Aspiration. With the clear perception of one's own ignorance, comes the desire for
enlightenment, and thus in the heart is born aspiration, the rapture of the
saints. On the wings of aspiration, man rises from earth to heaven,
from ignorance to knowledge, from the under darkness to the upper light. Without
it, he remains a groveling animal, earthly, sensual, unenlightened, and
uninspired. Aspiration is the longing for heavenly things, for righteousness, compassion,
purity, love, as distinguished from desire, which is the longing for earthly
things, for selfish possessions, personal dominance, low pleasures, and sensual gratifications.
As a bird deprived of its wings cannot soar, so a man without
aspiration cannot rise above his surroundings and become a mass of his animal inclinations.
He is the slave of passions, is subject to others, and is carried
hither and thither by the changing current of events. For one to begin to
aspire means that he is dissatisfied with his low status and is aiming at a
higher condition. It is a sure sign that he has aroused out of his
lethargic sleep of animality and has become conscious of nobler attainments and a fuller life.
Aspiration makes all things possible. It opens the way to advancement, even
the highest state of perfection conceivable. It brings near and makes real and possible,
for that which can be conceived can be achieved. Aspiration is the twin
angel to inspiration. It unlocks the gates of joy, singing, a company's
soaring music, poetry, prophecy, and all high and holy instruments are at
last placed in the hands of those whose aspirations flag not, whose spirit does
not fail. So long as animal conditions taste sweet to a man, he
cannot aspire. He is already satisfied. But when their sweetness turns to bitterness,
then in his sorrow he thinks of nobler things. When he is deprived
of earthly joy, he aspires to the joy which is heavenly. It is
when impurity turns to suffering that purity is sought truly. Aspiration rises phoenix like
from the dead ashes of repentance. But on its powerful opinions man can reach
the heaven of heavens. The man of aspiration has entered the way which ends
in peace, and surely he will reach that end. If he neither stays
nor turns back, If he constantly renews his mind with glimpses of the heavenly
vision, he will reach the heavenly state. Man attains to the measure that
he aspires. His longing is to be the gauge of what he can be.
To fix the mind is to foreordain the achievement. As a man can
experience and know all low things, so he can experience and know all high
things, as he has become human, so he can become divine. The
turning of the mind in high and divine directions is the sole and needful task.
What is impurity but the impure thoughts of the thinker? What is purity
but the pure thoughts of the thinker. One man does not do the thinking
of another. Each man is pure or impure of himself alone. If a
man thinks it is through others, or circumstances, or heredity that I am
impure, how can he hope to overcome his errors? Such a thought will
check all holy aspirations and will bind him to the slavery of passion. When
a man fully perceives that his errors and impurities are his own, that they
are generated and fostered by himself, that he alone is responsible for them.
Then he will aspire to overcome them. The way of attainment will be opened
up to him, and he will see from where and to what destination he
is traveling. The man of passion sees no straight path before him, and
behind him all his fog and gloom. He seizes the pleasure of the moment
and does not strive for understanding or think of wisdom. His way is confused,
turbulent, and troubled, and his heart is far from peace. The
man of aspiration sees before him the pathway up the heavenly heights, and behind
him are the circuitous routes of passion, up which he has hitherto blindly groped,
striving for understanding, and his mind set on wisdom, His way is
clear, and his heart already experiences a foretaste of the final peace. Men
of passions strive mightily to achieve little things, things which speedily perish, and
in the place where they were, leave nothing to be remembered. Men of
aspiration strive with equal might to achieve great things, things of virtue, of
knowledge of wisdom, which do not perish, but stand as monuments of inspiration
for the uplifting of human kind. As the merchant perceives worldly success by persistent
exertion, so the sane achieves spiritual success by aspiration and endeavor. One becomes
a merchant, the other a saint by the particular direction in which his mental
energy is guided. When the rapture of aspiration touches the mind, it at
once refines it, and the dross of its impurities begin to fall away.
While aspiration holds the mind, no impurity can enter it, for the impure
and the pure cannot, at the same moment occupy the thought. But the
effort of aspiration is at first spasmodic and short lived. The mind falls back
into its habitual error and must be constantly renewed. The lover of the pure
life renews his mind daily with the invigorating glow of aspiration. He rises early
and fortifies his mind with strong thoughts and strenuous endeavor. He knows that the
mind is of such a nature that it cannot remain for a moment unoccupied,
and that if it is not held and guided by high thoughts and pure aspirations,
it will assuredly be enslaved and misguided by low thoughts and base desires.
Aspiration can be fed, fostered, and strengthened by daily habit, just as
desire. It can be sought and admitted into the mind is a divine guide,
or it can be neglected and shut out, to retire for a short
time each day to some quiet spot, preferably in the open air, and
there call up the energies of the mind and surging waves of holy rapture.
Is to prepare the mind for great spiritual victories and destinies of divine import For
such a rapture as the preparation for wisdom and the prelude to peace. Before
the mind can contemplate pure things, it must be lifted up to them.
It must rise above impure things, and aspiration is the instrument by which this
is accomplished. By its aid, the mind's source swiftly and surely into heavenly
places and begins to experience divine things. It begins to accumulate wisdom and to
learn to guide itself by an ever increasing measure of the divine light of pure
knowledge. To thirst for righteousness, to hunger for the pure life, to
rise in holy rapture on the wings of angelic aspiration. This is the right
road to wisdom. This is the right striving for peace. This is the
right beginning of the way divine