LETTER XII
THE BEAUTIFUL BEING
The
angel we call the Beautiful Being, who guided me on my journey among the
planets, would like to insert here a few words on Love and Hate. They seem
to be an expression of the mortal and the Immortal Self, in the early days
of the war.
Love and Hate
One whom I loved made war
on me, and the nations of the earth made war on one another. The green
fields were stained with blood and the hum of the harvest crickets was
drowned with cries of pain and rage, as men rushed on to wreak their hate
upon their human kindred. My heart was sadder than the skies of the London
winter. No joy there seemed in all the earth; for love was dying and peace
was dead, and men were going everywhere to death. MENE, MENE, TEKEL,
UPHARSIN* was written on the walls of the human temple.
And I said to my heart:
“Where have we drifted in the midday of our life? And why do we wait for the
sunset? For love has failed, and the world has failed, and have we not
failed, too?”
Then as I sat gazing into the nothingness of my own faith, I heard a voice
that seemed to come from the centre of all things and the voice said:
“Take your pen and write, for to him who has lost everything the treasures
of the Self are opened.
“I am that Self that you had forgotten when you looked inside for love. I am
the Self that the nations had forgotten when they went out to destroy one
another. I am the One Self, and my house is in all these hearts that throb
with hate and love. When they wound each other they wound me; when they
doubt each other they doubt me; when they love each other they love me.
There is no other way of realizing me save by love and hate and faith and
doubt. For love and hate are two poles of the one magnet, and doubt and
faith are my twin-born children.
“He who has never doubted
all, knows not the meaning of faith; and he who has never been hated, knows
not the meaning of love.
“When the heart is empty of joy I fill it with myself. When my own destroy
each other on earth they rush together in heaven. Freed from the blindness
of the body they see each other true.
“Two soldiers went forth to war, and the bullet of each pierced the heart of
the other. Their hate was hot as love. Then in the sudden darkness of death
they reached out for each other’s hand; their hate had found its other pole
and they melted together in love.
“Two friends went forth to war against each other, and with every wound they
drew nearer together—the soul of each grieved for the other’s pain, and
neither in death nor life can one escape the other.
“Would you avoid a loved one, then never dare to hate him. The soul has pity
when the brain is pitiless; the faith of the soul may be strongest when the
mind is weak with doubt.
“The soul of the brain that hates you keeps watch when it is still, it wipes
with its vapory hand the tear-drops from your eyes.
“When you weep in dreams,
know that your soul is weeping for the tears you have caused your enemy.
When you wake with wet eyes, you are paying the debt of love.
“Be kind to him who loves you, for love is a helpless waif; if you drive it
from the heart it can only wander alone.
“Be kind to him who hates you, for his waif is wandering alone.
“When you go to sleep, send love to the one who wounds you by day. If you go
to sleep in hate you will wake with wet eyes.
“I am the go-between. I am the Self whose house is in every heart. I take
messages in the darkness. I am too great to be proud. I run errands for my
own.
“How well you have tried to hate I know by your heart’s sadness. That you
have failed to hate is because your soul is sleepless.
“I am the go-between and I keep my lantern lit.”
April 1.
*
[ed. note] Quote from Daniel
5:25 interpreted in Daniel 5:26-28
25: And
this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
26: This
is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy
kingdom, and finished it.
27: TEKEL;
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
28:
PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
Letter XIII.
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