FOREWORD

Categories: Chapter I - The Twin-Verses
Books: Mastery of Self

"There is no limit to the knowing of the mind that knows"--

Indian Upanishads



I wish to indulge in a little Foreword because in this way may be

indicated a warning against contentment with a seemingly very

sensible conclusion which will prove, on further thought, to be

hasty and incomplete



Five years ago I wrote in this identical place in our study these

words: br />


"Fear will never go out of this world until pleasure loses value,

desire ceases for want of an object, and reason no longer imposes

responsibility



"The best gift of Nature to primitive man, after reason, was fear



"The imagination is reason's magnifying power



"Fear observed and obeyed by reason is a friend



"Fear and reason take care of man



"Fear and imagination send him into a panic"



To many minds these statements will have the look of sanity



But there are others who will instantly perceive that they

represent thought on a comparatively low plane I now observe:



The best gift of Life to primeval man, after love, was reason



The imagination, void of love,--the feeling of harmony with all,--

forgets reason and permits fear to enter the soul



Fear is an ALIEN to our life, and never a friend The real friend

is reason, acting amid harmonic conditions



When you are threatened by some hostile force or event, reason

tries to induce self-protection, but you know no real fear if you

are saturated with the feeling of harmony You may believe it is

FEAR that seeks your self-protection But your REASON can do

precisely the same thing without fear Fear is, then, only an

extra, a distressing extra, foisted in front of reason



You are invited now to live the WHITE LIFE, to cast fear out, and

to make real reason its substitute By so much you will add

immeasurably to personal comfort and power



Love and reason alone can take care of man, so far as his own

efforts are concerned In properly blended proportions these

constitute the very life of courage What conceivable service

then, can fear render any man or woman?



If you desire panic and distress, let imagination fill your soul

with fears But if peace, happiness, health and power be your

desires, live the WHITE LIFE and hold fast only to reason



By the reality called reason I do not mean mere cold calculation

and hard logic Such phases of reason are legitimate in their

place, if freed from cunning and deceit, but the higher reason is

to these as a woman's love--look is to the glitter of ice The

higher reason is not alone intellection, it is also intuition and

harmonic assurance--what religious thought calls faith The higher

reason declares self-preservation to be the first law of life, and

then, just because this is true, it cares for self and trusts the

White Universe to assist I really do not see what a human soul

need actually fear when that soul and the White Universe are bent

on the same goal, the soul's welfare



The Universe is a growing organism It is forever striving to

realize its own best estate This is the true goal for all

individuals It is saying the same thing if we affirm the goal to

be Health--for worlds or man: Body-Health, Mind-Health, Self-

Health



When any form of health is threatened, you say, perhaps, it is

FEAR that warns you to self-preservation But I say it is REASON,

and your fear-feeling is unnecessary and hurtful If you can

remember that the White Life or Universe and you have the same

desire, your highest welfare, you can banish the fear-element,

reserving only the reason-assurance element All the fears in the

world cannot benefit you Harmony and courage will sublime your

whole life



I have never known a person whose reason has induced self-

suffering Suffer-fear is always a product of diseased

imagination What some may call reason-fear, when they think they

are extremely sensible, is simply fear, and nothing but fear, and

it is due to imagination, not to reason



"But," you say, "are there not all sorts of evils in the world,

and do they not threaten us, and should we not forefend against

them? In this forefending, how can we escape fear?"



These questions show how thoroughly fear is knit into our very

lives



Now this is precisely the point Fear has no rightful place with

any rightful living, because the WHITE LIFE alone is rightful, and

in that life reason-assurance only is possible, and, therefore,

rightful



The best way in which to forefend against evil is to deny it and

cast out the fiction



This entire question of evil is at your command Evil exists

because other people admit its existence If all were to live the

WHITE LIFE, each person might rightly declare, "There is no evil"

The only real evil is that which can hurt your best self When

anything hurts your best self, it is your self that hurts your

self The only evil in the Universe is some one's act hurting

others, but more, hurting self If to you evil is, then, it is

yourself You can so live the sublime WHITE LIFE of harmony as to

be able to say: "So far as I am concerned, evil has gone out of

the world There is no evil to me"



You see, surely now, that you need not fear "evil" I do not know

anything more absolutely and sufficiently opposed to the

permission of that self-acting which alone, for you, is evil, than

reason Fear has nothing properly to do with the matter And

reason-assurance has to do with it only by living the WHITE LIFE

and denying fear and evil altogether



You are invited to make these heaven-born truths your own