Chapter 5 - I RETIRE FROM BUSINESS

Early in 1914 I retired from business and we went to live in the country. I felt that if I could only get away from my business associates and from all the exactions of business and live amongst flowers and birds, then I would be happy.

It was a relief to get away from London, but while my unhappiness was lessened, I still could not say that I was at peace. No one can be made really happy through a change of environment - happiness, as we all know, can come only from within. All the same, I must confess that I would not live in a town for a king's ransom. Yet although I can feel at home only in the country and beside the sea, these of themselves can never give real happiness.

But when I escaped from London it was probably more of a relief than it would have been to most people, for I had grown psychologically ill through becoming successful in a career for which I was not intended. The Spirit wanted me to go one way, whereas I had been lured by ambition to go another: therefore there was a constant state of conflict, an inner warfare which was prejudicial to health. Also when I decided to give up my business career, the night terrors ceased, thus proving that they had been warnings of great evils to come if I persisted in following a worldly career.

Consequently, although I could not say that I was happy, yet I experienced considerable relief as a result of my retirement.

It was in May 1914 that we settled into our country home.

Then in August the first world war broke out and in due course the countryside became denuded of its men and finally in 1916, I myself went off to the war. Joining up as a private in the Mechanical Transport, I finished up as Officer-in-Charge of a Technical Branch of the Royal Air Force. This experience, although possessing some interest to me, has little to do with the story of my pilgrimage, so I will say nothing about it.

Yet I must mention one incident which happened during this period, for it was a deep and searching experience and had much to do with my retirement from the world altogether in order to devote all my energies to my present work.

My wife and I were very devoted to our second son, who was about ten years of age and away at a public school. He was taken ill and we were sent for. Everything possible was done for him but, to our great grief, he passed away on the anniversary of our wedding day, 27th March 1918.

This was a heavy blow to us both an it seemed to me as though the bottom of my life had fallen away. But the loss inspired in me a great sympathy for all who were bereaved and in trouble, and made me desire to do something to help mankind. I felt that I wanted to take part in some altruistic work and to engage no more in business and money-making.

So after the war was over I bought an army hut, erected it in the garden, engaged a secretary and began to write, for I felt bursting to express myself. Thus, after many vicissitudes Within You is the Power was produced.

When I started I had no idea of writing such a book.

Apparently I wrote haphazardly, putting down just whatever came into my head at the time. I planned nothing; yet in spite of this, I think that I must have been guided in my writing, for this little book has been translated into several languages and, at a rough estimate, probably something like two hundred thousand copies have been sold.

I did not know then that I was simply reviving the teaching of Jesus who, when He began to preach said- according to modern translators – 'Change your minds (and consequently your thinking), for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand'. Then later on He said that the Kingdom of God is not here or there, but is within us (or as some translate it, 'inside us'). Of course my writing was not automatic; it was ordinary conscious writing. First the idea would come into my mind, then the words with which to clothe the idea.

Although at the time I commenced writing I was not conscious of being led by the Spirit yet - upon looking back over more than a quarter of a century - I can see very clearly now that it was Divine guidance which led me to write such books as Within You is the Power, and Look Within. (How wonderfully I was led to choose, in my ignorance, such titles for my books!)

Yes, it is indeed wonderful the way we are led by a Higher Wisdom to do just the right thing, and to make a right choice, in spite of the fact that at the time we are ignorant of the deeper implications which lie behind what we do, or say, or write!

About this same time, too, I wrote a series of articles for an American magazine. These I republished in book form under the title, The Message of a Flower. I also contributed another series of articles entitled The Art of Living to the same magazine and these were also afterwards reproduced in book form. Another book of mine about this time was The Power of Thought.

Although only an amateur writer and quite ignorant of publishing, I managed to sell my books, and have continued to do so ever since, but it is not a course of action which I would recommend to everyone. This literary excursion of mine was a help to me in my own search for Truth. We are told that the best way to learn is to teach and this I found to be true, for trying to express oneself in writing helps to clarify one's thoughts and ideas.

It was in April 1920 that I began the work which is known as 'Science of Thought'. In 1921 I decided to publish a monthly magazine - the first number appearing in October. It was an immediate success. Yet needless to say I had many difficulties to overcome, as well as innumerable struggles, but there is no need to tell of them here.

Suffice it to say that my new work was a success and, judging by the letters I received, was helpful to many.

Again I was on top of things, just as I had been in business.

But fortunately God did not allow me to stay there, for the position I was in was similar to that of a popular preacher: thousands of people hung upon my every word - and we all know what a dangerous position that is for anyone to be in. God is too wise and too kind to allow that sort of thing to continue. Indeed, how true it is that He putteth down the mighty from their seats, and exalteth them of low degree! I too had to go through the humbling process - hut of this, more anon ...

Going back a little in my story, it was before I began writing that I got mixed up with the 'I am' and 'I am It' affirmation-type of teaching. I obtained some books on what is called Mental Science (not Divine Science, which is a different teaching). These told me to deny evil, poverty, disease, sickness and even sin and death. As I am always willing to try anything once I repeated these denials in deadly earnest, but the result was far from satisfactory, for I soon began to feel really ill ...

And so I continued to follow many lines of thought, but they all ended in failure.
However, I gained a certain amount of understanding through such experiments, but fortunately I did not try any tricks with my breathing, otherwise I might not have escaped so lightly.

In course of time I began to understand what I really wanted. What I was seeking was not anything of this world, but only to know God and experience His peace. What I yearned to do was to be able to get clear of all human strain, anxiety and the pressure of circumstance so that I could enjoy true liberation. I wanted to 'enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God', consequently I could never be satisfied with the various teachings which I sampled, for they seemed to aim only at human good.

Nobody seemed to be interested in the Path of Liberation; those whom I met wanted what they called 'demonstrations', they wanted tangible results and had no desire to get away from the self, or the things which bind one to earth. They did not realize that attachment to things implied attachment to earth and that all indulgence in sensation could bring only suffering in its train.

In those days, I used to pace to and fro beneath the stars, repeating a text or poem which 'spoke to my condition', as the Quakers would say. Something disturbing might happen which would draw down upon me an avalanche of fears which threatened to sweep me off my feet, so I would try to overcome them and to reach a certain measure of peace before retiring to rest. Each time that I overcame in this way made it easier for me to overcome the next time I was assailed.

And so through experience I found out how to overcome waves of fear, apprehension and strain. I discovered, again through experience, that if I concentrated upon a text, or poem, or psalm, and kept on repeating it perseveringly, the fear would be overcome and the strain relieved. This was a valuable discovery.

Previously I thought that to say a few prayers would be sufficient, but experience taught me that in my case, to do so was useless. What I found to be needed was intense concentration, combined with perseverance, and for this to be persisted with until the mind became calmed and a sense of Divine peace enjoyed.

To keep on repeating a text or statement of truth about the Absolute is not a vain repetition as some critics declare.

It entails concentration through perseverance, and a persistent reaching towards the Eternal, the result of which is that after a time the mind begins to pay attention and becomes conformed to the Truth which we so perseveringly utter.

As has been said so often, the mind can contain only one kind of thought at one time, so that if we succeed in filling it with those of Truth, then thoughts of fear and other harmful suggestions are shut out, so that the mind can abide quietly in the Truth which makes men free.

It was soon after The Science of Thought Review had been established that I became acquainted with the late Princess Karadja, founder of The White Cross Union and also well known as a seer. Princess Karadja wrote several books in which she displayed a profound knowledge of esoteric and occult matters which was quite beyond me. She also wrote some articles for The Science of Thought Review, but these were so abstruse as to be quite beyond our readers' and my understanding, so I stopped publishing them.

Once when in London and having an hour to spare, I visited Princess Karadja. She told me many interesting and extraordinary things, the most of which I have long forgotten but I do remember that she touched upon the mysteries of the Great Pyramid, and held some interesting theories about the axis of the earth which, she declared, was in process of being changed. She also told me that, to her, my eyes appeared luminous, like electric lamps set in alabaster.

I did not pay much attention to this at the time, but I have since been told the same thing by others. Also sometimes when I have been speaking at a small meeting where we were all of one mind, in one place, people have remarked afterwards that they had difficulty in looking at me because I appeared to emit rays of brilliant white light. (I have since been told that this is by no means unusual and that the same phenomenon has been observed in certain preachers.)

I dismissed all this from my mind, looking upon it as so much imagination; but I had to change my mind sometime later.

A lady called on me - I think she came from India - whose eyes were distinctly luminous, 'like electric lamps set in alabaster'. Indeed the whole of the upper part of her head appeared indistinct to me because of the luminosity which enveloped it.

As I am not psychic or clairvoyant, I had to admit that there might be something in what Princess Karadja and other people had told me. But this luminosity in my visitor was not the rather hard and glittering light seen in certain portraits and drawings supposedly illustrating psychic subjects. Instead, it was a soft and heavenly kind of radiance which is only visible to those who are living in a higher consciousness.

My visitor was a very spiritually-minded woman. Consequently after this incident I began to look more closely at people and I noticed that the majority of people, being unawakened, had a dead, putty-like appearance; but here and there I would find one whose face was full of light.

In those cases where I got to know people who had the light upon their faces, I found that they were praying people - that is, they had daily intercourse with God. So that explained the whole subject. The dull, putty-like faces belonged to unawakened people who had no intercourse with God, while those who had the light shining through their faces were those who walked and talked with God.

God is Light, God within us is the only reality about us, and God is Light.

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

I have found however that a person's religious views have little or nothing to do with the matter. Indeed, I knew a man of limited views who belonged to an extremely narrow and exclusive sect yet who had the light on his face and wore a heavenly expression. His doctrinal beliefs were to me wholly unacceptable, yet be had the light upon his face because be was a praying man.

When I was young, one of my friends was a Baptist minister, a very good man but very denominational and exclusive in his views. He - like all his fellow-ministers - had one pet aversion: 'High Church', but in spite of their exclusiveness they tolerated 'Low Church'.

After a few years we lost touch with one another, and it was nearly forty years before life brought us together again. I found that my ministerial friend had broadened considerably in his outlook.

One of the things which gave him seriously to think was an incident which once happened in the course of his ministerial duties.

The Free Church ministers held a meeting once a month, and to it the Anglican Church sent a delegate in the person of a curate. What the Free Church ministers would have liked would have been a Low Church curate whose doctrinal views were similar to their own. But to their chagrin they were informed that a very High Church curate had been appointed, so they hoped for the best and prepared for the worst.

But when the curate arrived, my friend had the shock of his life. The newcomer was so possessed of the Holy Spirit, so obviously a child of the Light and so full of Divine power, that all those present noticed a difference when he came into the room. The spiritual temperature became raised directly he arrived. The light and power remained as long as he was in the meeting, but when he left they departed with him, leaving the gathering empty and cold.

It was obvious, my friend said, that the curate possessed something which they did not, and this made him think – especially as later on the High Church curate left the town, and his place was taken by a Low Church curate whose doctrinal views were all that the ministers could have desired, but who possessed neither the light nor the power. My friend came to the conclusion that doctrinal views and beliefs are not everything.

The reason why the first curate had the Light and the Power was that he was a praying man.
He had intercourse with God for hours every day, and never allowed anything to prevent it.
There are some who say that the Light is not in every man; that it is only given to a few. When I was young, fierce controversies raged over what was called Calvinism whose adherents contended that only a favoured few were predestined to be Children of the Light; while on the other hand members of the opposing camp, called Arminians, averred that this was a dreadful mistake, and that anyone could become a Child of the Light just whenever he chose.

To-day the same question arises in a new form: is the Light in every man, or is it in only a few?

Those who say that it is have the support of John who said that the Light lighteth every man coming into the world. Those who say that the Light is only in a certain few can however quote the parable of the wheat and the tares: the wheat typifying the Children of the Light, while the tares represent those who have not the Light. Also they can quote Jesus as saying that Truth was kept from some in case they might hear and understand and be converted. And so the controversy continues ... (*note by Margareth Lee: why would one want to know that? The whole discussion seems to be just like the one of the apostles regarding a hierarchy in heaven. They thus demonstrated they had no understanding of life in heaven. We should see the Spirit of God in everyone and everything, then that will be all we experience)

This has caused me much thought. While it is true that if we look into the faces and eyes of some people it does not seem possible that there can be any inward Light within them at all (oftentimes they seem to be bereft even of soul), yet I believe that the Light is actually there, though covered by so many wrappings of self as to be undiscernible.

It is true of course that the vast majority of people never, from the cradle to the grave, show any signs of spiritual awakening. They are born into irreligious homes, never receive any devotional instruction and also seem to have no spiritual faculty at all. Anything of a religious matter seems to be entirely beyond their comprehension. Yet in spite of this I still believe that the Light lighteth every man that cometh into the world, even as John said.

It is true also that John records Jesus as saying: 'No man can come to Me, except the Father draw him.'

But this need not be read to mean that God draws a favoured few and not the remainder, or that some are so constituted as to be incapable of responding. We can interpret it as meaning exactly what it says, viz. that we cannot reach the Light by our own efforts.

What happens is that we respond to the softening and drawing power of God's love. 'We love Him because He first loved us'; but we cannot do that even of ourselves, for there is nothing in the natural man that can respond to the Divine influence. It is because God's Spirit is in us that we are able to respond.

In fact, it is the Spirit in us which responds; and when in course of time we enter into full realization and know God, whom to know is life eternal, it is the Spirit in us who knows, for 'only God can know God'.

But if this is so, it may be asked how is it that the majority of people remain unawakened and pass from the cradle to the grave without manifesting any signs of the Light that is in them?

My answer is that everyone is not at the same stage of unfoldment. Some are very much in the beginner's stage; others are a little more advanced; while yet others are still more advanced. And so we proceed right up the scale to the fully-awakened and illumined soul who becomes merged into union with God.

According to the teaching of Jesus, we live eternally with the Father and make a journey into a far country; and then, having gained knowledge through experience, we return to the home from which we departed.

Owing, I suppose, to the teaching of the parable of the prodigal son, the Church allows belief in the pre-existence of the soul. Some of us know that interiorly we are eternal beings and that this existence here is but an incident in an endless life.

Some believe, like Princess Karadja, that we come here many times to gain experience, but I am not prepared to accept this. God is infinite, and His ways are infinite, and there may be many other worlds to conquer. 'In My Father's house are many mansions' said Jesus. I think that it is wiser to leave the matter with Him.

Jesus describes it very picturesquely as keeping our lamp under a bushel, or bowl, or corn-measure. He says that we should not do that but instead should bring it out of its covering and place on a lampstand, so that all who are in the house can see it. Now my experience has been that it takes a long time to remove the wrappings from the lamp within.

But each battle of the soul, each victory won and every grief and sorrow faithfully borne tend to remove something from that which keeps the Light hidden. Gradually but surely however the wrappings become less until at last we become conscious of the Light within -'that true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world' ...

Another thing which Princess Karadja told me was that Love rays which were beating upon this planet would increase in intensity, and that as they did so the inhabitants of the earth who were not attuned to them would become increasingly violent and rebellious. She explained that the Love which brings joy and bliss to one who is attuned it, has an agonizing effect upon those who are unattuned.

This she told me in 1923 and subsequent events have tended to support her view. After I left the Princess I felt lifted up for days, but I did not feel that her kind of teaching was for me, so shortly afterwards we parted.

It is strange that I should have to go to an occultist in order to learn as never before that God is Love, and cannot anything else but Love. And in due course I came to realize that we are not punished for our sins, but by our sins.

The father of the prodigal son did not punish the boy but only loved him; the son was however, punished severely by his sins. In other words, he punished himself by departing from his father's home. It was in this way that I came to a realization that God is Love, and that He never has been anything else but Love.

How lovely it is to come to this liberating realization.But what a long time we take to come to this great truth, how reluctant we are to trust our best Friend!

Postscript

Since writing the above I have been privileged to have another lady visitor whose face shone with the light of Heaven. She seemed to be enveloped in the Light, but it was when she spoke of the things of God that it became most evident. Then the Light seemed to well up from within and to me her face became less distinct owing to the glory which shone from it. I can quite understand that Moses had to put a veil over his face after being so long with the LORD.

There was an interesting sequel. My visitor and her husband kindly sent me a photograph of themselves, taken together. In it the faces of both are bright with Heavenly joy, but behind the wife can be discerned a blaze of light.

It is an interesting fact that a photograph will record that which would be invisible to the ordinary onlooker, and those who are spiritually unawakened would see nothing exceptional if they were to meet my visitor.