Speaker 1: Insight and nobility in the pursuit and practice of virtue.
There at last comes a time when a divine insight
dawns upon the mind. It searches into the causes and
principles of things, which, once attained, establishes its possessor firmly
in virtue. It renders him invulnerable to the assaults of temptation,
and invincible in his work for the world. When the
understanding is ripened by the culture of virtue, vicious inclinations disappear,
and wrongdoing becomes impossible. When individual conduct is perceived as
an unbroken series of causes and effects, the perceiving mind
finally decides for virtue, and the lower selfish elements are
just cast away forever until a man perceives the just
law which operates in human life. Whatever virtue he may
manifest at any given time, he is not firmly established
in nobility of character. He is not fully armored with righteousness,
and is not safely lodged in his final refuge. Not
having acquired that perfect insight which no good and evil,
and which perceives the effects of all deeds, both good
and bad, he breaks down when assailed by temptation, at
those points in his character which are not well fortified,
those which have so far dimmed his spiritual insight and
barred him from perfect vision. By thus breaking down, he
discovers that within which has hindered him, and by setting
to work to remove the hindrance, he ascends still higher
in the scale of virtue, and approaches nearer to the
perfect insight into the true order of life which makes
a man divine. Under certain circumstances, a man held in
restraint by the influence of friends, by a custom and environment,
and not by his own inherent purity and strength, will
appear to have and may believe he possesses a virtue
of which he knows nothing in reality, and his lack
of such virtue only appears when all outward restraints are withdrawn,
and under temptation, the concealed weakness and vice make themselves manifest.
On the other hand, the man of superior virtue will seem,
in a familiar environment to be much the same as
his weaker fellows, and his virtue will not be apparent
to those about him. But when he suddenly brought into
contact with great temptations or extraordinary events, his latent virtue
appears in all its beauty and strength. Insight destroys the
dominion of evil and reveals the faultless operation of the
good law. The man of perfect insight cannot sin because
he fully understands the nature of good and evil. And
it is impossible for one who knows good and evil
in all their ramifications of cause and effect, to choose
the evil and reject the good. Just as the sane
man would not choose ashes in preference to food, so
the spiritually awakened man would not choose evil in preference
to good. The presence of sin is an indication of
self delusion and of ignorance. The spiritual vision is warped
or undeveloped, and there is confusion of mind concerning the
nature of good and evil. In the early stages of virtue,
a man arrays himself against the forces of evil, which
appear to him to be overpowering in their might and almost,
if not entirely, unconquerable. But with the advent of insight,
a new light is thrown upon the nature of things,
and evil appears as it actually is, a small, dark,
powerless thing, a mere negation, and not a formidable force
or combination of forces. The man of insight knows that
the root of evil is ignorance and not an intelligent power,
and that all sin and suffering proceed therefrom Thus, knowing
evil to be merely a deprivation of good, he cannot
hate it, but manifest compassion for all sinning and suffering beings. Indeed,
he who has so far conquered the evil in his
own heart as to know the nature and source of evil,
cannot possibly hate, dislike, or despise any being, no matter
how far removed from virtue it may be. But while
fully perceiving the degradation of character, he understands the dark
spiritual condition from which such degradation springs, and so he
pities and helps, where without insight he would hate and despise.
Love ever attends upon insight, and pity waits on knowledge.
That insight, which proceeds from self purification and long acquaintance
with virtue, makes itself manifest in the form of ripeness
of character. There is an unchanging strength and sweetness, combined,
a clearness of intellect, a viral strength of will, and
a gentleness of heart, a combination which denotes a cultured, mellowed,
perfect being. One who has acquired sympathy, compassion, purity, and wisdom. Thus,
while quote goodness gives insight, unquote insight renders goodness permanent
fixes the mind and love and practice of all that
is pure and noble, and stamps upon a man's brow
the seal of divinity. The man whose goodness is of
the kind that does not alter with altered environment or
with the changing altitudes of those around him, has reached
the divine goodness. He understands the supreme good. He's no
longer concerned with evil as a thing that can harm,
but he is concerned good only, and so he ignores
evil and recognizes only good. He perceives that men commit
evil out of the mistaken idea of good, and thus
perceiving no hatred can enter his peaceful heart. The life
of such a man is powerful, no matter how obscure
it may be, for goodness is the most powerful thing
in the world. The fact of his living and moving
among men confers incalculable benefit upon the race, although during
his lifetime this may not be perceived or understood. So
powerful is goodness that the destiny of the world was, is,
and will be in the hands of the good Those
who are good are the guides and emancipators of humanity
in the present period of its development. They are taking
the race rapidly along its evolutionary journey. And this not
in any mystical or miraculous sense, but in a very
practical and normal sense, by their exemplary lives and the
power of their deeds. The good men who help the
world are not wonder workers, though undeveloped minds have ever
tried to make them so such, but the workers of righteousness,
servants of the good law. The world never was, is not,
and will not be under the dominion of evil, for
such a condition would mean non existence, evil being merely
the negation of good, as darkness is the negation of light.
It is light and not darkness, which is the sustaining power.
Evil is the weakest thing in the world and cannot
accomplish anything. The universe not only makes for good. The
universe is good, and evil always falls short and fails.
Inside is the seeing in the light of truth, that
light which is the revealer of all things, as the
light of day reveals all objects in the world in
their proper forms. So when the light of truth enters
the mind, it reveals all things of life in their
proper proportions. He who searches his own heart, by the
aid of truth, searches all hearts. He who, by long searching,
has perceived the perfect law which is operative in his mind,
has revealed the divine law, which is the stay and
substance of the universe. Inside disperses error and puts an
end to superstition. Sin is the only error. Men attack
each other's beliefs and remain in ignorance. When they get
rid of their own sins, they will become enlightened. Superstition
springs from sin. Looking through dark and eyes, men see
evil things, which are delusions of ignorance, conceiving in their
hearts and lawful things. Their imagination is troubled with monsters
and terrors, which have no existence in reality. Where there
is pure insight, there is no fear, devils, demons, wrathful
and jealous gods, vampires and evil spirits, and all the
hideous hosts of ideological monsters have vanished from the universe,
along with the feverish nightmare which gave birth to them.
And before erect gaze of the purified one, there spreads
a universe of orderly beauty and inviolate law. The man
of insight loves in the beautific vision of the saints,
not as a fleeting experience in a moment of exceptional purity,
but as a constant, normal condition of mind. He has
completed his long journey through self and sorrow and is
at peace. He has conquered and is glad. He sees
all the sin, misery, and pain that are in the
world more plainly and vividly than other men. But he
now sees it as it is in its cause inception, growth,
and fruitage, not as it appeared to him when he
was blindly involved in it and his mind was distorted
by impurities. He watches the growth of beings from the
immature to the mature, through periods of change and pain,
with tender compassion and solicitude, as the mother watches the
growth of a child through the helpless period of its infancy.
He sees justice operating in all things. While men are
waxing wrathful over the triumph of Wrome, he knows that
wrong has not triumphed, but is brought to naught. He
sees the overruling right, which, though concealed from worldly eyes,
remains forever unshaken. He sees the littleness, the peeny, weakness,
and the blind folly of evil, as compared with the majesty,
invincible power, and the all seeing wisdom of good. And
thus knowing and seeing, his mind is finally fixed in
that which is good. He is devoted to truth, and
his delight is in the doing of righteousness. When insight
is born in the mind, reality stands revealed, not a
metaphysical reality distinct from the universe, not a speculative reality
other than the things of life, but the reality of
the universe itself, the reality of things in themselves. Insight
is triumphant of a change in decay, for it perceives
the abiding in change, the eternal, in the transient, the immortal,
in the things which pass away. And herein is the
meaning of that fixed nobility of character of the saints
and sages, and superlatively of the great teachers of the race.
That they perceive and abide in reality, they know life
in its completion. They underst stand and obey the righteous law.
Having conquered self, they have conquered all delusions, have triumphed
over sin. They have triumphed over sorrow, having purified themselves,
they see the perfect cosmos. He who chooses the right,
the pure, the good, and clings to them through all misunderstandings, insults,
and defeat, reaches at last the place of insight, and
his eyes open upon the world of truth. Then his
painful discipline is ended, the lower conditions no more affect
him or cause him sorrow. Purity and joy abide with him,
and the universe again rejoices in the triumph of good
and hails another conqueror.