Speaker 1: Light on life's changes. The tendency of things to advance
from a lower to a higher level, and from high
to higher still is universal. The worlds exist in order
that beings may experience, and by experiencing, acquire knowledge and
increase in wisdom. Evolution is only another name for progress.
It signifies perpetual change, but a purposeful change, a change
accompanied by growth. Evolution does not mean the creation of
a new being from a being of a different order.
It means the modification of things by experience and change,
and such modification is progress. The fact of change is
ever before us. Nothing can escape it. Plants, animals, and
human beings germinate, reach maturity and pass into decay. Even
the lordly suns in their attendant worlds rolling through illimitable space,
although their life is reckoned in millions of years, at
last decay and perish, after having passed through innumerable changes.
We cannot say of any being or object this will
remain forever as it is, for even while we are
saying it, the being or object would be undergoing change.
Sadness and suffering accompany this change, and beings mourn for
that which has departed, for the things which are lost.
And gone. Yet in reality, change is good, for it
is the open door to all achievement, advancement, and perfection.
Mind as well as matter, is subject to the same change.
Every experience, every thought, every deed changes a person. There
is little resemblance between the elderly and their period of
childhood and youth, and eternally fixed, unchangeable being is not known.
Such a being may be assumed, but it is a
postulate on all it is not within the range of
human observation and knowledge. A being not subject to change
would be a being outside progress. There is a teaching
which declares that man has a spiritual soul that is
eternally pure, eternally unchanged, eternally perfect, and that sinning, suffering,
changing man as we see him is an illusion. That indeed,
the spiritual soul is the man, and the other is
on reality. There is another teaching that affirms that man
is eternally imperfect, that stainless purity can never be reached,
and that perfection is an impossibility, an illusion. It will
be found that these two extremes have no relation to
human experience. They are both of the nature of speculative metaphysics,
which stands in opposition to the facts of life, so
much so that the adherents of these two extremes deny
the existence of the commonest, everyday facts of human anas experience.
That which is assumed is regarded as real. The facts
of life are declared to be unreal. It is well
to avoid both these extremes and find the middle way
of human experience. It is well to avoid opinions and
speculation of our own or others. It is well to
refer to the facts of life. We see that man
passes through birth and growth and old age, that he
experiences sin, sickness, and death, that he sorrows and suffers,
aspires and rejoices, and that he is ever looking forward
to greater purity and striving toward perfection. These are not opinions, speculations,
or metaphysics. They are universal facts. If man were already perfect,
there would be no need for him to be perfected,
and all moral teaching would be useless and ridiculous. Moreover,
a perfect being could not be subject to illusion and unreality.
On the other hand, if a man could never attain
to purity and perfection, his aspirations in striving would be useless.
They would indeed be mockeries, and the heavenly perfection of
saintly and divine men and women would have to be
belittled and denied. We see around us sins, sorrow, and suffering,
and we see before us, in the lives of the
great teachers, the sinless, sorrowless divine state. Therefore we know
that man is an imperfect being, yet capable of and
destined for perfection, the divine state toward which he aspires.
He will reach. The fact that he so ardently desires
it means that he can reach it, even if the
fact were not demonstrated in those great ones who have
already attained. Man is not a compound of two beings,
one real and perfect, the other unreal and imperfect. He
is one and real, and his experiences are real. His
imperfection is apparent, and his advancement and progress are also apparent.
The realities of life claim men in spite of their metaphysics,
and all come under the same law of change in progress.
He who affirms the eternal sinlessness and perfection of man
should not to be logical and consistent ever speak of
sins and faults of disease and death. Yet he refers
to these things as matters to be dealt with. Thus,
in theory he denies the existence of that which he
habitually recognizes. In practice, he also who denies the possibility
of perfection, should not aspire or strive. Yet we find
him practicing self denial and striving ceaselessly toward perfection. Holding
to the theoretical does not absolve one from the inevitable.
The teacher of the unreality of sickness, old, age, and
death is at last caught in the toils of disease,
succumbs to age, and disappears in death. Change is not
only inevitable, it is the constant and unvarying law. Without it,
everything would remain forever as it is, and they would
be neither growth nor progress. The strenuous struggle of all
life is a prophecy of his perfection. The looking upward
of all beings is evidence of their ceaseless ascension. Aspirations, ideals,
moral aims, while they denote man's imperfection, assuredly point to
his future perfection. They are neither unnecessary nor aimless, but
are woven into the fabric of things. They belong to
the vital essence of the universe. Whatsoever a man believes
or disbelieves, what theories he holds or does not hold,
one thing is certain. He is found in the stream
of life and must think and act. To think and
act is to experience, and to experience is to change
and develop. That man is conscious of sin means that
he can become pure. That he abhors evil signifies that
he can reach up to good. That he is a
pilgrim in the land of error assures us without doubt
that he will at last come to the beautiful city
of truth.