CHAPTER 1

A common expression on the lips of many is the reiteration that mankind todaywith all its ills and aberrations, flounders blindly in a terrible morass.Death-dealing and with octopus-like tentacles of destruction, this morassclutches him more and more firmly to its breast, albeit with great subtlety andwith stealth. Civilization, curiously enough, modern civilization, is its name.The tentacles which are the unwitting instruments of its catastrophic blowsreach out from the diseased structure, false and loathsome, of the decayingsocial system and the set of values wherein we are involved. And now, the entirefabric of the social world appears in process of disintegration. The structureof national organization would appear to be veering from economic ruin to thatfinal crazy lurch which may see it disappear over the gaping precipice tocomplete destruction. Rooted firmly in the fullness of the individual life, thehitherto stout bulwarks of our life are threatened as never have they beenbefore. More and more impossible does it seem with the setting of each sun foranyone to retain even the slightest portion of his divine heritage,individuality, and to exert that which makes him man. Despite being born in ourage and time, those few individuals who are aware with a certainty in whichthere is no doubt of a destiny propelling them imperiously forward to thefulfilment of their ideal natures, constitute perhaps the sole exceptions.These, the minority, are the born Mystics, the Artists and Poets, those who seebeyond the veil and bring back the light of beyond. Included within the mass,however, is yet another minority who, while not fully conscious of an all-compellingdestiny, nor the nature of its deeper self, aspires to be differentfrom the complacent masses. With an inner anxiety it is restless to obtain anabiding spiritual integrity. It is mercilessly ground underfoot by the socialsystem of which it is a part, and harshly ostracized by the mass of its fellows.The verities and possibilities of a reintegrating contact with reality, onewhich can be instigated here and now, during life and not necessarily upon thedeath of the body, are blindly ignored. The attitude, singularly unwise, adoptedby the greater part of modern "intelligent" European humanity towards thisaspiration constitutes a grave danger to the race. It has permitted itsel onlytoo eagerly to forget that upon which it actually depends, and from which it isconstantly nourished and sustained in both its inward and outward life. Avidlyseizing upon the fluctuating evanescence of the hasty exterior existence, itsnegligence of affairs spiritual, as well as its impatience with the more farseeingof its fellows, is a mark of extreme race-weariness and nostalgia.

It is a well-worn saying but one none the less true and none the less worthy ofrepetition, inasmuch as it expresses peculiarly the situation now widelyprevalent, that "where there is no vision the people perish." Mankind as awhole, or more particularly the Western element, has lost in someincomprehensible way its spiritual vision. An heretical barrier has been erectedseparating itself from that current of life and vitality which even now, despitewilful impediment and obstacle, pulses and vibrates passionately in the blood,pervading the whole of universal form and structure. The anomalies presented todayare due to this rank absurdity. Mankind s slowly accomplishing its ownsuicide. A self-strangulation is being effected through a suppression of allindividuality, in the spiritual sense, and all that made it human. It continuesto withhold the spiritual atmosphere from its lungs, so to speak. And havingsevered itself from the eternal and never-ceasing sources of light and life andinspiration, it has deliberately blinded itself to the fact—than which no othercould compare in importance—that there is a dynamic principle both within andwithout from which it has accomplished a divorce. The result is inner lethargy,chaos, and the disintegration of all that formerly was held to be ideal andsacred.

Laid down centuries ago, the doctrine taught by the Buddha commends itself to meas providing a possible reason for this divorce, chaos and decay. To themajority of people existence is inevitably bound up with suffering and sorrowand pain. Now although Buddha did teach that life was fraught with pain andmisery, I am inclined to believe, when remembering the psychology of Mysticismand of Mystics, whose peer he undoubtedly was, that this viewpoint was adoptedby him only to spur men forward from chaos to the attainment of a superior modeof life. Once the viewpoint of the personal ego, the outcome of ages ofevolution, has been transcended man may see the iron fetters of ignorance rollaway to reveal an untrammelled vision of supreme beauty, the world as a livingthing and a joy for ever and ever. Is there not for all to see the beauty of theSun and the Moon, the pageantry of the changing seasons in the year, the sweetmusic of daybreak, and the spell of nights under the open sky? What of the rainfalling through the leaves of trees towering to the gates of heaven, and the dewin early morning creeping over the grass, tipping it with spear-points ofsilver? Most readers will have heard of the experience of the great GermanMystic, Jacob Boehme, who, after his divine beatific vision, walked into thegreen fields close to his village, beholding the whole of Nature ablaze with soglorious a light that even the tender blades of grass were resplendent with adivine loveliness and beauty that never had he seen before. Great Mystic thatthe Buddha was—beyond perhaps any other within the knowledge of the averagereader—and great his insight into the working of the human mind, it isimpossible to accept on its face value his pronouncement that life and livingare a curse. Rather do I feel that this philosophic attitude was adopted by himin the hope that once again might mankind be induced to seek the inimitablewisdom which it had lost, to restore the inner equilibrium and the harmony ofsoul, thus fulfilling its destiny unrestricted by sense and mind. Preventingthis ecstatic enjoyment of life and all that the sacrament...