Upon the battlefield of the human soul two masters are ever contending for the
crown of supremacy, for the kingship and dominion of the heart; the master of
self, called also the "Prince of this world," and the master of Truth, called
also the Father God. The master self is that rebellious one whose weapons are
passion, pride, avarice, vanity, self-will, implements of darkness; the master
Truth is that meek and lowly one whose weapons are gentleness, patience, purity,
sacrifice, humility, love, instruments of Light.
In every soul the battle is waged, and as a soldier cannot engage at once in two
opposing armies, so every heart is enlisted either in the ranks of self or of
Truth. There is no half-and-half course; "There is self and there is Truth;
where self is, Truth is not, where Truth is, self is not." Thus spoke
Buddha, the teacher of Truth, and Jesus, the manifested Christ, declared that
"No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the
other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God and Mammon."
Truth is so simple, so absolutely undeviating and uncompromising that it admits
of no complexity, no turning, no qualification. Self is ingenious, crooked, and,
governed by subtle and snaky desire, admits of endless turnings and
qualifications, and the deluded worshipers of self vainly imagine that they can
gratify every worldly desire, and at the same time possess the Truth. But the
lovers of Truth worship Truth with the sacrifice of self, and ceaselessly guard
themselves against worldliness and self-seeking.
Do you seek to know and to realize Truth? Then you must be prepared to
sacrifice, to renounce to the uttermost, for Truth in all its glory can only be
perceived and known when the last vestige of self has disappeared.
The eternal Christ declared that he who would be His disciple must "deny
himself daily." Are you willing to deny yourself, to give up your lusts, your
prejudices, your opinions? If so, you may enter the narrow way of Truth, and
find that peace from which the world is shut out. The absolute denial, the utter
extinction, of self is the perfect state of Truth, and all religions and
philosophies are but so many aids to this supreme attainment.
Self is the denial of Truth. Truth is the denial of self. As you let self die,
you will be reborn in Truth. As you cling to self, Truth will be hidden from
you.
Whilst you cling to self, your path will be beset with difficulties, and
repeated pains, sorrows, and disappointments will be your lot. There are no
difficulties in Truth, and coming to Truth, you will be freed from all sorrow
and disappointment.
Truth in itself is not hidden and dark. It is always revealed and is perfectly
transparent. But the blind and wayward self cannot perceive it. The light of day
is not hidden except to the blind, and the Light of Truth is not hidden except
to those who are blinded by self.
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. You cannot perceive
the beauty of Truth while you are looking out through the eyes of self. If you
are vain, you will color everything with your own vanities. If lustful, your
heart and mind will be so clouded with the smoke and flames of passion, that
everything will appear distorted through them. If proud and opinionative, you
will see nothing in the whole universe except the magnitude and importance of
your own opinions.
There is one quality which pre-eminently distinguishes the man of Truth from the
man of self, and that is humility. To be not only free from vanity, stubbornness
and egotism, but to regard one's own opinions as of no value, this indeed is
true humility.
He who is immersed in self regards his own opinions as Truth, and the opinions
of other men as error. But that humble Truth-lover who has learned to
distinguish between opinion and Truth, regards all men with the eye of charity,
and does not seek to defend his opinions against theirs, but sacrifices those
opinions that he may love the more, that he may manifest the spirit of Truth,
for Truth in its very nature is ineffable and can only be lived. He who has most
of charity has most of Truth.
Men engage in heated controversies, and foolishly imagine they are defending the
Truth, when in reality they are merely defending their own petty interests and
perishable opinions. The follower of self takes up arms against others. The
follower of Truth takes up arms against himself. Truth, being unchangeable and
eternal, is independent of your opinion and of mine. We may enter into it, or we
may stay outside; but both our defense and our attack are superfluous, and are
hurled back upon ourselves.
Men, enslaved by self, passionate, proud, and condemnatory, believe their
particular creed or religion to be the Truth, and all other religions to be
error; and they proselytize with passionate ardor. There is but one religion,
the religion of Truth. There is but one error, the error of self. Truth is not a
formal belief; it is an unselfish, holy, and aspiring heart, and he who has
Truth is at peace with all, and cherishes all with thoughts of love.
You may easily know whether you are a child of Truth or a worshiper of self, if
you will silently examine your mind, heart, and conduct. Do you harbor thoughts
of suspicion, enmity, envy, lust, pride, or do you strenuously fight against
these? If the former, you are chained to self, no matter what religion you may
profess; if the latter, you are a candidate for Truth, even though outwardly you
may profess no religion. Are you passionate, self-willed, ever seeking to gain
your own ends, self-indulgent, and self-centered; or are you gentle, mild,
unselfish, quit of every form of self-indulgence, and are ever ready to give up
your own? If the former, self is your master; if the latter, Truth is the
object of your affection. Do you strive for riches? Do you fight, with passion,
for your party? Do you lust for power and leadership? Are you given to
ostentation and self-praise? Or have you given up the love of riches? Have you
relinquished all strife? Are you content to take the lowest place, and to be
passed by unnoticed? And have you ceased to talk about yourself and to regard
yourself with self-complacent pride? If the former, even though you may imagine
you worship God, the god of your heart is self. If the latter, even though you
may withhold your lips from worship, you are
dwelling with the Most High.
The signs by which the Truth-lover is known are unmistakable. Hear the Holy
Krishna declare them, in Sir Edwin Arnold's beautiful rendering of the "Bhagavad
Gita":
"Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will
Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand
And governed appetites; and piety,
And love of lonely study; humbleness,
Uprightness, heed to injure naught which lives
Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind
That lightly letteth go what others prize;
And equanimity, and charity
Which watches no man's faults; and tenderness
Towards all that suffer; a contented heart,
Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild,
Modest and grave, with manhood nobly mixed,
With patience, fortitude and purity;
An unrevengeful spirit, never given
To rate itself too high--such be the signs,
O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set
On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth!"
When men, lost in the devious ways of error and self, have forgotten the
"heavenly birth," the state of holiness and Truth, they set up artificial
standards by which to judge one another, and make acceptance of, and adherence
to, their own particular theology, the test of Truth; and so men are divided one
against another, and there is ceaseless enmity and strife, and unending sorrow
and suffering.
Reader, do you seek to realize the birth into Truth? There is only one way: Let
self die. All those lusts, appetites, desires, opinions, limited conceptions and
prejudices to which you have hitherto so tenaciously clung, let them fall from
you. Let them no longer hold you in bondage, and Truth will be yours. Cease to
look upon your own religion as superior to all others, and strive humbly to
learn the supreme lesson of charity. No longer cling to the idea, so productive
of strife and sorrow, that the Savior whom you worship is the only Savior, and
that the Savior whom your brother worships with equal sincerity and ardor, is an
impostor; but seek diligently the path of holiness, and then you will realize
that every holy man is a savior of mankind.
The giving up of self is not merely the renunciation of outward things. It
consists of the renunciation of the inward sin, the inward error. Not by giving
up vain clothing; not by relinquishing riches; not by abstaining from certain
foods; not by speaking smooth words; not by merely doing these things is the
Truth found; but by giving up the spirit of vanity; by relinquishing the desire
for riches; by abstaining from the lust of self-indulgence; by giving up all
hatred, strife, condemnation, and self-seeking, and becoming gentle and pure at
heart; by doing these things is the Truth found. To do the former, and not to do
the latter, is
pharisaism and hypocrisy, whereas the latter includes the former. You may
renounce the outward world, and isolate yourself in a cave or in the depths of a
forest, but you will take all your selfishness with you, and unless you renounce
that, great indeed will be your wretchedness and deep your delusion. You may
remain just where you are, performing all your duties, and yet renounce the
world, the inward enemy. To be in the world and yet not of the world is the
highest perfection, the most blessed peace, is to achieve the greatest victory.
The renunciation of self is the way of Truth, therefore,
"Enter the Path; there is no grief like hate,
No pain like passion, no deceit like sense;
Enter the Path; far hath he gone whose foot
Treads down one fond offense."
As you succeed in overcoming self you will begin to see things in their right
relations. He who is swayed by any passion, prejudice, like or dislike, adjusts
everything to that particular bias, and sees only his own delusions. He who is
absolutely free from all passion, prejudice, preference, and partiality, sees
himself as he is; sees others as they are; sees all things in their proper
proportions and right relations. Having nothing to attack, nothing to defend,
nothing to conceal, and no interests to guard, he is at peace. He has realized
the profound simplicity of Truth, for this unbiased, tranquil, blessed state of
mind and heart is the state of Truth. He who attains to it dwells with the
angels, and sits at the footstool of the Supreme. Knowing the Great Law; knowing
the origin of sorrow; knowing the secret of suffering; knowing the way of
emancipation in Truth, how can such a one engage in strife or condemnation; for
though he knows that the blind, self-seeking world, surrounded with the clouds
of its own illusions, and enveloped in the darkness of error and self, cannot
perceive the steadfast Light of Truth, and is utterly incapable of comprehending
the profound simplicity of the heart that has died, or is dying, to self, yet he
also knows that when the suffering ages have piled up mountains of sorrow, the
crushed and burdened soul of the world will fly to its final refuge, and that
when the ages are completed, every prodigal will come back to the fold of Truth.
And so he dwells in goodwill toward all, and regards all with that tender
compassion which a father bestows upon his wayward children.
Men cannot understand Truth because they cling to self, because they believe in
and love self, because they believe self to be the only reality, whereas it is
the one delusion. When you cease to believe in and love self you will
desert it, and will fly to Truth, and will find the eternal Reality.
When men are intoxicated with the wines of luxury, and pleasure, and vanity, the
thirst of life grows and deepens within them, and they delude themselves with
dreams of fleshly immortality, but when they come to reap the harvest of their
own sowing, and pain and sorrow supervene, then, crushed and humiliated,
relinquishing self and all the intoxications of self, they come, with aching
hearts to the one immortality, the immortality that destroys all delusions, the
spiritual immortality in Truth.
Men pass from evil to good, from self to Truth, through the dark gate of sorrow,
for sorrow and self are inseparable. Only in the peace and bliss of Truth is all
sorrow vanquished. If you suffer disappointment because your cherished plans
have been thwarted, or because someone has not come up to your anticipations, it
is because you are clinging to self. If you suffer remorse for your conduct, it
is because you have given way to self. If you are overwhelmed with chagrin and
regret because of the attitude of someone else toward you, it is because you
have been cherishing self. If you are wounded on account of what has been done
to you or said of you, it is because you are walking in the painful way of self.
All suffering is of self. All suffering ends in Truth. When you have entered
into and realized Truth, you will no longer suffer disappointment, remorse, and
regret, and sorrow will flee from you.
"Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul;
Truth is the only angel that can bid the gates unroll;
And when he comes to call thee, arise and follow fast;
His way may lie through darkness, but it leads to light at
last."
The woe of the world is of its own making. Sorrow purifies and deepens the soul,
and the extremity of sorrow is the prelude to Truth.
Have you suffered much? Have you sorrowed deeply? Have you pondered seriously
upon the problem of life? If so, you are prepared to wage war against self, and
to become a disciple of Truth.
The intellectual who do not see the necessity for giving up self, frame endless
theories about the universe, and call them Truth; but do thou pursue that direct
line of conduct which is the practice of righteousness, and thou wilt realize
the Truth which has no place in theory, and which never changes. Cultivate your
heart. Water it continually with unselfish love and deep-felt pity, and strive
to shut out from it all thoughts and feelings which are not in accordance with
Love. Return good for evil, love for hatred, gentleness for ill-treatment, and
remain silent when attacked. So shall you transmute all your selfish desires
into the pure gold of Love, and self will disappear in Truth. So will you walk
blamelessly among men, yoked with the easy yoke of lowliness, and clothed with
the divine garment of humility.
O come, weary brother! thy struggling and striving
Across self's drear desert why wilt thou be
driving.
When here, by the path of thy searching and sinning,
Flows Life's gladsome stream, lies Love's oasis
green?
Come, turn thou and rest; know the end and beginning,
The sought and the searcher, the seer and seen.
Thy Master sits not in unreachable mountains,
Nor dwells in the mirage which floats on the air,
Nor shalt thou discover His magical fountains
In pathways of sand that encircle despair.
In selfhood's dark desert cease wearily seeking
The odorous tracks of the feet of thy King;
And if thou wouldst hear the sweet sound of His speaking,
Be deaf to all voices that emptily sing.
Flee the vanishing places; renounce all thou hast;
Leave all that thou lovest, and, naked and bare,
Thyself at the shrine of the Innermost cast;
The Highest, the Holiest, the Changeless is
there.
Within, in the heart of the Silence He dwelleth;
Leave sorrow and sin, leave thy wanderings sore;
Come bathe in His Joy, whilst He, whispering, telleth
Thy soul what it seeketh, and wander no more.
Then cease, weary brother, thy struggling and striving;
Find peace in the heart of the Master of Being.
Across self's dark desert cease wearily driving;
Come; drink at the beautiful waters of Seeing.
Original text by James Allen, edited and revised by Dainial MacÀdhaimh - this revised text © 2005. Please note: all applicable material on this website is protected by law and may not be copied without express written permission.
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