Thoughts of a fool
I see the doubter of yourself doubt. You wonder why it is that I should
be more favored than you. Why don’t Life talk to me? you say. So you
believe that I lie when I say that I hear Life. Well, you are right. I
have lied, and it being true proves that what I said is true, and it in
turn proves that I did not lie.
The waste which your body throws off, because your body cannot use it,
has become a lie, yet is not less truth than the stuff which your body
absorbed and is truth. The waste makes the absorption possible. If you
would spare your body the effort of separating and discarding the waste
and reserving the life force from the food it ate, your body would be
spared life, as it is nourished by the very thing you spared it of.
Skepticism, lying, evil, falsehood, and pain are a part and necessary
to life, just as the waste is a part of the food that has performed its
service. And the work of separating the unpleasant from the pleasant,
the lies from the truth, the evil from the good, the pain from the
pleasure, is the food which life lives upon, and with which it could
not dispense. It is true, I have not heard Life. Life does not talk to
the ear, thus I could not hear. I saw the voice--No, that is a lie too!
I did not see it; I felt it in my heart. No! I did not do that either.
Let me see, what did I do? Well, I don’t know what I did do, nor do
I know how I came by Life’s message, but I know it is the message of
Life, and I am satisfied. Oh, I have it! I know now! I know! I know!
Your scrutinizing self has somewhat confused me. What was it you said
that you said? Was it not something about Life and a message? Let’s
see, you had a message I believe, and were telling about it, and I was
skeptical, and did not believe a word you said, and I embarrassed you
by asking questions, and you could not explain how you came by Life’s
message. Tell us again, please. What did you say Life’s message was?
Get together? That’s funny! I am wrong, I know I am. If you look at me
like that I shall go mad, I know I will. Let me think! You have me all
befuddled. Oh, yes, you were trying to clarify to me the clearness of
Life, and the Life which is not to be made clear. That which can be
revealed in a vision, and the unvisionable you are trying to visionize.
You were trying to reasonize Life, the what that can and the what that
cannot be reasoned.
You were trying to cram the universe into a pint measure. Time, love,
sacrifice, happiness, wisdom, God, and what not, you were trying to
measure with the toy foot-rule of reason which I gave you. You failed!
You are discouraged and doubt, and are angry! Now I can see you laugh
at me, mock me! I see you pity me. Why should you laugh at me, why
should I be pitied? What have I done to be mocked? Say, am I foolish?
What! Ha! ha! You did not say anything about Life to me? You say that
it was I who was telling you about Life and its message. Really you are
mistaken; it could not have been I. Who is “I”? There was once an I,
but “I” is no more. It is you who lives in the house where I used to
live, and you are so large that it fills me all. There is no room for
“I” in there. In the whole of my being I feel you. It laughs when you
laugh. It cries with you. It feels your pain. It loafs and sins with
you. It saints when you saint; it reasons for you. So you see, it was
not I who was talking, because there is no more I; I has moved and has
taken apartments in Life. It was you talking to yourself; you laughing
at yourself; you mocking yourself; you angry with yourself--and all
because you could not explain. And why should you? What is there to
explain? Is it then not all clear?
Hark! and listen to what Life says. Life is talking now, talking
through all its being, to all of yourself. How the grass smiles at you,
and the moon, and the stars, how they look at you! How all the animals,
the birds, and everything in Life wishes to get at one with you! And
you understand them not; you are listening for a voice to be heard
with ears. You are waiting for a vision to be seen with eyes; you are
waiting for something to be smelled and sensed.
Life is all around you. It is in you and you find it not. Don’t you
know me? It is “I,” Life!
I am everywhere. I have no limitations. In the depths and on the
heights, I am! The winds take me in their breezes and in their gales;
the sunlight in its shadows and in its brightness. I am in the song
of the birds. The lowing of the kine and the roar of the wild beasts,
I am. I glisten in the dew, and the spark of the diamond radiates me.
The whisperings of the tree and brook, the thunders of the storm, the
mighty rush of waters--all are mine.
I am the Life of the forests; the Life of the seas: I am the sea and
the forest. I am the Life of the insects: I am the insects. I am the
life of the deserts: I am the desert. I am the life of the quadruped
and the biped: I am the quadruped and the biped. I am the life of the
good and the evil: I am the good and the evil--all are included in me.
I am the best of that which is good and the worst of that which is
bad--and that is good.
By seeking you will not find me. When you have forsaken me I am with
you. Come unto me, you weaklings, and I will give you strength; you
weary ones, and I will give you rest. Come you perturbed ones, and I
will give you peace. And to you who are little children I will give
wisdom. To love and to serve; to let Life live through you, from
everlasting to everlasting.
This is the message of Life.
SYMBOLS AND TAGS
There is something the matter! A feeling of uneasiness is within me.
What’s up, I wonder? My physician tells me that my liver is in good
shape. My heart, he says, beats normal; he examined me carefully, and
assured me that there is nothing wrong with me. My health seems to be
good, and my appetite is in splendid working order. I have a place to
sleep; I could have all the clothes I need; still, I am not very happy.
There is something wrong--I know there is. A kind of restless feeling
possesses me. I have examined myself all over, and I cannot account for
the cause of it within myself, because it is not myself that I feel; I
feel others within me; I feel you. There is something radically wrong
with me in you, which I feel. What is it that you have not, and for
which your heart craves? I feel that you feel lonely; you feel that you
are separated from something to which you ought to be united; you are
like a wanderer, a stranger you are--even amongst your most intimate.
You are hungry for love; you feel depressed because even the ones who
love you love not you--but what you give them.
Come, O my beloved! tell me; tell me whether these are your symptoms?
No, you need not; I feel you--way down deep in my heart I feel you; it
is you who have not felt me knocking at your heart’s door, and you have
locked your heart and would not let me enter. I would have fed you, I
would have nourished you; I know I would. I know you are Life-hungry,
caused by your feeding on symbols instead of the real; it did not
nourish you and you are famished.
You have given symbols the place of the real things. You have accepted
a thing, the value of which exists in the fact that it is redeemable
in something of value; you have become contented with an order which
is exchangeable for something you want--for the thing you want--and it
does not satisfy you. Should you get a cheque, you would not be content
unless there be funds to make it good. If I should present you with a
meal-ticket you would not be satisfied unless you could go to the place
and get the meal.
Ideas are worthless unless you can realize them; they must be redeemed
and acted before they become of value--you must live them. That’s
what ails you--you have overeaten on ideas. You have chewed up your
meal-ticket, and wonder why you are still hungry.
Instead of acts, which are the food of Life, you have substituted
ideas, and Life in you famishes for things vital. You selected the wise
to guide you, and they did; you have the wise men to do the thinking
for you; you have them prepare beautiful thoughts, pickled, fried, or
preserved, and you feed on them. How long would your body last if you
fed it on meal-tickets instead of the stuff which a meal-ticket will
get? It takes steak, potatoes, and the like to make tissue, muscles,
and bone. You thought to be wise is to think wisely, which is true, but
you must redeem the thought in acts. Thoughts are the soul of acts--and
are worthless in themselves. That is the trouble; you thought there was
merit in thinking wisely, and so you thought, and thought, and thought.
If wisdom consists in thinking, it matters not the direction thoughts
take. So the wise--with grave and serious energy--entered upon thought
where no act was possible. A thought may have been valuable when
conditions rendered a possibility of realizing action upon it in the
end. Thought is worthless when it cannot be put into use.
In your heart I find a foreign substance--an idol of symbol worship.
This it is that poisoned your conduct at its very source, and
corruption has entered into every activity of life and produced myriad
forms of hypocrisy.
In theology you are given dead thoughts of the past and amazing
theories of the future, none of which can issue in wise acts of to-day.
You go about with religious meal-tickets, yet finding no tables set;
for you are supplied with worthless cheques upon the establishments of
yesterdays and to-morrows.
What care you for future worlds? It is love and happiness in this world
which you are after. What care you for the bones of the past or of the
future? It is the living bones and skin that interest me. The Bible
is all right, but what of the Bible of to-day? Religion has become
a belief instead of a life. Ask the priest of to-day what to do and
he will tell you to believe. Then you believe that you are what you
thought you would like to be. Jesus said, “Why call you me master and
do not my commandments?” and in the name of Him who tells you to do,
the church tells you you can believe--but be damned if you _do_; we
will not tolerate any nonsense; we have a place for silly fellows like
you.
Imagine yourself doing unto others what you would want them to do unto
you! How long do you suppose it would be before your friends would have
a guardian appointed over you? This belief is the keynote of hypocrisy,
which has spread and become the fashion in all branches of activity;
and to-day’s unhappiness is the hypocrisy in man’s life made apparent.
Scientific thought takes the same direction--dealing with ideas,
theories, classifications, and measurements--things which are not vital
to human life and human happiness. Our scientists come forward with
pathological explanations and theories concerning degeneracy; with
charts, diagrams and skull measurements. They put complicated machines
on the little fingers of our school-children to measure the out-go of
their precious lives as they bend over the study of dim, dead pages.
In the industrial field, the symbol takes shape in veneers, shellacs
and polishes; and men build great temples for their symbol-worship,
and construct amazing systems for the accumulation of wealth--systems
built for ideas instead of for man; systems that demonstrate such ideas
as division of labor, and such a man as the crooked-backed accountant
adding up a lifetime of figures, or the dim-eyed sweatshop toiler
working out a lifetime of buttonholes. Systems that produce such
helpless abortions as millionaires and tramps, systems that change
happy, healthy, well-developed human beings into mere adjuncts and
gives to the ones who actually produce the lowest caste of all.
Art holds up to us the past--the Greek, the Gothic, the Renaissance;