The Philosophy of All – Paul Twitchell
Chapter 7 of Paul Twitchell's Stranger By The River
Rebazar Tarzs took off his sandals and placed them beside himself on the river bank. Smiling, he looked across the broad waters at the gleaming river-point where a large bird fished. The seeker followed his glance and took in all the summer beauty of the river, and the Kashmir hills beyond.
The Traveler said, "Your spirit bears a heavy load, O seeker. Your conscience is deeply burdened. Only I can relieve you. Come and let me take your load!
"The worlds are sustained by my Light and moved by my Music. Man lives by the mercy of God's Word. No creation of the Light can exist except through the body of God. Only God can give life.
" The Spiritual Traveler is like a tree with its branches. The trunk represents the traveler and the branches are his disciples. A Master who is without disciples is that tree which has no branches, and there can hardly be any branches without the trunk of the tree.
" I cannot give my love to those with the fly-bitten mind. When man is in the presence of those with such attitudes, he is bound fast to earthwise laws and codes that have nothing to do with God. The fly-bitten speak of God as if on intimate terms. But that sincerity rings with false notes. He desires to use God for his own selfishness, but alas, it is only a dream. Take him away—for we have nothing to share!
"Now, know this. God is All. You cannot believe that God is All. In your imagination, you have and create ideals, and idols, and then believe that that is God. They are only the attributes of God; for once you transcend time and space, beyond all creation, you meet perfection and find that in the end that perfection is all, and all is perfection.
"This is God.
"Do not partake of the evil of another. If you are quiet and calm, your calmness and quietness will make a greater effect on the other than his anger—so that true resistance is the practice of contentment.
"One who has not had the taste of God does not know His sweetest nectar of heavenly bliss.
" Who shall say what proportions of fact, past or present or to come, may lie in the imagination? But what is imagination? It is only the shadow of intangible truth. It is the Soul's thought.
"Behold thy lot, O man. You live like a flame in the wind snuffed out in the first gusty draft. Time over time, you live and sleep to be reborn again. Certainly you shall awake and live again, and again shall sleep through all the periods of time until the world is dead and the worlds beyond are your home, and finally go to your true place in spirit to live throughout eternity.
"If thou slay good in thy self, I say unto thee that thou shalt not be in my holy memory and shall pluck no fruit from the ancient tree of love. What think thee? How will thee, man, take love from he who has loved and cherished thee?
"As long as thou art absorbed in thine own self, arising from inner conflict, there is no way of gaining victory over pain, or release from numbing bitterness of spiritual loss. You may gradually forget, as most people do, but that is to accept the numbness rather than folly to adjust to reality.
" If, instead, one can identify in feeling with the experience of others who have similarly suffered, thou wilt be freed from thine own grief, or inner conflict, by and in a compassionate oneness with all living beings. This oneness intrinsically brings an enduring peace and joy that are superior to inner strife. Superior because they do not spring from hopelessly trying to evade its cause or stoically steering the mind to its impact, but through overcoming evil to one's self by the good of a deep and satisfactory love for others."
The Tibetan finished and sat in the sunlight that spread its great golden light across the sparkling river. He picked up the sandals and put them on again, then rose from the ground and went down to the river to drink from his hands.
The seeker watched silently, wondering at the wisdom of the Cosmic Traveler.
From the book, Stranger By the River © 1987 Eckankar – Sri Paul Twitchell
