War Letters from the Living Dead Man (15 page)

One service Germany will have done the world; she will have hardened it. It is a tragic service, and one that will turn against herself. Many a parent by his blind brutality has made his son a greater brute than he. Many a man by wounding a friend has been stabbed to the soul in return. The friend may be harder than before, but has he profited? Perhaps. Experience is an asset. Man grows by pain as well as by pleasure. If the brutality of Germany makes the races of Europe more vigorous, they are the gainers—not Germany. The Doctor who gives too bitter medicine is sent about his business, sometimes without his fee. There was once a “mental” scientist who declared that it was not necessary for his daughter to practice the piano; that all she needed to do was to affirm that she was a pianist, and she would be one. Germany is in the position of the daughter who had acted on that teaching, and has become the horror of the neighborhood. She is in danger of being dispossessed as a public nuisance. 

Also an aggregation of individuals making one assertion do not necessarily have an effect in proportion to their numbers.

Do you remember what I wrote you about white and black magicians, that two who worked together for good had the power of four, and that two who worked together for evil had only the power of one and a half? Now what is Germany working for in this combined effort? Solely for herself—exactly like the black magician. So deep has the German conceit sunk into the German soul, that they really believe that in occupying and enslaving other countries they would be doing them a favor. No, I am not exaggerating. I have heard Germans make that humorless statement.

Lunatic asylums are full of men who assert that they are kings, and an occasional inmate declares himself the King of kings. These patients are even more fully convinced than are the Germans, who assert their kingship. If assertion alone can transcend fact, these men are kings. Are they? To themselves they are, and the Germans are just as surely “over all” as are the straw-crowned kings in the asylums. It is useless to argue with a king in a straw crown. He has an irresistible argument—his crown. Can you not see it? If you do not salute, he turns his back and walks away.

But even a king in a lunatic asylum may be cured and restored to a sane equality with his peers. That is what I hope for Germany. That is what the Masters hope—for Germany stands high in the record book of the masters. A king in a straw crown has not lost his soul through his false assertion of kingship. He is an immortal Son of God. His spirit is as genuine as yours or mine. His error is only temporary, and is generally caused by brooding too long over imagined wrongs and slights. Not unlike Germany. When this idea of superiority began to fester in the minds of that noble people, they were not a great nation. They felt their wrongs and the slights put upon them. The only escape for their wounded egoism was into the world of the mind, where assertion has free play. They turned their backs and plaited their straw crowns. They were kings, and anyone who did not see it was unworthy of the honor of their friendship.

Then, their madness having taken a violent form, came the great doctor, War, and confined them in a relatively narrow space; but the small people they knocked down in their first attack of violence still lie prostrate from the blow. The heirs of these kings will have to pay damages. The law of nations is even more just than the laws of men. Who dares to say that a State has no morals? Is a State spiritually inferior to a man? No more than a Planetary Spirit is inferior to a State. There is a cosmic morality, and whoever goes against it—whether a State or a man—will meet the day of reckoning. Karma is a law.

April 29

Letter 34

The Sylph and the Father

Passing yesterday along the line where the great French army stands before its powerful opponent, and marking the spirit of courage and aspiration which makes it seem like a long line of living light, I saw a familiar face in the regions outside the physical. I paused, highly pleased at the encounter, and the sylph—for it was a sylph whom I met—paused also with a little smile of recognition. Do you recall in my former book the story of a sylph, Merilene, who was the companion and familiar of a student of magic who lived in the rue de Vaugirard in Paris? It was Merilene that I met above the line of light which shows to wanderers in the astral regions where the soldiers of la belle France fight and die for the same ideal which inspired Jeanne d’ Arc—to drive the foreigner out of France.

“Where is your friend and master?” I asked the sylph, and she pointed below to a trench which spoke loud its determination to conquer. “I am here, to be still with him,” she said. “And can you speak to him here?” I asked. “I can always speak with him,” she answered. “I have been very useful to him—and to France.” “To France?” I enquired, with growing interest. “Oh, yes! When his commanding officer wants to know what is being plotted over there, he often asks my friend, and my friend asks me.” “Truly,” I thought, “the French are an inspired people, when the officers of armies ask guidance from the realm of the invisible! But had not Jeanne her visions?” “And how do you gain the information desired?” I asked, drawing nearer to Merilene, who seemed more serious than when we met some years before in Paris. “Why,” she answered, “I go over there and look around me. I have learned what to look for, he has taught me, and when I bring him news he rewards me with more love.” “And do you love him still, as of old?”

“As of old?” “Yes, as you did back there in Paris.” “Time must have passed slowly with you,” said the sylph, “if you call a few years ago ‘as of old’.” “Are a few years, then, as nothing?” “A few years are as nothing to me,” she replied. “I have lived a long time.” “And do you know the future of your friend?” I asked. A puzzled look came over the face of Merilene, and she said, slowly: “I used to know everything that would happen to him, because I could read his will, and whatever he willed came to pass; but since we have been out here he seems to have lost his will.” “Lost his will!” I exclaimed, in surprise. “Yes, lost his will; for he prays continually to a great Being whom he loves far more than me, and he always prays one prayer, ‘Thy will be done!’ It used to be his will which was always done; but now, as I say, he seems to have lost his will.” “Perhaps,” I said, “it is true of the will as was once said of the life, and he that loses his will shall find it.”

“I hope he will find it soon,” she answered, “for in the old days he was always giving me interesting things to do, to help him achieve the purposes of his will, and now he only sends me over there. I don’t like over there!” “Why not?” “Because my friend is menaced by something over there.” “And what has his will to do with that?” “Why, even about that, he says all day to the great Being that he loves so much more than me, ‘Thy will be done’.” “Do you think you could learn to say it, too?” I asked. “I say it after him sometimes; but I don’t know what it means.” “Have you never heard of God?” “I have heard of many gods, of Isis and Osiris and Set, and of Horus, the son of Osiris.” “And is it to one of these that he says, ‘Thy will be done’?” “Oh, no! It is not to any of the gods that he used to call upon in his magical working. This is some new god that he has found.” “Or the oldest of all gods that he has returned to,” I suggested. “What does he call Him?”

“Our Father who art in heaven.” “If you also should learn to say ‘Thy will be done’ to our Father who is in heaven,” I said, “it might help you toward the attainment of that soul you were wanting and waiting for, when last we met in Paris.” “How could our Father help me?” “It was he who gave souls to men,” I said. The eyes of the sylph were brilliant with something almost human. “And could He give a soul to me?” “It is said that He can do anything.” “Then I will ask Him for a soul.” “But to ask him for a soul,” I said, “is not to pray the prayer your friend prays.” “He only says-----” “Yes, I know. Suppose you say it after him.” “I will, if you will tell me what it means. I like to do what my friend does.” “Thy will be done,” I said, “when addressed to the Father in heaven, means that we give up all our desires, whether for pleasure or love or happiness, or anything else, and lay all those desires at His feet, sacrificing all we have or hope for to Him, because we love Him more than ourselves.”

“That is a strange way to get what one desires,” she said. “It is not done to get what one desires,” I answered. “But what is it done for?” “For love of the Father in heaven.” “But I do not know the Father in heaven. What is He?” “He is the Source and the Goal of the being of your friend. He is the One that your friend will re-become some day, if he can forever say to Him, Thy will be done.” “The One he will re-become?” “Yes, for when he blends his will with that of the Father in heaven, the Father in heaven dwells in his heart and the two become one.” “Then is the Father in heaven really the Self of my friend?” “The greatest philosopher could not have expressed it more truly,” I said. “Then indeed do I love the Father in heaven,” breathed the sylph, “and I will say now every day and all day, ‘Thy will be done’ to Him.” “Even if it separates you from your friend?”

“How can it separate me from my friend, if the Father is the Self of him?” “I would that all angels were your equal in learning,” I said. But Merilene had turned to me in utter forgetfulness, and was saying over and over, with joy in her uplifted face, “Thy will be done! Thy will be done!” “Truly,” I said to myself, as I passed along the line, “he who worships the Father as the Self of the beloved has already acquired a soul.”

April 29

Letter 35

Behind the Dark Veil

One night, when the roar of the battle was still, and the rays of the full moon shone down upon trampled mud, and man-filled trench, and tender spring-green growing things and soft-hued flowers, I met face to face a powerful being in a dark mantle who passed along the line of war with slow, majestic steps. Seeing me he paused, and I paused also, struck by the grace of his tall form and the royal air of him. His face was veiled. “Who are you,” he said, “who walk here at this hour as if in meditation?” “I am a man much given to meditation,” I replied, “and this hour seems fit for it.” “And what was the subject of your meditation?” “The war below us.” “And what was the course of your thoughts, which my appearance interrupted?”

“My thoughts were of peace,” I said, “and they were full of questions as to how the carnage of this war might be made to cease.” “Your questions were in order,” the majestic being answered. “Perhaps I can be of help to you.” “Will you not unveil?” I suggested, “For I like to see the faces of those with whom I hold converse.” He threw back a fold of the dark covering of his head, revealing a face which I know not how to describe. Power and evil were blent in it, and a strange beauty, both superhuman and subhuman. The face was marked as if by an eternity of pain and struggle; but in the eyes was a light of will which startled me by its force. “Who are you?” I asked. “What matter who I am?” he replied. “I am one who can solve the problem of your meditations.” “You do not look like an angel of peace,” I said, “but rather like one who has seen much war of his own making.”

“It is for that reason that I am competent to speak of peace. What do the peaceful know of peace? Only the warrior knows the meaning of that word.” “I will listen,” I said, “to whatever you have to say; for I recognize that you know something of the Law.” “I am one of the executors of the Law,” he answered, “and I have a plan for bringing peace to the world.” “Will you state that plan?” “It is for that I came out here to meet you,” he said. “And how did you learn of me?” “I know all the strong workers and many of the weak ones. You are a powerful worker.” “Truly you do me too much honor,” I said, “for I am only a humble soldier in the army of the Law’s executants.” “The modesty of the great,” he observed, while he eyed me closely to see the effect of his words. “Whoever you are,” I said, “and I perceive that you are something unusual, know that my interest in my own stature is no longer paramount with me.” “It is for that reason that you may be used in the interest of peace.”

“Continue,” I requested. He regarded me for a time with brilliant, questioning eyes, and then he asked: “You are weary of war, of the labor of war?” “I am weary with my sympathy for those who suffer.” “And you would like to end their suffering?” “It seems to me at times,” I said, more to myself than to him, “that I would gladly give my life, if by so doing I could shorten the horrors down here.” “Your life? And what do you mean by your life?” “I mean my consciousness of freedom, my freedom of consciousness.” “A good definition of the life of such as you,” he observed. “And would you really sacrifice that life for the world?” “Most gladly, if by so doing I could save the world.”

“It might be possible,” he said. “Will you speak more plainly?” I demanded. “You seem to me to be feeling your way to some statement of importance.” “What can be more important,” he returned, “than the sacrifice of such a life as yours for the world?” “Go on.” “There is a way,” he said, “by which your sacrifice of what you call ‘the consciousness of freedom and the freedom of consciousness’ might save those men down there from further pain.” “Again I repeat, go on.” “It lies in my power,” he said, coming nearer and regarding me fixedly with his glowing eyes, “it lies in my power so to work upon the minds of the opposing armies, the armies on both sides, that they will refuse to fight any longer.” “And betray their countries?” I asked. “And bring peace,” he corrected me. “And what have I to do with it?” “You might have much to do with it.” “Your words are still dark to me,” I said. “Then I will make them clearer,” he replied. “In order for you to understand my meaning, it is necessary that I explain myself. I am one of those who serve the good by opposing the good, and thus giving it greater activity.” “So I had observed. Will you now state in clear words what purpose you have with me?”

“My purpose is to make you a proposition. If you wish this carnage to cease—and already it has gone on long enough to serve the purpose which I serve, to soak the world with blood, to destroy that which a decade of labor will be too brief to rebuild, to awaken all the hatred and other evil passions which nest in the hearts of men—if you wish this carnage to cease, I have the means by which it can be made to cease.” “And where do I come in?” “I have long observed you,” he said, “observed your diligence in applying the principles given you by your Teacher.” “Then why did you ask me who I was, a little while ago?” “Only as a preliminary to further conversation.” “Oh!” I said. “I have observed you,” he repeated, “and realized that with your power and attainments you might be of greater service if you should shift your allegiance and join us. Your consciousness of freedom would be even greater.” “But that consciousness of freedom was my definition of life! I suppose you would say, in adjusting your argument to the limitations of my mind, that in losing my life I should find it.”