Speaker 1: Chapter five of From Passion to Peace. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Andrea Fiori. From Passion to Peace by James Allen,
Chapter five transcendence. When a man passes from the dark
stage of temptation to the more enlightened stage of transmutation,
he has become a saint. A saint is one who
perceives the need for self purification, who understands the way
of self purification, and who has entered that way and
is engaged in perfecting himself. But there comes a time
in the process of transmutation when, with the decrease of
evil and the accumulation of good, there dawns in the
mind a new vision, a new consciousness, a new man.
When this is reached, the saint has become a sage.
He has passed from the human life to the divine life.
He is born again, and there begins for him a
new round of experiences. He wields a new power, A
new universe opens out before his spiritual gaze. This is
the stage of transcendence. This I call the transcendent life.
When there is no more consciousness of sin, when anxiety
and doubt, and grief and sorrow are ended, when lust
and animosity and anger and envy no more possess the thoughts,
when there remains in the mind no vestige a blame
towards others for one's own condition. And when all conditions
are seen to be good because they are the result
of causes, so that no event can afflict the mind,
then transcendence is aed. Then the limited personality is outgrown,
and the divine life is known evil as transcended, and
good is all in all, the divine consciousness is not
the intensification of the human. It is a new form
of consciousness. It springs from the old, but it is
not the continuance of it, born of the lower life
of sin and sorrow. After a period of painful torment,
It yet transcends that life and has no part in it,
just as the perfect flower transcends the seed from which
it sprang. As passion is the key to the self life,
so serenity is the keynote of the transcendent life. Rising
into it, man is lifted above disharmony and disturbance, When
perfect good is realized and known not as an opinion
or an idea, but as an experience or a possession,
then calm vision is acquired and tranquil joy abides through
all hardships. The transcendent life is ruled not by passions
but by principles. It is founded not upon fleeting impulses,
but upon abiding laws. In its clear atmosphere, the orderly
sequence of all things is revealed, so that there is
seen to be no room for sorrow, anxiety, or regret.
While men are involved in the passions of self, they
burden themselves with cares and trouble themselves over many things.
Above all, else, they trouble over their own little, burdened,
pain stricken personality, being anxious for its fleeting pleasure, for
its protection and preservation, and for its eternal safety and continuance.
Now in the life that is wise and good, all
this is transcended. Personal interests are replaced by universal purposes,
and all cares, troubles, and anxieties concerning the pleasure and
fate of the personality are dispelled. Like the feverish dreams
of a night. Passion is blind and ignorant. It sees
and knows only of its own gratification. Self recognizes no law.
Its object is to get and to enjoy. The getting
is a graduated scale, varying from sensual greed through many
subtle vanities up to the desire for a personal heaven
or personal immortality. But it is self still. It is
the old sensual craving coming out in a more subtle
and deceptive form. It is longing for some personal delight,
along with its accompanying fear that delight should be lost forever.
In the transcendent state, desire and dread are ended, and
the thirst for gain and fear of loss are things
that are no wa more. Where the universal order is seen,
and where perennial joy in that good is a normal condition.
What is there left to desire? What remains to be feared?
He who has brought his entire nature into conformity and
harmony with the law of righteousness, and who has made
his thoughts pure in his deeds blameless, has entered liberty.
He has transcended darkness and morality, and has passed into
light and immortality. For the transcendent state is at first
a higher order of morality than a new form of perception.
And at last, a comprehensive understanding of the universal moral causation.
And this morality, this vision, and this understanding constitute the
new consciousness, the divine life. The transcendent man is he
who is above and beyond the dominion of self. He
has transcended evil and lives in the practice and knowledge
of good. He is like a man who, having long
looked upon the world with darkened eyes, is now restored
to sight and sees things as they are. Evil is
an experience and not a power. If it were an
independent power in the universe, it could not be transcended
by any being. But though not as real as a power,
it is real as a condition and an experience. For
all experience is of the nature of reality. It is
a state of ignorance, of undevelopment, and as such it
recedes and disappears before the light of knowledge, as the
intellectual ignorance of a child vanishes before gradually accumulating learning,
or as darkness dissolves before the rising light. The painful
experience of evil passes away as the new experiences of good.
Good enter into and possess the field of consciousness. And
what are the new experiences of good? They are many
and beautiful, such as the joyful knowledge of the freedom
from sin. They are the absence of remorse and deliverance
from all torments of temptation. They are ineffable joy and
conditions and circumstances which formerly cause deep affliction and imperviousness
to be hurt by the actions of others. They are
great patience and sweetness of character, serenity of mind under
all circumstances, in emancipation from doubt, fear, and anxiety. They
are freedom from all dislike, envy, and animosity, with the
power to feel and act kindly toward others, those who
see fit to constitute themselves as one's enemies or opponents.
They are the divine power to give blessings for curses
and to return good for evil. Deep knowledge of the
human heart, with a perception of its fundamental goodness, an
insight into the law of moral causation and the mental
evolution of beings, with a prophetic foresight of the sublime
good that awaits humanity. Above all, they are a glad
rejoicing in the limitation and impotency of evil, and in
the eternal supremacy and power of good. All these and
the calm, strong, far reaching life that these implying contain
are the rich experiences of the transcendent man, along with
all the new and varied resources, the vast powers, the
quickened abilities, and enlarged capacities that spring to life in
the new consciousness. Transcendence is surpassing virtue. Evil and good
cannot dwell together. Evil must be abandoned, left behind, and
transcended before good is grasped and known. When good is
practiced and fully comprehended, then all the afflictions of the
mind are at an end. For that which is accompanied
with pain and sorrow in the consciousness of evil is
not so accompanied in the consciousness of good. Whatsoever happens
to the good man cannot cause him perplexity or sorrow,
for he knows its cause and issue knows the good
which is ordained to accomplish in himself, and so his
mind remains happy and serene. Though the body of the
good Man may be bound, his mind is free. Though
it may be wounded and in pain, joy and peace
abide within his heart. A spiritual teacher had a pupil
who was apt in earnest. After several years of learning
and practice, the pupil one day offered a question for
discussion which his master could not answer. After days of
deep meditation, the master says to his pupil, I cannot
answer the question which you have asked. Have you any
solution to offer? Whereupon the pupil formulated a reply to
the question which he had propounded. The master then said
to him, you have answered that which I could not,
and henceforth neither I nor any man can instruct you.
For now you are indeed instructed by truth. You have
soared like the kingly eagle, where no man can follow.
Your work is now to instruct others. You are no
longer the pupil. You have become the master. In looking
back on the self life which he had transcended, the
divinely enlightened man sees all the afflictions of that life
as though his schoolmasters were teaching and leading him upward,
And in the measure that he penetrated their meaning and
lifted himself above them, they departed from him, their mission
to teach him having ended, they left him the triumphant
master of the field. For the lower cannot teach the higher,
Ignorance cannot instruct wisdom, evil cannot enlighten good. Nor can
the pupil set lessons for the master. That which is
transcended cannot reach up to that which transcends. Evil can
only teach in its own sphere, where it is regarded
as master. In the sphere of good, it has no
place and no authority. The strong traveler on the highway
of truth knows no such thing as resignation to evil.
He only knows obedience to good. He who submits to evil,
saying sin cannot be overcome and evil must be borne,
thereby acknowledges that evil is his master. It is not
his master to instruct him, but to bind and oppress him.
The lover of good cannot be alone of evil, nor
can he for one moment admit its ascendency. He elevates
and glorifies good, not evil. He loves light, not darkness.
When a man makes truth his master, he abandons error.
As he transcends error, he becomes more like his master,
until at last he becomes one with truth, teaching it
as a master by his actions and reflecting it in
his life. Transcendence is not an abnormal condition. It belongs
to the orderly process of evolution, though as yet few
have reached it. All will come into it in the
course of the ages. And he who ascends into it
sins no more, sorrows no more, and is no more troubled.
Good are his thoughts, good are his actions, And good
is the tranquil tenor of his way. He has conquered
and has submitted to truth. He has mastered evil and
has comprehended good. Henceforth, neither men nor books can instruct him,
for he is instructed by the supreme Good, the spirit
of truth. End of Chapter five recording by Andrea Fiori