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3. The Animal Kingdom - Part 3

Therefore, the first postulate which must be laid down, and to which the general public must be educated, is that all souls incarnate and re-incarnate under the Law of Rebirth. Hence each life is not only a recapitulation of life experience, but an assuming of ancient obligations, a recovery of old relations, an opportunity for the paying of old indebtedness, a chance to make restitution and progress, an awakening of deep-seated qualities, the recognition of old friends and enemies, the solution of revolting injustices, and the explanation of that which conditions the man and makes him what he is. Such is the law which is crying now for universal recognition, and which, when understood by thinking people, will do much to solve the problems of sex and marriage.

Why will this be so?  Because when this law is admitted as a governing intellectual principle, all men will tread more carefully the path of life, and will proceed with greater caution to fulfill their family and group obligations.  They will know full well that "whatsoever a man soweth, that will he also reap," and that he will reap it here and now, and not in some mystical and mythical heaven or hell; he will have to make his adjustments in the life of every day upon earth, which provides an adequate heaven and a more than adequate [301] hell.  The spreading of this doctrine of rebirth, its scientific recognition and proving, is fast going forward, and during the next ten years it will be the subject of much attention.

The second basic postulate was enunciated for us by Christ when he told us to "love our neighbor as ourselves." To this we have paid, as yet, but little attention.  We have loved ourselves and have sought to love those we like.  But to love universally and because our neighbor is a soul as we are, with a nature essentially perfect and an infinite destiny, this has always been regarded as a beautiful dream to be consummated in a future so distant, and in a heaven so far away, that we may well forget it.  Two thousand years have gone since the greatest expression of God's love walked on earth and bade us love each other.  Yet still we fight and hate and use our powers for selfish ends, our bodies and our appetites for material pleasures, and our efforts at living are, in the mass, primarily directed towards personal selfishness.  Have you ever considered what the world would today be if man had listened to the Christ and had sought to obey His command?  We should have eliminated much disease (for the diseases originating in the misuse of the sex function underlie a large percentage of our physical ills, and devastate our modern civilisation), we should have made war impossible, we should have reduced crime to a minimum, and our modern life would be an exemplification of a manifesting divinity.  But this has not been the case, and hence our modern world conditions.

But the new law must, and will, be enunciated.  This law can be summed up in the words: Let a man so live that his life is harmless.  Then no evil to the group can grow out of his thoughts, his actions or his words.  This is not negative harmlessness, but of a difficult and positive activity.  If the above practical paraphrase of the words of Christ were universally promulgated and practically applied, we should have [302] order growing out of chaos, group love superseding personal selfishness, religious unity taking the place of fanatical intolerance, and regulated appetites instead of licence.

The two laws I have proclaimed, and the two postulates I have above enunciated, sound like platitudes.  But platitudes are the universal and recognised truths, and a truth is a scientific pronouncement.  The moulding of the life by these two recognitions (the Law of Rebirth and the Law of Love) would save humanity and rebuild our civilisation.  They are probably too simple to evoke an interested recognition.  But the power lying behind them is the power of divinity itself, and their recognition is simply a question of time, for evolution will force the recognition at some distant date.  The forming of an earlier recognition lies in the hands of the disciples and thinkers of the present age.

The third basic law underlying the solution of our modern problems, including that of sex, grows normally out of the other two laws.  It is the Law of Group Life.  Our group relations must be seen and acknowledged.  Not only must a man fulfill in love his family and national obligations, but he must think in the wider terms of humanity itself, and so bring the Law of Brotherhood into expression.  Brotherhood is a group quality.  The young people who are now coming in will come into life equipped with a much deeper sense of the group, and with their group awareness much more fully developed than is now the case.  They will solve their problems, including the problem of sex, by asking themselves when situations arise of a difficult nature: Will this action of mine tend to the group good?  Will the group be hurt or suffer if I do thus and so?  Will this benefit the group and produce group progress, group integration, and group unity?  Action which fails to measure up to the group requirements will then automatically be discarded.  In the deciding of problems, the [303] individual and the unit will slowly learn to subordinate the personal good and the personal pleasure to group conditions and group requirements.  You can see, therefore, how the problem of sex will also yield to solution.  An understanding of the Law of Rebirth, a good-will towards all men, working out as harmlessness, and a desire for group goodwill will gradually become determining factors in the racial consciousness, and our civilisation will adjust itself in time to these new conditions.

The final postulate which I seek to emphasize is that the keeping of these three laws will lead necessarily to an urgent desire to keep the law of the land in which a particular soul has incarnated.  That these man-made laws are inadequate I well know, and it is needless to point this out.  They may be, and are, temporary and insufficient to the need.  They may fail in their scope and prove inadequate, but they do, in a measure, safeguard the little feeble ones, and will be regarded therefore as binding upon those who are seeking to help the race.  These laws are subject to change as the effect of the three great laws makes itself felt, but until they are wisely altered (and this takes time) they act as a brake on license and on selfishness.  They may also work hardship.  This none can deny.  But the hardships they bring are not so evil in their nature nor so lasting in their effects as would be the result of their removal and the consequent inauguration of a cycle of law-less-ness.  Therefore, the server of the race cooperates with the laws of the land in his daily life, working at the same time for the removal of the injustices they may produce and for the bettering of the legal impositions upon mankind in his country.

In the recognition of these four laws,—of Rebirth, of Love, of the group. and of the Land,—we shall see the salvation of the race.

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4. Sex and Discipleship

I want to write a word on the subject of sex in the life of the disciple.  There is much confusion in the minds of aspirants on this matter, and the injunction as to celibacy is assuming the position of a religious doctrine.  We are often told by the well-meaning but illogical that if a man is a disciple he cannot marry, and that there is no real spiritual attainment unless a man is celibate.  This theory has its roots in two things:

First, there has ever been a mistaken attitude in the East towards women.  Secondly, in the West, from the time of Christ, there has been a tendency towards the monastic and conventual conception of spiritual life.  These two attitudes embody two mistaken ideas, and lie at the root of much misunderstanding and at the heart of much evil.  Man is no better than the woman, nor woman than the man.  Yet many thousands regard women as embodying that which is evil and that which is the basis of temptation.  But God has from the beginning ordained that men and women should meet each other's needs and act as complements to each other.  God has not ordained that men should live herded together, away from women, or women away from men; and both of these great systems have led to much sexual abuse and to much suffering.

The belief that to be a disciple necessitates a celibate life and complete abstinence from all natural functions is neither correct nor desirable. This can be proved by the recognition of two things:

The first is that if divinity is indeed a reality and an expression of omnipotence and omnipresence as well as omniscience, and if man is essentially divine, then there can be no condition possible wherein divinity cannot be supreme. There can be no sphere of human activity where man cannot [305] act divinely and wherein all functions cannot be illumined by the light of pure reason and divine intelligence. I deal not here with the specious and devious argument that that which normally and by all right-minded people is regarded as wrong must be right because of man's inherent divinity. That can be but a loose excuse for wrong-doing. I speak of sexual relations of the right kind, within the permit of the spiritual law as well as the law of the land.

Secondly, a life that is not normally rounded out till all the functions of its nature—animal, human and divine—(and man is all of these three in one body) are exercised, is frustrated, inhibited, and abnormal.  That all cannot marry in these days is true, but that fact does not negate the greater fact that man has been created by God to marry.  That all are not in a position where they can today live normal and full lives is equally a consequence of our present abnormal economic conditions; but this in no way negates the fact that the condition is abnormal.  But that an enforced celibacy is an indication of a deep spirituality, and a necessary part of all esoteric and spiritual training, is equally false, abnormal and undesirable.  There is no better training school for a disciple and an initiate than family life, with its enforced relations, its scope for adjustments and adaptability, its demanded sacrifices and service, and its opportunities for the full expression of every part of man's nature.  There is no greater service to be rendered to the race than the proffering of bodies to incoming souls, and the giving of attention and educational facilities to those souls within the home limits.  But the whole condition and problem of the family life and of child-bearing have been distorted and misunderstood; and it will be long before marriage and children assume their rightful place as sacraments, and longer still before the pain and suffering consequent upon our mistakes and on the misuse of the sexual [306] relation have disappeared, and the beauty and consecration of marriage and of the manifestation of souls in form supersede the present wrong grouping of ideas.

The disciple and aspirant upon the Path, and the Initiate upon his "Lighted Way," have no better training ground therefore than the marriage relation, rightly used and rightly understood.  The bringing of the animal nature under rhythmic discipline, the elevation of the emotional and the instinctual natures upon the altar of sacrifice, and the self-abnegation required in the life of the family are tremendous purificatory and developing potencies.  The celibacy required is that of the higher nature to the demands of the lower, and the refusal of the spiritual man to be dominated by the personality and the demands of the flesh.  The attitude of an imposed celibacy upon the equipment of many a disciple has led to much prostitution and to many perversions of God-given functions and faculties; and even where there has not been this distressing condition, and where the life has been sane, consecrated and sound, there have frequently been undue suffering and much mental distress and disciplining, before unruly thoughts and tendencies could be controlled.

It is of course true that sometimes a man may be called to some particular life wherein he is faced with the problem of celibacy, and is forced to abstain from all physical relations and to live a strictly celibate life, in order to demonstrate to himself that he can control the animal and instinctual side of his nature.  But this condition is frequently the result of excess and licence in a previous life, which necessitates stringent measures and abnormal conditions in order to offset and rectify past errors and give the lower nature time to readjust itself.  But again it is no indication of spiritual development, rather the reverse.  Forget not that here I am dealing with the special case of self-applied celibacy, and not with the present [307] world-wide condition wherein, through economic and other reasons, men and women are forced to live without a natural and full life expression.

The sex problem must, in the last analysis, be solved in the home and under normal conditions, and it is the advanced people of the world and the disciples of all degrees who must thus solve it.