An Eternal Career, by Frank and Lydia Hammer, [1947], at sacred-texts.com
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"All are but parts of one stupendous whole, |
There is no law so little understood as the law of unity or oneness. Few are the people who have any conception of the inseparable relation existing among all created things; but imagine that they are separate and unrelated to their fellowbeings; and that it is possible to inflict atrocities and cruelties upon others without injury to themselves.
This illusion has caused untold suffering and destroyed the peace of the world. Undoubtedly, permanent peace could be ours today if, by some miracle, men might know this truth—that they are members of one body whose spirit is God; and that what they do unto others they are doing to themselves. This is certain, men never will have surcease from their woes until they do understand and apply this basic law of oneness in their daily life.
Tragically, the greatest obstacle to unity is that those who should be uniting men, instead divide them into factions, sects, cliques and parties, and foment national, political, racial and religious strife. For example, this is true of rulers who sow seeds of dissension between brother and brother to forward their policy of "divide and rule." And scientists consider it of greater importance how to split the atom than how to unite mankind.
Not only do rulers divide men into factions and cliques, but they also attempt to apportion freedom by granting it to some peoples but withholding it from others. Freedom and liberty they consider commodities to be bestowed or withdrawn at will. But freedom and liberty are not tangibles, they are realities and realities have no separable parts. They are rooted in man's nature and not something superimposed or artificially constructed for him. They exist nowhere if they do not exist everywhere. No nation, no race can endure which outrages the law of brotherhood, for all men share the ONE life.
That national isolationism is no longer feasible is apparent to most people. But that religious isolationism is equally impracticable is not yet obvious to the leaders of the numerous religious denominations. True, clergymen publicly observe Brotherhood Week once a year, but their profession of brotherhood is not followed by practise. Religious heads of different denominations will not officiate before the same altars, nor will they countenance their parishioners attending other forms of worship.
[paragraph continues] This is the greatest single barrier to the furtherance of unity.
Furthermore, this lack of religious unity is one of the greatest barriers to peace, for all men are deeply religious and should be permitted to unite first on this basis. Spiritualization of humanity is imperative to world harmony. Moreover, united men would have a fuller understanding of truth; divided, each has only a partial understanding. And if people would learn to live together in peace, they would not have to die together in war. The common people of all countries have the warmest friendliness for one another; it is only their stupid and astigmatic rulers who cannot agree.
Unfortunately men know as little about the law of unity as cats do of calculus. The only cure for ignorance is knowledge; that all men have their being in God and are eternally One. They are bound and related to every other being in the universe through the law of attraction and sympathy. All are integral parts and members of one body; and no member can say to another member: "I have no need of thee."
What is this force which unites men with all other things and makes the universe a whole? What is the principle of oneness? Good intentions are not sufficient, and are no substitute for knowledge in any realm of endeavor whether in music, mathematics, mechanics or oneness. Unity in order to be usable must be understood.
MIND is the subtle, invisible and unbreakable force which unites all into oneness. MIND is the universal substance which contains and unites all individual minds. MIND permeates and pervades the entire universe and unites all creation. Through this medium we are forever bound to the lowest forms of life as well as to the highest. In reality there is no more space between bodies, minds, suns and universes than there is between one grain of sand and the grain adjacent.
When we view ourselves in space and time we are conscious of ourselves as separate individuals. But when we pass beyond space and time, they form ingredients of a single continuous stream of life. The phenomenon or illusion is that individuals carry on separate existences in space and time, while in the deeper reality beyond space and time, they are all members of one body.
Life is ONE, but it has many aspects. It is the diversities of forms which give the illusion of separateness and which are only superimposed upon life, but do not separate it. Forms are the externalities, the objective effects of causes which are the reality. Forms are projections of materialized substances and different proportions of the same qualities. Reduce them to their elementary substance and they are one and the same. Forms continually change, but the underlying life principle remains forever the same.
Life regarded objectively has the same illusion of multiplicity as the stars, when seemingly we behold
them as countless orbs of light, because we are un- able to observe the stellar system as a whole. But when viewed from the vantage point of celestial distance, they appear not as perforations in the heaven, but as one immense flame. So with men, they are separated no more than are the planets and the stars.
Yet another illustration: On a map of the earth the continents seem to be separated by bodies of water. This is illusion for under the water the earth is united. So with life; on the surface all things appear unrelated and dissociated; but when reality is contemplated, the unity and harmony appear.
Similarly, our idea of time is an arbitrary division of eternity related to a standard of consciousness. We speak of time being divided into hours, days, months and years, a method enabling us to establish order in our lives. But clocks and calendars split time no more than forms separate life. TIME like LIFE is ONE, eternal and indivisible.
The contagion of physical diseases should be proof that men cannot be separated even bodily. Plagues often have wiped out entire communities, as during World War I influenza claimed more victims than did the battlefield. Science has made marvelous strides conquering physical plagues, but the moral and mental epidemics still await conquest. The latter are infinitely more dangerous than those which destroy only the body.
Sociologists and criminologists lag behind because of their abysmal ignorance of man's true nature.
[paragraph continues] They believe the body is the man, and assume that incarceration will end his anti-social activities. It is easy enough to quarantine bodies, but it is impossible to quarantine ideas.
At present there is in progress the execution of war criminals. The complacent public believes that their lives are being extinguished, whereas the truth is, instead of exterminating them they are increasing their sphere of action. Destruction of the body frees men from the impediment of the flesh enabling them to travel to any part of the earth in a few seconds. But the mirage called society imagines itself safe, whereas it is in greater danger than before and constantly menaced by the vicious and vindictive thoughts with which criminals populate the atmosphere.
Unfortunately the wicked and depraved do return to earth, often obsessed with thoughts of vengeance and hatred for the injustice once inflicted upon them. They influence whoever they can to do their work of vengeance, often those not any too well-balanced.
The prologue and epilogue of war is hate. A country cannot discourage murder by imitating murderers and killing on a larger scale. Killing criminals does not destroy crime. Murder by the state or by a country should be discontinued because it defeats its own object; it tends to increase evils instead of decreasing them. Society treats the crime but not the criminal. Those who would injure others should be restrained and surrounded with educational
influences. They should be shown the error of their conduct so they will not be inclined to evil practises after being discharged from prison, or after passing over.
For no man can be segregated from the society of which he is a part and a product. No individual mind can be separated from the Universal Mind. So long as a part of humanity is treated as pariahs and criminals and ostracized, so long will we all suffer.
"Crime waves" puzzle many people. But they are no enigma to those acquainted with the power of suggestion and the contagion of thought. During war and even more so afterwards, crime is always rampant. For what is war but the greatest of crimes? War deluges the mental atmosphere with thoughts of hate, lust, murder, vengeance and destruction affecting the minds of everyone, particularly the unstable and impressionable. Many heinous crimes are committed by those who never before entertained such ideas. For the greatest tragedy of war is its effect upon the human mind.
Recently a boy of ten who killed his playmate was asked why he did it replied: "I just felt like shooting him." Those who are indifferent to the implications of such an answer are guilty of ignorance greater than the boy's.
More and more murders are being committed by children. Who is to blame? The criminals are not the children, but the adults who generated the thoughts of hate and murder, Children are the victims of the destructive and evil thinking of their
elders; they do not plan the murder, but only act upon suggestions in the atmosphere.
How often people make injurious and wicked statements! They hope that a dire calamity will befall some malefactor; or that a dreadful fate will overtake their enemies, particularly foreign ones. They wish that death or worse will occur to one who has wronged them. What frequently does happen, is that the fate they wished for another befalls a member of their own household. Their thoughts were intercepted, with resultant tragedy. Thoughts boomerang; hence the paramount importance of never sending out aught but what is good.
Since the source of social and moral ills originates in the minds of men, it is there the cure must begin. Just as physical plagues were abolished by eradicating their causes, so the roots of mental and moral diseases must be extirpated.
Education is the cure for crime, collectively as well as individually, and in it lies the basis of the solution. Experience has shown that it is cheaper to educate children than to punish criminals; hence it is of vital importance that every individual become educated. By education we do not mean veneer; we mean ethical training, the inculcation of morality, and an understanding of life and its spiritual significance. Not getting degrees, not how to make money, but how to think constructively and to live in harmony with the laws of God.
Formation of character should be the primary duty of those entrusted with the guidance of the
young. Better thinking is necessary for a better world and this should be commenced in the highchair and not in the high-school. Crippled and deformed bodies can often be straightened; but twisted and perverted minds are usually beyond repair.
MIND is the most inflammable substance in the universe and on it thoughts travel with a rapidity exceeding light. Unfortunately few people realize the tremendous responsibility incumbent upon right thinking. Few have any idea that their thinking governs their lives and affects the lives of others. People who wouldn't dream of polluting a city's water supply are frequently guilty of a far greater crime—contaminating the Universal Mind, the fount of all individual minds. The unspeakable tragedies, the epidemics of hatred, suspicion, intolerance resulting in war are all caused by people poisoning the thought atmosphere. War, like all other evils, exists in the mind before it exists objectively.
We have recently seen in Europe the revolting effects of the indoctrination of hate. The unspeakable brutality of the masses when their minds have been incessantly subjected to the vicious lies and evil propaganda of current Cains.
Here again education is the only solution. However, rulers have little faith in education, but adhere to the stupid belief in the efficacy of force, and now are attempting to segregate and police entire nations. This method, which has never achieved any
individual reformation, they now propose to duplicate on an international scale.
A formidable armed police may compel mock obedience and feigned deference; but the souls within the captive bodies will hate and defy their captors and show their contempt in innumerable ways. Guns may force them to bow and salute but cannot bend or break their wills. Blows reigned upon their bodies will not erase what is engraven upon their minds. When rulers destroy bodies they reach their bounds of power; they cannot kill ideas. And a conquered and humiliated nation will deluge the atmosphere with such an avalanche of destructive and vindictive thoughts which will make future wars inevitable.
Men being one and inseparable, no ruler or dictator can isolate himself from the fate he imposes upon the people. When he signs their death sentence, as in war, he automatically signs his own. History, ancient and recent proves this. Moreover, whenever a country wages war upon another, regardless of pretext, the fate inflicted upon their enemies descends upon their own heads with multiplied fury. Another such Pyrrhic victory for us and we too will be destroyed.
Thought is the yeast that leavens the mass consciousness, and every good thought deposited in the ocean of life makes the ocean better. And a universal knowledge of oneness and a universal adherence to spiritual and moral principles would render all force, individual and collective, unnecessary. In
reality men own nothing; consequently they have nothing to quarrel or fight over. Taking what belongs to God and labelling it as mine or thine, is the acme of folly.
Men must either learn to live together in peace, or die together in war. They need yet to learn the lesson so ably demonstrated in the organic and insect world—the lesson of cooperation. In the world of organic life, no part attempts by force to assert its egoism and control another part, for its own benefit. There is instead, a reciprocal dependence of whole and part, each part working for others for their mutual benefit. This results in harmony and happiness for all. And if men would regain their lost estate they must respect the Brotherhood of man and live in harmony and love. Eventually the Universal consciousness will have to be accepted by all men.