Mystery Of Self

A greater mystery is your real Self--that greater Self which is not in your body; not in or of
this world of birth and death; but which, consciously immortal in the all-pervading Realm of
Permanence, is a presence with you through all your lifetimes, through all your interludes of sleep
and death.
Man's lifelong search for something that will satisfy is in reality the quest for his real Self;
the identity, the selfness and I-ness, which each one is dimly conscious of, and feels and desires to
know. Hence the real Self is to be identified as Self-knowledge, the real though unrecognized goal
of human seeking. It is the permanence, the perfection, the fulfillment, which is looked for but
never found in human relations and effort. Further, the real Self is the ever-present counsellor and
judge that speaks in the heart as conscience and duty, as rightness and reason, as law and justice--
without which man would be little more than an animal.
There is such a Self. It is of the Triune Self, in this book so called because it is one indivisible
unit of an individual trinity: of a knower part, a thinker part, and a doer part. Only a portion of the
doer part can enter the animal body and make that body human. That embodied part is what is
here termed the doer-in-the-body. In each human being the embodied doer is an inseparable part
of its own Triune Self, which is a distinct unit among other Triune Selves. The thinker and
knower parts of each Triune Self are in the Eternal, the Realm of Permanence, which pervades
this our human world of birth and death and time. The doer-in-the-body is controlled by the
senses and by the body; therefore it is not able to be conscious of the reality of the ever-present
thinker and knower parts of its Triune Self. It misses them; the objects of the senses blind it, the
coils of flesh hold it. It does not see beyond the objective forms; it fears to free itself from the
fleshly coils, and stand alone. When the embodied doer proves itself willing and ready to dispel
the glamour of the sense illusions, its thinker and knower are always ready to give it Light on the
way to Self-knowledge. But the embodied doer in search for the thinker and knower looks abroad.
Identity, or the real Self, has always been a mystery to thinking human beings in every
civilization.
Plato, probably the most illustrious and representative of the philosophers of Greece, used as
a precept to his followers in his school of philosophy, the Academy: "Know thyself"--gnothi
seauton. From his writings it would appear that he had an understanding of the real Self, although
none of the words that he used has been rendered into English as anything more adequate than
"the soul". Plato used a method of inquiry concerning the finding of the real Self. There is great
art in the exploiting of his characters; in producing his dramatic effects. His method of dialectics
is simple and profound. The mentally lazy reader, who would rather be entertained than learn,
will most likely think Plato tedious. Obviously his dialectic method was to train the mind, to be
able to follow a course of reasoning, and to be not forgetful of the questions and answers in the
dialogue; else one would be unable to judge the conclusions reached in the arguments. Surely,
Plato did not intend to present the learner with a mass of knowledge. It is more likely that he
intended to discipline the mind in thinking, so that by one's own thinking he would be enlightened
and led to knowledge of his subject. This, the Socratic method, is a dialectical system of
intelligent questions and answers which if followed will definitely help one to learn how to think;
and in training the mind to think clearly Plato has done more perhaps than any other teacher. But
no writings have come down to us in which he tells what thinking is, or what the mind is; or what
the real Self is, or the way to knowledge of it. One must look further.
The ancient teaching of India is summed up in the cryptic statement: "that art thou" (tat tvam
asi). The teaching does not make clear, however, what the "that" is or what the "thou" is; or in
what way the "that" and the "thou" are related, or how they are to be identified. Yet if these words
are to have meaning they should be explained in terms that are understandable. The substance of
all Indian philosophy--to take a general view of the principal schools--seems to be that in man
there is an immortal something which is and always has been an individual part of a composite or
universal something, much as a drop of sea water is a part of the ocean, or as a spark is one with
the flame in which it has its origin and being; and, further, that this individual something, this the
embodied doer--or, as it is termed in the principal schools, the atman, or the purusha,--is
separated from the universal something merely by the veil of sense illusion, maya, which causes
the doer in the human to think of itself as separate and as an individual; whereas, the teachers
declare, there is no individuality apart from the great universal something, termed Brahman.
The teaching is, further, that the embodied fragments of the universal Brahman are all subject
to human existence and coincident suffering, unconscious of their supposed identity with the
universal Brahman; bound to the wheel of births and deaths and re-embodiments in nature, until,
after long ages, all the fragments gradually will have been re-united in the universal Brahman.
The cause or the necessity or the desirability of Brahman's going through this arduous and painful
procedure as fragments or drops is not, however, explained. Neither is it shown how the
presumably perfect universal Brahman is or can be benefitted by it; or how any of its fragments
profit; or how nature is benefitted. The whole of human existence would seem to be a useless
ordeal without point or reason.
Nevertheless, a way is indicated by which a properly qualified individual, seeking "isolation,"
or "liberation" from the present mental bondage to nature, may by heroic effort pull away from
the mass, or nature illusion, and go on ahead of the general escape from nature. Freedom is to be
attained, it is said, through the practice of yoga; for through yoga, it is said, the thinking may be
so disciplined that the atman, the purusha--the embodied doer--learns to suppress or destroy its
feelings and desires, and dissipates the sense illusions in which its thinking has long been
entangled; thus being freed from the necessity of further human existence, it is eventually
reabsorbed into the universal Brahman.
In all of this there are vestiges of truth, and therefore of much good. The yogi learns indeed to
control his body and to discipline his feelings and desires. He may learn to control his senses to
the point where he can, at will, be conscious of states of matter interior to those ordinarily
perceived by the untrained human senses, and may thus be enabled to explore and become
acquainted with states in nature that are mysteries to most human beings. He may, further, attain
to a high degree of mastery over some forces of nature. All of which unquestionably sets the
individual apart from the great mass of undisciplined doers. But although the system of yoga
purports to "liberate," or "isolate," the embodied self from the illusions of the senses, it seems
clear that it actually never leads one beyond the confines of nature. This is plainly due to a
misunderstanding concerning the mind.
The mind that is trained in yoga is the sense-mind, the intellect. It is that specialized
instrument of the doer that is described in later pages as the body-mind, here distinguished from
two other minds heretofore not distinguished: minds for the feeling and the desire of the doer. The
body-mind is the only means by which the embodied doer can function through its senses. The
functioning of the body-mind is limited strictly to the senses, and hence strictly to nature.
Through it the human is conscious of the universe in its phenomenal aspect only: the world of
time, of illusions. Hence, though the disciple does sharpen his intellect, it is at the same time
evident that he is still dependent upon his senses, still entangled in nature, not freed from the
necessity of continued re-existences in human bodies. In short, however adept a doer may be as
the operator of its body machine, it cannot isolate or liberate itself from nature, cannot gain
knowledge of itself or of its real Self, by thinking with its body-mind only; for such subjects are
ever mysteries to the intellect, and can be understood only through the rightly coordinated
functioning of the body-mind with the minds of feeling and desire.
It does not seem that the minds of feeling and of desire have been taken into account in the
Eastern systems of thinking. The evidence of this is to be found in the four books of Patanjali's
Yoga Aphorisms, and in the various commentaries on that ancient work. Patanjali is probably the
most esteemed and representative of India's philosophers. His writings are profound. But it seems
probable that his true teaching has been either lost or kept secret; for the delicately subtle sutras
that bear his name would seem to frustrate or make impossible the very purpose for which they
are ostensibly intended. How such a paradox could persist unquestioned through the centuries is
to be explained only in the light of what is put forth in this and later chapters concerning feeling
and desire in the human.
The Eastern teaching, like other philosophies, is concerned with the mystery of the conscious
self in the human body, and the mystery of the relation between that self and its body, and nature,
and the universe as a whole. But the Indian teachers do not show that they know what this the
conscious self--the atman, the purusha, the embodied doer--is, as distinguished from nature: no
clear distinction is made between the doer-in-the-body and the body which is of nature. The
failure to see or to point out this distinction is evidently due to the universal misconception or
misunderstanding of feeling and desire. It is necessary that feeling and desire be explained at this
point.
A consideration of feeling and desire introduces one of the most important and far reaching
subjects put forth in this book. Its significance and value cannot be overestimated. The
understanding and use of feeling and desire may mean the turning point in the progress of the
individual and of Humanity; it can liberate doers from false thinking, false beliefs, false goals, by
which they have kept themselves in darkness. It disproves a false belief that has long been blindly
accepted; a belief that is now so deeply rooted in the thinking of human beings that apparently no
one has thought of questioning it.
It is this: Everybody has been taught to believe that the senses of the body are five in number,
and that feeling is one of the senses. The senses, as stated in this book, are units of nature,
elemental beings, conscious as their functions but unintelligent. There are only four senses: sight,
hearing, taste, and smell; and for each sense there is a special organ; but there is no special organ
for feeling because feeling--though it feels through the body--is not of the body, not of nature. It
is one of the two aspects of the doer. Animals also have feeling and desire, but animals are
modifications from the human, as explained later on.
The same must be said of desire, the other aspect of the doer. Feeling and desire must always
be considered together, for they are inseparable; neither can exist without the other; they are like
the two poles of an electric current, the two sides of a coin. Therefore this book makes use of the
compound term: feeling-and-desire.
Feeling-and-desire of the doer is the intelligent power by which nature and the senses are
moved. It is within the creative energy that is everywhere present; without it all life would cease.
Feeling-and-desire is the beginningless and endless creative art by which all things are perceived,
conceived, formed, brought forth, and controlled, whether through the agency of doers in human
bodies or of those who are of The Government of the world, or of the great Intelligences. Feelingand-
desire is within all intelligent activity.
In the human body, feeling-and-desire is the conscious power which operates this individual
nature machine. Not one of the four senses--feels. Feeling, the passive aspect of the doer, is that in
the body which feels, which feels the body and feels the impressions that are transmitted to the
body by the four senses, as sensations. Further, it can in varying degrees perceive supersensory
impressions, such as a mood, an atmosphere, a premonition; it can feel what is right and what is
wrong, and it can feel the warnings of conscience. Desire, the active aspect, is the conscious
power that moves the body in the accomplishment of the doer's purpose. The doer functions
simultaneously in both its aspects: thus every desire arises from a feeling, and every feeling gives
rise to a desire.
You will be taking an important step on the way to knowledge of the conscious self in the
body when you think of yourself as the intelligent feeling present through your voluntary nervous
system, as distinct from the body which you feel, and simultaneously as the conscious power of
desire surging through your blood, yet which is not the blood. Feeling-and-desire should
synthesize the four senses. An understanding of the place and function of feeling-and-desire is the
point of departure from the beliefs which for many ages have caused the doers in human beings to
think of themselves merely as mortals. With this understanding of feeling-and-desire in the
human, the philosophy of India may now be continued with new appreciation.
The Eastern teaching recognizes the fact that in order to attain to knowledge of the conscious
self in the body, one must be freed from the illusions of the senses, and from the false thinking
and action that result from failure to control one's own feelings and desires. But it does not
transcend the universal misconception that feeling is one of the senses of the body. On the
contrary, the teachers state that touch or feeling is a fifth sense; that desire is also of the body; and
that both feeling and desire are things of nature in the body. According to this hypothesis it is
argued that the purusha, or atman--the embodied doer, feeling-and-desire--must completely
suppress feeling, and must utterly destroy, "kill out," desire. In the light of what has been shown
here concerning feeling-and-desire, it would seem that the teaching of the East is advising the
impossible. The indestructible immortal self in the body cannot destroy itself. If it were possible
for the human body to go on living without feeling-and-desire, the body would be a mere
insensible breathing-mechanism.
Aside from their misunderstanding of feeling-and-desire the Indian teachers give no evidence
of having a knowledge or understanding of the Triune Self. In the unexplained statement: "thou
art that," it must be inferred that the "thou" who is addressed is the atman, the purusha--the
individual embodied self; and that the "that" with which the "thou" is thus identified is the
universal self, Brahman. There is no distinction made between the doer and its body; and likewise
there is a corresponding failure to distinguish between the universal Brahman and universal
nature. Through the doctrine of a universal Brahman as the source and end of all embodied
individual selves, untold millions of doers have been kept in ignorance of their real Selves; and
moreover have come to expect, even to aspire, to lose in the universal Brahman that which is the
most precious thing that anyone can have: one's real identity, one's own individual great Self,
among other individual immortal Selves.
Although it is clear that the Eastern philosophy tends to keep the doer attached to nature, and
in ignorance of its real Self, it seems unreasonable and unlikely that these teachings could have
been conceived in ignorance; that they could have been perpetuated with the intention of keeping
people from the truth, and so in subjection. Rather, it is very probable that the existing forms,
however ancient they may be, are merely the vestigial remnants of a much older system that had
descended from a civilization vanished and almost forgotten: a teaching that may have been truly
enlightening; that conceivably recognized feeling-and-desire as the immortal doer-in-the-body;
that showed the doer the way to knowledge of its own real Self. The general features of the
existing forms suggest such a probability; and that in the course of the ages the original teaching
imperceptibly gave way to the doctrine of a universal Brahman and the paradoxical doctrines that
would do away with the immortal feeling-and-desire as something objectionable.
There is a treasure that is not entirely hidden: The Bhagavad Gita, the most precious of
India's jewels. It is India's pearl beyond price. The truths imparted by Krishna to Arjuna are
sublime, beautiful, and everlasting. But the far-off historical period in which the drama is set and
involved, and the ancient Vedic doctrines in which its truths are veiled and shrouded, make it too
difficult for us to understand what the characters Krishna and Arjuna are; how they are related to
each other; what the office of each is to the other, in or out of the body. The teaching in these
justly venerated lines is full of meaning, and could be of great value. But it is so mixed with and
obscured by archaic theology and scriptural doctrines that its significance is almost entirely
hidden, and its real value is accordingly depreciated.
Owing to the general lack of clearness in the Eastern philosophy, and the fact that it appears
to be self-contradictory as a guide to knowledge of oneself in the body and of one's real Self, the
ancient teaching of India seems to be doubtful and undependable. One returns to the West.
Concerning Christianity: The actual origins and history of Christianity are obscure. A vast
literature has grown out of centuries of effort to explain what the teachings are, or what they
originally were intended to be. From the earliest times there has been much teaching of doctrine;
but no writings have come down that show a knowledge of what was actually intended and taught
in the beginning.
The parables and sayings in The Gospels bear evidence of grandeur, simplicity, and truth. Yet
even those to whom the new message first was given appear not to have understood it. The books
are direct, not intended to mislead; but at the same time they state that there is an inner meaning
which is for the elect; a secret teaching intended not for everyone but for "whosoever will
believe." Certainly, the books are full of mysteries; and it must be supposed that they cloak a
teaching that was known to an initiated few. The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost: these are
mysteries. Mysteries, too, are the Immaculate Conception and the birth and life of Jesus; likewise
his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Mysteries, undoubtedly, are heaven and hell, and the
devil, and the Kingdom of God; for it is scarcely likely that these subjects were meant to be
understood in terms of the senses, rather than as symbols. Moreover, throughout the books there
are phrases and terms that plainly are not to be taken too literally, but rather in a mystical sense;
and others clearly could have significance only to selected groups. Further, it is not reasonable to
suppose that the parables and miracles could have been related as literal truths. Mysteries
throughout--but nowhere are the mysteries revealed. What is all this mystery?
The very evident purpose of The Gospels is to teach the understanding and living of an inner
life; an interior life which would regenerate the human body and thereby conquer death, restoring
the physical body to eternal life, the state from which it is said to have fallen--its "fall" being "the
original sin." At one time there certainly must have been a definite system of instruction which
would make clear exactly how one might live such an interior life: how one might, through so
doing, come into the knowledge of one's real Self. The existence of such a secret teaching is
suggested in the early Christian writings by references to secrets and mysteries. Moreover it
seems obvious that the parables are allegories, similes: homely stories and figures of speech,
serving as vehicles for conveying not merely moral examples and ethical teachings, but also
certain inner, eternal truths as parts of a definite system of instruction. However, The Gospels, as
they exist today, lack the connections which would be needed to formulate a system; what has
come down to us is not enough. And, concerning the mysteries in which such teachings
supposedly were concealed, no known key or code has been given to us with which we might
unlock or explain them.
The ablest and most definite expositor of the early doctrines that we know of is Paul. The
words he used were intended to make his meaning clear to those to whom they were addressed;
but now his writings need to be interpreted in terms of the present day. "The First Epistle of Paul
to the Corinthians," the fifteenth chapter, alludes to and reminds of certain teachings; certain
definite instructions concerning the living of an interior life. But it is to be assumed that those
teachings either were not committed to writing--which would appear understandable--or else that
they were lost or have been left out of the writings that have come down. At all events, "The
Way" is not shown.
Why were the truths given in the form of mysteries? The reason might have been that the
laws of the period prohibited the spreading of new doctrines. The circulating of a strange teaching
or doctrine could have been punishable by death. Indeed, the legend is that Jesus suffered death
by crucifixion for his teaching of the truth and the way and the life.
But today, it is said, there is freedom of speech: one may state without fear of death what one
believes concerning the mysteries of life. What anyone thinks or knows about the constitution and
functioning of the human body and of the conscious self that inhabits it, the truth or opinions that
one may have concerning the relation between the embodied self and its real Self, and regarding
the way to knowledge--these need not be hidden, today, in words of mystery requiring a key or a
code for their understanding. In modern times all "hints" and "blinds," all "secrets" and
"initiations," in a special mystery language, should be evidence of ignorance, egotism, or sordid
commercialism.
Notwithstanding mistakes and divisions and sectarianism; notwithstanding a great variety of
interpretations of its mystical doctrines, Christianity has spread to all parts of the world. Perhaps
more than any other faith, its teachings have helped to change the world. There must be truths in
the teachings, however they may be hidden, which, for nearly two thousand years, have reached
into human hearts and awakened the Humanity in them.
Everlasting truths are inherent in Humanity, in the Humanity which is the totality of all the
doers in human bodies. These truths cannot be suppressed or entirely forgotten. In whatever age,
in whatever philosophy or faith, the truths will appear and reappear, whatever their changing
forms.
One form in which certain of these truths are cast is Freemasonry. The Masonic order is as
old as the human race. It has teachings of great value; far greater, in fact, than is appreciated by
the Masons who are their custodians. The order has preserved ancient bits of priceless information
concerning the building of an everlasting body for one who is consciously immortal. Its central
mystery drama is concerned with the rebuilding of a temple which was destroyed. This is very
significant. The temple is the symbol of the human body which man must rebuild, regenerate, into
a physical body that will be eternal, everlasting; a body that will be a fitting habitation for the then
consciously immortal doer. "The Word" which is "lost" is the doer, lost in its human body--the
ruins of the once great temple; but which will find itself as the body is regenerated and the doer
takes control of it.
This book brings you more Light, more Light on your thinking; Light to find your "Way"
through life. The Light that it brings, however, is not a light of nature; it is a new Light; new,
because, although it has been a presence with you, you have not known it. In these pages it is
termed the Conscious Light within; it is the Light that can show you things as they are, the Light
of the Intelligence to which you are related. It is because of the presence of this Light that you are
able to think in creating thoughts; thoughts to bind you to objects of nature, or to free you from
objects of nature, as you choose and will. Real thinking is the steady holding and focussing of the
Conscious Light within on the subject of the thinking. By your thinking you make your destiny.
Right thinking is the way to knowledge of yourself. That which can show you the way, and which
can lead you on your way, is the Light of the Intelligence, the Conscious Light within. In later
chapters it is told how this Light should be used in order to have more Light.
The book shows that thoughts are real things, real beings. The only real things which man
creates are his thoughts. The book shows the mental processes by which thoughts are created; and
that many thoughts are more lasting than the body or brain through which they are created. It
shows that the thoughts man thinks are the potentials, the blue prints, the designs, the models
from which he builds out the tangible material things with which he has changed the face of
nature, and made what is called his way of living and his civilization. Thoughts are the ideas or
forms out of which and upon which civilizations are built and maintained and destroyed. The
book explains how the unseen thoughts of man exteriorize as the acts and objects and events of
his individual and collective life, creating his destiny through life after life on earth. But it also
shows how man can learn to think without creating thoughts, and thus control his own destiny.
The word mind as commonly used is the all-inclusive term which is made to apply to all
kinds of thinking, indiscriminately. It is generally supposed that man has only one mind. Actually
three different and distinct minds, that is, ways for thinking with the Conscious Light, are being
used by the embodied doer. These, previously mentioned, are: the body-mind, the feeling-mind,
and the desire-mind. Mind is the functioning of intelligent-matter. A mind therefore does not
function independently of the doer. The functioning of each of the three minds is dependent upon
the embodied feeling-and-desire, the doer.
The body-mind is that which is commonly spoken of as the mind, or the intellect. It is the
functioning of feeling-and-desire as the mover of physical nature, as the operator of the human
body machine, and hence is here called the body-mind. It is the only mind that is geared to and
that acts in phase with and through the senses of the body. Thus it is the instrument by means of
which the doer is conscious of and may act upon and within and through the matter of the
physical world.
The feeling-mind and the desire-mind are the functioning of feeling and of desire irrespective
of or in connection with the physical world. These two minds are almost completely submerged in
and controlled and subordinated by the body-mind. Therefore practically all human thinking has
been made to conform to the thinking of the body-mind, which ties the doer to nature and
prevents its thinking of itself as something distinct from the body. That which today is called
psychology is not a science. Modern psychology has been defined as the study of human
behavior. This must be taken to mean that it is the study of impressions from objects and forces of
nature that are made through the senses upon the human mechanism, and the response of the
human mechanism to the impressions thus received. But that is not psychology.
There cannot be any kind of psychology as a science, until there is some kind of
understanding of what the psyche is, and what the mind is; and a realization of the processes of
thought, of how the mind functions, and of the causes and results of its functioning. Psychologists
admit that they do not know what these things are. Before psychology can become a true science
there must be some understanding of the interrelated functioning of the three minds of the doer.
This is the foundation upon which can be developed a true science of the mind and of human
relations. In these pages it is shown how the feeling and desire are directly related to the sexes,
explaining that in a man the feeling aspect is dominated by desire and that in a woman the desire
aspect is dominated by feeling; and that in every human the functioning of the now dominant
body-mind is more nearly attuned to the one or the other of these, according to the sex of the body
in which they are functioning; and it is shown, further, that all human relations are dependent
upon the functioning of the body-minds of men and women in their relations to each other.
Modern psychologists prefer not to use the word soul, although it has been in general use in
the English language for many centuries. The reason for this is that all that has been said
concerning what the soul is or what it does, or the purpose that it serves, has been too unclear, too
doubtful and confusing, to warrant the scientific study of the subject. Instead, the psychologists
have therefore taken as the subject of their study the human animal machine and its behavior. It
has long been understood and agreed by people generally, however, that man is made up of
"body, soul, and spirit." No one doubts that the body is an animal organism; but concerning spirit
and soul there has been much uncertainty and speculation. On these vital subjects this book is
explicit.
The book shows that the living soul is an actual and literal fact. It shows that its purpose and
its functioning are of great importance in the universal plan, and that it is indestructible. It is
explained that that which has been called the soul is a nature unit--an elemental, a unit of an
element; and that this conscious but unintelligent entity is the furthest advanced of all the nature
units in the make-up of the body: it is the senior elemental unit in the body organization, having
progressed to that function after a long apprenticeship in the myriad lesser functions comprising
nature. Being thus the sum of all of nature's laws, this unit is qualified to act as the automatic
general manager of nature in the human body mechanism; as such it serves the immortal doer
through all its re-existences by periodically building a new fleshly body for the doer to come into,
and maintaining and repairing that body for as long as the destiny of the doer may require, as
determined by the doer's thinking.
This unit is termed the breath-form. The active aspect of the breath-form is the breath; the breath
is the life, the spirit, of the body; it permeates the entire structure. The other aspect of the breathform,
the passive aspect, is the form or model, the pattern, the mold, according to which the
physical structure is built out into visible, tangible existence by the action of the breath. Thus the
two aspects of the breath-form represent life and form, by which structure exists.
So the statement that man consists of body, soul, and spirit can readily be understood as
meaning that the physical body is composed of gross matter; that the spirit is the life of the body,
the living breath, the breath of life; and that the soul is the inner form, the imperishable model, of
the visible structure; and thus that the living soul is the perpetual breath-form which shapes,
maintains, repairs, and rebuilds the fleshly body of man.
The breath-form, in certain phases of its functioning, includes that which psychology has
termed the subconscious mind, and the unconscious. It manages the involuntary nervous system.
In this work it functions according to the impressions which it receives from nature. It also carries
out the voluntary movements of the body, as prescribed by the thinking of the doer-in-the-body.
Thus it functions as a buffer between nature and the immortal sojourner in the body; an
automaton blindly responding to the impacts of objects and forces of nature, and to the thinking of
the doer.
Your body is literally the result of your thinking. Whatever it may show of health or disease,
you make it so by your thinking and feeling and desiring. Your present body of flesh is actually
an expression of your imperishable soul, your breath-form; it is thus an exteriorization of the
thoughts of many lifetimes. It is a visible record of your thinking and doings as a doer, up to the
present. In this fact lies the germ of the body's perfectibility and immortality.
There is nothing so very strange today in the idea that man will one day attain to conscious
immortality; that he will eventually regain a state of perfection from which he originally fell.
Such a teaching in varying forms has been generally current in the West for nearly two thousand
years. During that time it has spread through the world so that hundreds of millions of doers, reexisting
on earth through the centuries, have been brought into recurrent contact with the idea as
an inwardly apprehended truth. Though there is still very little understanding of it, and still less
thinking about it; though it has been distorted to satisfy the feelings and desires of different
people; and though it may be regarded variously today with indifference, levity, or sentimental
awe, the idea is a part of the general thought pattern of present day Humanity, and therefore is
deserving of thoughtful consideration.
Some statements in this book, however, will quite possibly seem strange, even fantastic, until
enough thought has been given to them. For instance: the idea that the human physical body may
be made incorruptible, everlasting; may be regenerated and restored to a state of perfection and
eternal life from which the doer long ago caused it to fall; and, further, the idea that that state of
perfection and eternal life is to be gained, not after death, not in some far away nebulous
hereafter, but in the physical world while one is alive. This may indeed seem very strange, but
when examined intelligently it will not appear to be unreasonable.
What is unreasonable is that the physical body of man must die; still more unreasonable is the
proposition that it is only by dying that one can live forever. Scientists have of late been saying
that there is no reason why the life of the body should not be extended indefinitely, although they
do not suggest how this could be accomplished. Certainly, human bodies have always been
subject to death; but they die simply because no reasonable effort has been made to regenerate
them. In this book, in the chapter The Great Way, it is stated how the body can be regenerated,
can be restored to a state of perfection and be made a temple for the complete Triune Self.
Sex power is another mystery which man must solve. It should be a blessing. Instead, man
very often makes of it his enemy, his devil, that is ever with him and from which he cannot
escape. This book shows how, by thinking, to use it as the great power for good which it should
be; and how by understanding and self-control to regenerate the body and accomplish one's aims
and ideals in ever progressive degrees of accomplishment.
Every human being is a double mystery: the mystery of himself, and the mystery of the body
he is in. He has and is the lock and key to the double mystery. The body is the lock, and he is the
key in the lock. A purpose of this book is to tell you how to understand yourself as the key to the
mystery of yourself; how to find yourself in the body; how to find and know your real Self as
Self-knowledge; how to use yourself as the key to open the lock which is your body; and, through
your body, how to understand and know the mysteries of nature. You are in, and you are the
operator of, the individual body machine of nature; it acts and reacts with and in relation to
nature. When you solve the mystery of yourself as the doer of your Self-knowledge and the
operator of your body machine, you will know--in each detail and altogether--that the functions of
the units of your body are laws of nature. You will then know the known as well as the unknown
laws of nature, and be able to work in harmony with the great nature machine through its
individual body machine in which you are. Another mystery is time. Time is ever present as an
ordinary topic of conversation; yet when one tries to think about it and tell what it really is, it
becomes abstract, unfamiliar; it cannot be held, one fails to grasp it; it eludes, escapes, and is
beyond one. What it is has not been explained.
Time is the change of units, or of masses of units, in their relation to each other. This simple
definition applies everywhere and under every state or condition, but it must be thought of and
applied before one can understand it. The doer must understand time while in the body, awake.
Time seems to be different in other worlds and states. To the conscious doer time seems not to be
the same while awake as while in dreams, or while in deep sleep, or when the body dies, or while
passing through the after-death states, or while waiting for the building and the birth of the new
body it will inherit on earth. Each one of these time periods has an "In the beginning," a
succession, and an end. Time seems to crawl in childhood, run in youth, and race in ever
increasing speed until death of the body.
Time is the web of change, woven from the eternal to the changing human body. The loom
on which the web is woven is the breath-form. The body-mind is the maker and operator of the
loom, spinner of the web, and weaver of the veils called "past" or "present" or "future". Thinking
makes the loom of time, thinking spins the web of time, thinking weaves the veils of time; and the
body-mind does the thinking.