beauty and harmony and
health and peace and joy in the universe.
I want the self that can never be severed
from the Infinite." We all do, and Divine
Science has come to aid us in the
discovery of this most important thing in
the universe.
[55] When you are
tempted to think of yourself as being
sick, hereafter you are going to ask
yourself what yourself is, and
then you are going to ask if that self is
divine, the image and likeness of God,
the reflection of the One altogether
lovely. You are going to ask yourself if
that self which is the only self of you
can be sick. When you are tempted to sin,
you are going to ask yourself if that
self, the real self, the immortal self of
you, is subject to sin, and according to
your answers, so will it be done unto
you, because the answers will be in
accord with Truth. The answer will be
that you are not subject to sin, sickness
nor disease. The answer will be forever
and always that as the image and likeness
of God, you are perpetually the same,
yesterday, today and forever. Neither
youth nor old age can affect you. Nothing
can by any means hurt you, and that is
what Jesus meant. But, the you to
Jesus meant an entirely different thing
from what the you meant to most of
his hearers. The you to most of
them meant that which is constantly
shedding itself, [56] which is constantly
giving itself off, as the rattler puts
off its skin periodically, which is
constantly sloughing away, which is not
the same one day physically or
emotionally--that was the idea of the
you to most of the people. But
that was not the thought in the mind of
Jesus when he said, “Nothing shall
by any means hurt you.” He meant
you in your entirety,--spirit,
soul and spiritual body. The you
is a most important thing. Don’t
let us forget it. Let us spend our days,
aye, our nights in finding this self of
ours, this changeless self which ever
remains the same, which looks out upon
the selves as so many parodies of itself.
Maintain the attitude toward all of these
personal selves of yours that you would
maintain to just so many proofs of the
photograph of yours that the photographer
sends home to you today or tomorrow or
whenever you have your photograph taken.
This you accept; that you reject. Why?
Because you say, “That is not
myself at all. It isn’t a bit like
me.” That is your divine privilege;
it is your human [57] privilege. If none
of them look like you, then you return
them all and don't give an order. If none
of these concepts of yourself in your own
mental art gallery measure up to your
idea of self, put them out. If the proof
that is returned to you from the
photographer is that of a sickly person,
put it out and declare, "I myself am
well", because now you know what the self
is. This interpretation of the self is
neither mystical nor mysterious. Neither
is it far-fetched. It is based upon exact
science. It is based upon the discovery
of what the self really is, and when it
finds lodgment in human consciousness,
then the individual becomes a power, a
minister of God in His righteousness, a
self-healer and a healer of other men. No
longer is he mystified nor misled by the
things which appear to be, because always
within, in the center of his soul, there
is the consciousness of himself as the
divine idea. This is salvation; this is
health, healing,
harmony.
Chapter
3
* * * * *
New Thoughts on Old
Doctrines
Table of
Contents
(Formerly at
Northwoods Divine Science Resource
Center)
