July 5, 1963 Dear Gail:
The topic for discussion is “How Does Idealism Affect The Drive of The Spirit?” By the word drive I mean activity and goal of the Jivatma. Often the word spirit denotes the Jivatma, and other times it denotes the special fluid of life which penetrates all things giving it the living spark of life.
Idealism is any theory which affirms the central importance of mind, or the spiritual and ideal, in reality.
Example of this might be — the individual has his values in beauty, in God, or in those general values of honesty, love, kindness, etc. There isn’t much difference in values and idealism. Values make up the ideal, and qualities of God make for the whole — like mercy, kindness, love, etc.
Idealism is sort of a fast, like a physical fast, when one begins to live by it. He no longer is interested in certain things like the mass man who lives by his automobile, radio, family habits, job and other things which keep him from enjoying the spiritual fruits. This is the way we must keep the spirit up provided we are not in the higher level with the masters. It is only the spiritual qualities for which we are striving anyway and the fight against entrapment by the negative forces are not of any reasoning for the drive of the Jivatma. When one attempts to take up the spiritual path his constant striving to reach that goal which is commonly known as the Unity with God, (although this is called the Unity with God it is not that at all) he must link himself with that unreasonable ambition and fiery desire to finally get his goal or perish in the attempt. This terrible struggle of the Jivatma of the individual is often seen in the Christian
mystics whose hardships are displayed by the church. So very true, for their struggle against the enslavement of the negative forces is awful, and I have no other example to give you than that of many of the Christian saints, e.g., St.
Augustine who had to give up his mistress and all the luxuries of life in order to enter into the spiritual life. St.
Francis went through the terrible hardships to reach his goal.
Is there any other way of getting there? The only way that I know is through the masters, and often the path is hard because of the karma of the individual. But when the church shifts its grounds as much as it does today to meet the political and economic problems of modern times, one soon forgets the real goal of life. Therefore the drive of the Jivatma depends upon the desires it has for reaching its goal with God.
This desire is usually based upon the idealism placed before it by the Masters, and if the idealism is any different from that of the highest order, the Jivatma will keep failing until put back upon the right path again. This idealism must consist of at least three things: 1. Worship of God; 2. Adoration of God;
3. Reverence of God. There is a difference in the three. The worship of God consists in singing praises, etc. The Adoration of God is to see his handiwork in all things, be it in the negative world, or the worlds of the positive, and the reverence of God is that in which you will revere Him as the total — all entities being of his handicraft, and all things belonging to him. Prayer enters into the latter part.
Desire is the basic wish for entering into the highest Kingdom. This may be a paradox for you, but understand this that where I have preached non-attachment to anything also applies to a non-attachment to God. One of the followers of Buddha, and I believe that his name was Tao Sheng, a Chinese philosopher, about 400 A.D. had this to say about the subject: “If you want the truth to stand clear before you,
never be for or against it. The struggle between “for” and
“against” is the mind’s worse disease; while the deep meaning is misunderstood, it is useless to meditate on Rest, etc.” Later in his writings he says this “The more you talk about It (The Absolute), the more you think about It, the further from It you go; stop talking, stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand. Return to the Root and you will find its meaning; pursue the Light, and you will lose its source: Look inward, and in a flash you will conquer the Apparent and the Void. For the whirligigs of Apparent and Void all come from mistaken views. There is no need to seek Truth; only stop having views. Do not accept either position, examine it or pursue it; at the least thought of “Is” and
“Isn’t,” there is chaos and the Mind is lost. Though the two exist because of the One, do not cling to the One; only when no thought arises are the Dharmas without blame.”
All Tao Sheng is saying is that you can have the drive of the idealism as long as you are dwelling in the mind area, but once you step into the spiritual path you are now ready to drop all that went on before, and begin to live in that world which is of the spirit, or the true world of God. Here in this world is the happiness which man or the spirit of man is seeking — and he is looking for that which is perfect no longer, for here is perfection, but he must always be seeking a mite more perfection, as the Zen Buddhist is, for that perfection is always short of fulfillment. This is as Tao Sheng says: “Being is an aspect of Non-Being; Non-being is an aspect of Being. The One is none other than the All, the All none other than the One. Take your stand on this, and the rest will follow of its own accord.”
Now what I’m saying is this. One meets with this problem of idealism which affects the drive of the spirit towards its goal, but quickly as he learns that it isn’t important then it is
dropped and he progresses faster. But he will have the problem because he thinks that it is important to starve for God, to struggle to get into the realms of heaven and to suffer the hardships which are apparent if he wants to take that route. This is the route that all Christian saints have taken.
For example, St. Teresa used to gather up her nuns, in her nunnery, and shout to them “Let’s storm the gates of heaven!
Let us take it by force!” This is a reversal of the true way of getting into the heavenly world, and it appears to me that if she or any other western saint tried such tactics they were not very far advanced on the spiritual path. This is part of the aggressive habit which the westerners built in themselves which is supposedly for success, material or spiritual.
So again, I say that once you have bypassed this problem you will be further along the path toward the real goal. You won’t have to undergo many of the hardships which so many of the neophytes do when they are striving to get through problems which are not even apparent to them. It is a hardship for anyone to recognize his own problems much less those which are spiritual and hidden within himself. We are always able to see the problems of others much better than our own, but it is really not their problem which we are seeing but our own which is reflecting from the mirror which we have placed in them.
I don’t expect any of these letters to solve any problems for you, but they may help you see and know what they might be and that is always a start. If you are to ask anyone about any problem you might have, it would be a mistake, except if you approached a Master, and I doubt if he would ever say anything.
More later.
Paul
96. The Nature of the Spiritual Energies