Speaker 1: Light on law and miracle. The love of the wonderful
is an element in human nature, which, like passions and desires,
requires to be curved, directed, and finally transmuted. Otherwise superstition
and the obscuration of reason and insight cannot be avoided.
The idea of a miracle must be transcended before the orderly, eternal,
and beneficent nature of the law can be perceived. Then
peace and certainty, which knowledge bestows, can be enjoyed. Just
as a child, when its eyes are open to the
phenomena of this world, becomes involved in wonder and revels
in tales of giants and fairies, so when a man
first opens his mental eyes to spiritual things, does he
become involved in stories of marvels and miracles. As a
child at last becomes a man and leaves behind the
crudities of child, understanding more accurately the relative nature of
the phenomena around him. So, with a fuller spiritual development
and greater familiarity with the inner realities, a man at
last leaves behind the era of childish wonderment. He comes
into touch with the law of things and governs his
life by principles that are fixed and invariable. Law is
universal and eternal, and although vast areas of knowledge are
waiting to be revealed, cause and effect will ever prevail
every new discovery, Every truth revealed will serve to bring
one nearer to the realization of the beauty, stability, and
supremacy of the Law. And very gladdening it is to
know that the law is inviolable and eternal throughout every
department of nature. For then we know that the same
operations of the universe are ever the same, and can
therefore be discovered, understood, obeyed. This is a ground of certainty,
and therefore of great hope and joy. The idea of
miracle is a denial of law and the substitution of
an arbitrary and capricious power. It is true that around
the lives of the great teachers of humanity, stories of
miracles have grown, but they have emanated from the undeveloped
minds of the people, not from the teachers themselves. Laotza
expounded the supreme law or reason, which emits no miracle.
Yet his religion has to day become so corrupted with
the introduction of the marvelous as to be little better
than a mass of superstition, even Buddhism, whose founder declared
that seeing the law of Karma, cause and effect governs
all things. The disciple who aims at performing miracles does
not understand the doctrine, and that the desire to perform
miracles arises either from cavetuousness or vanity has surrounded in
its corrupted form, the life of its great master with
a number of miracles. Even during the lifetime of Rama Krishna,
the Hindu teacher who died in eighteen eighty six and
who is regarded by his disciples as an incarnation of deity.
To this age, all sorts of miracles were attributed to
him by the people and are now associated with his name.
Yet according to Max Muller, these miracles are without any
foundation of evidence or fact, and Rama Krishna himself ridiculed
and repudiated miracle. As men become more enlightened, miracles in
wonder working will be expunged from all religion, and the
orderly beauty of law and the ethical grandeur of obedience
to the law will become revealed and known. No man
who desires to perform miracles or astral or psychological wonders,
who is curious to see invisible or supernatural things. Who
is ambitious to become a master ord and adept can
attain a clear perception of truth and the living of
the highest life. Childish wonderment about things must be supplanted
by knowledge of things, and vanity is a complete barrier
to the entrance of the true path, which demands of
the disciple lowliness of heart and humility. He is on
the true path who is cultivating kindness, forbearance and a
loving heart. The marks of a true master are not
miracles in wonder working, but infinite patience, boundless compassion, spotless purity,
and a heart at peace withal