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The Destiny of the Soul
William Rounseville Alger
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRANSIENT AND THE PERMANENT IN THE DESTINY OF MAN.
A COMPANION of Solomon once said to him, "Give me, O king of wisdom, a maxim equally applicable on all occasions, that I may fortify myself with it against the caprices of fortune." Solomon reflected a moment, then gave him, in these words, the maxim he sought: "This, too, shall pass away." The courtier at first felt disappointed, but, meditating awhile, perceived the pertinent and profound meaning hidden in the transparent simplicity of the words. Are you afflicted? Be not despondent or rash, This, too, shall pass away. Are you blessed? Be not elated or careless, This too shall pass away. Are you in danger? in temptation? in glory? Still, for your proper guidance, in relation to each one, remember; This too shall pass away. And so on, under every diversity of situation in which man can be placed. Whatever restraint, whatever encouragement, whatever consolation he needs, it is all contained in the profound thought, This too shall pass away.
This maxim for all times needs to be supplemented by a corresponding maxim for all persons. There is a truth constantly suited for the variety of immortal souls, as the foregoing one is for the variety of temporal changes. Let us see what that truth is and set it in a fitting aphorism.
The desires of the human soul are boundless. Nothing can satisfy its wishes by fulfilling them and circumscribing there a fixed limit. It would devour the whole creation, and hungrily cry for more. Whatever extension of power or fruition it can conceive, it wants for its own, and frets if deprived of it. Now, if the spirit of the Creator is in the creature, this illimitable passion of acquisition cannot be a mere mockery. It must be a hint of the will of God and of the destiny of his child in whom He has implanted it. It is prophetic of something awaiting fulfillment. But what is the prophecy, and how is it to be fulfilled? The answer to this question will give us that maxim of eternal humanity which accords with the maxim of transient fortune. And thus it reads: Over all the things for which men struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of struggle, which indivisibly belongs to every man, and that one thing is the whole universe! Be not baffled by the appearance of transcendental mysticism in this maxim, as the ancient inquirer was by the appearance of commonplace in his, but seek its significance.
A son is an heir of his father. All men are sons of God, though only a few, and that in varying degree, are distinctly conscious as yet of their sonship. But, despite their ignorance, all are tending, more or less swiftly, toward the goal of their nature and inheritance.
There are exclusive prizes which men can monopolize: and they fight with one another for these, because the more some have the less others can obtain. There are also inclusive prizes, or modes of holding and enjoying property which do not interfere with universal participation, with universal, undivided ownership. In these no one need have any the less because every one has all. This is the region of reason, imagination, affection, the empire of the soul. The more one knows of mathematical truth, poetic beauty or moral good, the easier it is, not the harder, for others to know and enjoy as much or more. In this divine domain no monopoly or conflict is possible, because the outward moving fence of each consciousness, retreating and vanishing before its conquests of experience, is a vacuum with respect to that of every other. They overlap and penetrate one another as if they were mutually nonexistent. For example, the pleasure any one takes in a picture, or in a play, does not lessen the pleasure which remains for the other spectators; but, on the contrary, adds to it if they have sympathy.
Now, the all inclusive prize of desire, the very secret of the Godhead namely, the power of taking a full pure joy in every form of being, in every substance and phenomenon of the creation is forever wooing every soul; and every soul, in proportion to its advancement, is forever embracing it just as freely as if no other soul existed, yet has the zest of its enjoyments endlessly varied and heightened by mutual contemplations and reflections of those of all the rest. Such is the superiority of the disinterested spirit over the selfish flesh, of the inner world over the outer world, of good over evil.
Mental ownership is sympathetic and universal, physical appropriation antagonistic and individual. We hate and oppose our fellows that with hand and foot we may monopolize some wretched grains of good, while God is inviting every one of us with our mind and heart to accept as fast as we can his whole undivided infinitude of good. The universe is the house of the Father; the true spirit of the family is disinterested, and consequently every child is heir of the whole even as the apostle Paul said, joint heir with Christ. Register, then, deeply in memory, side by side with the historic maxim for all times, This too shall pass away! the religious maxim for all souls. Over those things for which men struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of struggle, which belongs indivisibly to every man, and that one thing is the whole universe! Then, should you ever feel vexed or disheartened by the irritations and failures you meet in your journey through the evanescent masquerade of this world, pause and say to yourself, Is it worthy of me, while the entire realm of existence asks me to appropriate it in ever expansive possession, to be angry or sad because some infinitesimal speck of it does not grant me as much of itself as I crave?
The more things we love the richer we are. The fewer things we care for the freer we are. O blessed wealth and wretched freedom, how shall we perfect and reconcile them? This is the secret: If we love the divine and eternal in everything, and care not for the limiting and perishable evil connected with it, then we shall at once be both rich and free. The former practice educates our powers; the latter emancipates them. The true use of renunciation is as a means for larger fulfillment. Detach from lower and lesser objects in order to attach to higher and greater ones. Be always ready to renounce the meaner at the invitation of the nobler. The soul, like a grand frigate, may be loosely tied by a thousand separate strings, but should be held firm by one cable. Our relations to fellow creatures are those threads; our supreme relation to God, that cable. Those are the gossamer of time; this the adamant of eternity.
The lame man cries, O, that I could walk! He who can walk says, O, that I could fly! If he could soar, he would sigh, O, that I were omnipresent, and therefore had no need to move! The end of one wish is but the beginning of another; and the craving of every human soul, let loose in sincere expression, is absolutely illimitable. It always comes, in the last analysis, to this; every one really longs to be God. Therefore, unless the rational creation is mendacious, to be deified, is, in some mystical but true sense, the final destiny of all souls. Every one, in its consciousness fully developed and harmonized, shall become a focus of universal being, a finite reflex of God, the infinite God himself remaining eternally the same unescapable and incomprehensible mystery as ever.
There are, therefore, two supreme maxims for souls conditioned in time and space but destined for eternity and infinity a maxim of comfort for those who suffer, and a maxim of impulse for those who aspire. The one, to be used in view of every fear, every evil or limit. This, too, shall pass away! The other, to be used in view of every insatiable desire, Over all those things for which men struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of struggle, which indivisibly belongs to every man, and that one thing is the whole universe!
Nothing but the Absolute Good is everlasting: and that must belong to all who, being essential personalities, are superior to death. Blessed, blessed, then, are they who hunger and thirst after God; for, by a real transubstantiation assimilating Him, they shall as divinely live forevermore. They shall cease to say any more of anything, This, too, shall pass away! because the infinite God shall have said to each of them, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine!
If the view above marked out, a view in many respects so sublime and satisfactory, a view which goes so far to explain the mysteries, reconcile the contradictions, and transfigure the evils of our transient life and lot below be not true, it must either be because some other higher and better view is the truth in which case we certainly ought to be contented or else the creative and providential plan of God is inferior to the thought of one of his creatures. It is not possible for me to suppose that a speculative theory of my brain can transcend in harmony and beneficence the design of the infinite God. Could it do so, then, in reality, I should be a higher being than He. I should veritably have dethroned Him and vaulted into his place. Is not that a pitch of impiety and absurdity too great even for the pride of man, insurgent atom of criticising assumption, set, baffled at every point, amidst the awful immensity of existence? Here, then, is rest. Either our highest view is the truth, or the truth is higher and better than that. For to think that his thought is superior to the purpose of God, thus making himself the real God, is too much for the extremist human egotist within the limits of sanity.
Therefore, until a better theory is propounded, we hold that the destiny of the soul is to become, through the progressive actualization of its potential consciousness, a free thinking center of the universe, an infinitesimal mirror of God. The adventures of the different souls, full of inexhaustible curiosity and relish in the mutually revealing contacts of their degrees of development and originalities of personal character and treasure, constitute the endless drama of spiritual existence within the phenomenal theater of the material creation. And still the infinite One serenely smiles on the troubled play of the eternal Many; because the psychological kaleidoscope of their experience is a continuous improvisation of justice, weaving the fate of Each with the fates of All, and transfusing the monotonous unity of the Same with the zestful variety of the Other.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Destiny of the Soul, by William Rounseville Alger
