L. W. Rogers - Self-Development and the Way to Power

"We may be either the suffering slaves of nature or the happy mastersof her laws."

It is the natural right of every human being to be happyto escapeall the miseries of life. Happiness is the normal condition, asnatural as the landscapes and the seasons. It is unnatural to sufferand it is only because of our ignorance that we do suffer. Happinessis the product of wisdom. To attain perfect wisdom, to comprehendfully the purpose of life, to realize completely the relationship ofhuman beings to each other, is to put an end to all suffering, toescape every ill and evil that afflicts us. Perfect wisdom isunshadowed joy.

Why do we suffer in life? Because in the scheme of nature we are beingforced forward in evolution and we lack the spiritual illuminationthat alone can light the way and enable us to move safely among theobstacles that lie before us. Usually we do not even see or suspectthe presence of trouble until it suddenly leaps upon us like aconcealed tiger. One day our family circle is complete and happy. Aweek later death has come and gone and joy is replaced with agony.Today we have a friend. Tomorrow he will be an enemy and we do notknow why. A little while ago we had wealth and all material luxuries.There was a sudden change and now we have only poverty and misery andyet we seek in vain for a reason why this should be. There was a timewhen we had health and strength; but they have both departed and notrace of a reason appears. Aside from these greater tragedies of lifeinnumerable things of lesser consequence continually bring to uslittle miseries and minor heartaches. We most earnestly desire toavoid them but we never see them until they strike us, until in thedarkness of our ignorance we blunder upon them. The thing we lack isthe spiritual illumination that will enable us to look far and wide,finding the hidden causes of human suffering and revealing the methodby which they may be avoided; and if we can but reach illumination theevolutionary journey can be made both comfortably and swiftly. It isas though we must pass through a long, dark room filled with furniturepromiscuously scattered about. In the darkness our progress would beslow and painful and our bruises many. But if we could press a buttonthat would turn on the electric light we could then make the samejourney quickly and with perfect safety and comfort.

The old method of education was to store the mind with as many facts,or supposed facts, as could be accumulated and to give a certainexterior polish to the personality. The theory was that when a man wasborn he was a completed human being and that all that could be donefor him was to load him up with information that would be used withmore or less skill, according to the native ability he happened to beborn with. The theosophical idea is that the physical man, and allthat constitutes his life in the physical world, is but a very partialexpression of the self; that in the ego of each there is practicallyunlimited power and wisdom; that these may be brought through intoexpression in the physical world as the physical body and itsinvisible counterparts, which together constitute the complex vehicleof the ego's manifestation, are evolved and adapted to the purpose;and that in exact proportion that conscious effort is given to suchself-development will spiritual illumination be achieved and wisdomattained. Thus the light that leads to happiness is kindled fromwithin and the evolutionary journey that all are making may be robbedof its suffering.

Why does death bring misery? Chiefly because it separates us fromthose we love. But when we have evolved the faculty of clairvoyance,in our work of self-development, the separation vanishes and our"dead" friends are as much with us as the living. The only otherreason why death brings grief or fear is because we do not understandit and comprehend the part it plays in human evolution. But the momentour ignorance gives way to comprehension such fear vanishes and aserene happiness takes its place.

Why do we have enemies from whose words or acts we suffer? Because inour limited physical consciousness we do not perceive the unity of alllife and realize that our wrong thinking and doing must react upon usthrough other peoplea situation from which there is no possibleescape except through ceasing to think evil and then patientlyawaiting the time when the causes we have already generated are fullyexhausted. When spiritual illumination comes, and we no longer stumblein the night of ignorance, the last enemy will disappear and we shallmake no more forever.

Why do people suffer from poverty and disease? Only because of ourblundering ignorance that makes their existence possible for us, andbecause we do not comprehend their meaning and their lessons, nor knowthe attitude to assume toward them. Had we but the wisdom tounderstand why they come to people, why they are necessary factors intheir evolution, they would trouble us no longer. When nature's lessonis fully learned these mute teachers will vanish.

And so it is with all forms of suffering we experience. They are atonce reactions from our ignorant blunderings and instructors thatpoint out the better way. When we have comprehended the lessons theyteach they are no longer necessary and disappear.

Thus our evolution is going forward and has gone forward in the past.We know that the human race has passed through a long evolution duringwhich it has acquired five senses by which knowledge is gained. Nobodywho has given thought to the subject will make the mistake ofsupposing that this evolution is completed and that the five sensesare all we shall ever possess.

In this long evolutionary journey the next thing we shall do is todevelop the sixth sense. Some people have already done so and all areapproaching it. This dawning sense is called clairvoyance. Fairinvestigation will show that the clairvoyant possesses certain powersnot common to the majority of people. This is merely the beginning ofthe development of the sixth sense, and probably with the majority ofclairvoyants it goes no further than etheric and lower astral sight.In other words, they are able to raise the consciousness only to agrade of matter a little beyond the grasp of ordinary vision, whilethe properly developed, trained clairvoyant raises his consciousnesstwo full planes beyond.

The higher the consciousness is raised the further the horizon ofknowledge extends and the clairvoyant is able to hand down informationthat appears quite miraculous; but it is perfectly natural. If acertain person were born blind and had never understood any more abouteyesight than most people understand about clairvoyance; if thisperson could know how many doorways were in a large building only bygroping along with his hands and thus acquiring the knowledge bytouch, and another person who could see should glance along the blockand instantly tell the blind man the correct number, that would be tothe blind man a miracle. Now, when a clairvoyant sees things at adistance where the physical eye cannot reach he really does nothingmore remarkable. When we see a thing we receive the vibrations causedby light. That gives the information. When the clairvoyant "sees" at adistance through what we mistakenly call solid substances he receivesvibrations of matter so fine that it interpenetrates solids as theether does.