Thoughts of a fool
because Life is consistent.
Words, words, words! How can you express Life--how can you express
something that is greater than you? You have your place, but not the
whole place. It is you that make Life inconsistent when you represent
Life. You who hearken to false witnesses will give false verdicts.
Words themselves will tell you so, and when they do they are in harmony
with Life and are Life.
I saw words that were aflame with Life. I saw words that burned like
living fire. I saw words that aroused anger and resentment; and words
that calmed the storms of passion; words that refreshed and invigorated
like the friendly rain after a parching drought. I saw complex words
and I saw simple words, and there was Life in them all. I saw cruel
words that pierced like daggers, and words fraught to the full with
balm of happiness. When words take their rightful place, and are
satisfied to be what they are--merely words--how illimitable their
sphere enlarges--how grand and potent they become!
The words in this book are the words of Life. It remains for you to
decide what relationship exists between you and the words in this
volume. Without effort to be consistent it is consistent; and by
tearing down it builds up. Its education of you progresses as it
succeeds in tearing away the mask you wear.
Consistent! I am consistent when I do not condemn, for neither does
Life condemn. Life gives itself alike to the just and to the unjust.
And I am consistent when I condemn, for Life, too, condemns.
I am consistent in my condemnation of you when you condemn yourself by
concealing yourself behind a mask. You condemn your acts, and for that
reason you cover them. I do not condemn you for what you do, but for
wearing the mask--the mark of your self-condemnation.
You are inconsistent in your self-condemnation, nor is there sincerity
in it. For when you condemn a thing you cover it over, in order to
protect and conserve the very thing you condemn.
What Life condemns it extirpates. It has served its time and its
occasion, and is condemned to be no more. Life executes its mandates,
and from its judgment there is no appeal.
I know that you are what you are because you were what you were:
and you will be what you will be because you are what you are. The
action of Life through me upon you is in the process. I condemn your
condemnations, and by condemning them I destroy that which I condemn,
and leave you free from that which is condemned, instead of shielding
you and protecting that which you condemn.
For, look you! Life it is and Life alone that has the power to condemn,
for the thing that is dead is condemned to its grave, while you have
fertilized with your concealments the things you have condemned, and
they have flourished under your condemnation.
And as to Ideals. You cannot fall short of your highest ideals when
you are purged and cleansed of that within you which condemns. The
residue--the real You--is pure, holy, divine. What greater ideal could
you entertain?
Nor need “human nature” be changed to accomplish the transformation.
Does not your nature help me preserve the very thing which I wish to
preserve? You condemn, but nature in you, which is my Master as well
as yours, preserves that which I need, and when I condemn your mask
to be shattered to fragments you will then come forth like the little
chick when the time has come for its emergence from its imprisoning
shell. When the hour strikes you will heed the clarion call of Life to
unmask--to leave the outworn shell and blighted mask behind which you
were to get the experiences that fitted you to stand forth as one of
whom it might with truth be said: “It is Finished.”
Brother! Sister! Life has condemned the divided house in which you have
been dwelling--condemned it to its fall. Life has condemned in you the
old, that the new may become established. You will be transformed into
Man! A New Man! A man with a new sense--a sense capable of conscious
happiness--of a happiness that the old could never know. A peace,
indeed, that passeth understanding.
Life is building a new world, and preparing new beings to inherit the
fullness thereof. New beings that will sense the full fruition of the
comradeship of Man. Can you picture an ideal destiny transcending
this--that you are in the laboratory of preparation to become a
master-builder in this new-world building process? Yes, Life is making
you over in its seething crucible, that you may realize the Joy of
Life--such joy as you have never known.
The old world--the shell in which you are being formed--is pleasureless
to you. You conceive of pleasure only by the intellectual deduction
that pleasure ensues when pain ceases. Pleasure and pain are comrades;
one follows the other as light succeeds darkness. So, too, does
happiness follow misery.
It will come, brother, whether you want it so or not. You cannot stop
progress any more than you can stop the sun from shining. To stand in
the way of progress is suicide--like standing in the way of an express
train at full tilt; you are ground beneath the wheels, while the train
rushes on, heedless of the trifle that has sought to stay its flight.
Life has you in its laboratory. It is making a new man of you. And you
will build the new world. A world in which joy will be in everything
well done. Work will be a pleasure. A new civilization approaches.
It will bring with it new concepts--new concepts of work. Man has
passed through the theological civilization to the capitalistic, and
our concept of work has changed in the process. In the theological
civilization all human activity, mental and industrial, sprang from the
church. All that was achieved was done in the name of the church--God
and the church.
Painter and sculptor spent their lives in embellishing a cathedral.
Labor was deemed a curse of God on man. You must labor because you
have sinned, was the call of the church to diligence. All the “better”
industries were fostered by the church, and the laborer was a galley
slave. The redemption of Adam was to be a surcease from exertion. Labor
was esteemed a punishment for sin, and Salvation was a promise of
endless idleness.
Man went to war for the church, for then the church was supreme. Now
capital is supreme in the minds of men, and with the newer sovereignty
comes a remodeled philosophy. Work is no longer viewed as a curse. We
work because of our present needs rather than because of a desire to
expiate the sin of Adam. Nor do we now kill people for God’s sake or
for the greater glory of the church. We do our killing in the name
of Commerce, for the establishment of broader markets. Expansion is
our war-cry. When a railway magnate declares that God in his wisdom
had given him and his associates control over the coal deposits of
Pennsylvania, the good people laughed at him. Not because they disputed
the ownership of the select. No, they concede thus much. They smiled
at Mr. Baer’s anachronism. He was some centuries behind the times,
invoking a dethroned sovereign instead of the recognized reigning
monarch. Five centuries ago all ownership was justified as from the
grace of God, and no one had then the temerity to laugh the pretension
to scorn.
In the new civilization--in the new world that is to be built by man
for Man, rather than for God and Capital--work will assume a newer and
saner phase. We will work because of the pleasure we shall derive from
serving. We will serve well because we will love well. And he will be
greatest among us who serves most, until in the common love and service
all distinctions of greatness will be dissolved in the effulgence of
boundless, bondless Love.
Can you conceive of this? Can you see the new world coming?
Yes, it is coming, and it will be built by you.
Yes, you are condemned to the cross of the great preparation, that in
your resurrection you may build a new world, here and Now.
So, you see, that mask of yours served its purpose. You were at a
masquerade, and it was fitting you should wear your mask. But midnight
approaches. Only a few minutes more, and life will remove all masks.
Then you shall stand revealed to me as you are, and you shall see me as
I Am. And we will recognize each other as comrades, and laugh together
at the way we fooled each other with our sham.
Hark! Do you hear the gong?
Lo! the hour is at hand.
TAKE OFF YOUR MASKS.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Table of Contents added to this edition.
Extraneous chapter divider pages removed.
Typos corrected: “caballist” to “cabalist” (p. 166); “it it not evil”
to “it is not evil” (p. 222); “corpus delictu” to “corpus delicti” (p.
234)
Page 35: missing comma added after “if you like”.
Page 221: missing closing double quote added to end of paragraph.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.