　　　　CHAPTER EIGHT

"JEWEL WITHA MILLION REFLECTIONS"

　WHEN a man who has achieved distinction as a writer and publisher paid his first visit to the circle, Silver Birch greeted him with these words: "I would like to extend a greet-ing to the one who comes amongst us not as a stranger but as a welcome friend. I would like you to feel that you are perfectly at home with us and that together, perhaps, we may be able to learn from one another.

　"You have come a long way on the path that you are treading. It is not an easy path; it is full of rough stones, and much is to your credit because of what you have accomplished. There have been many milestones to mark great crises of the soul when decisions had to be taken of vital import to you and those you love."

　"I do follow that very well," commented the visitor, who added that he could not understand the guide's statement that he had been spiritually starved.

　This led Silver Birch to add:

　"Your soul has yearned and yearned, and you have never been able to give it that nourishment which have felt inwardly it craved. You have been aware all the time, for many years, that there is this tremendous craving from within, this restless urge to achieve, to accomplish, to reach outーthis climbing towards the stars, this raging, turbulent torrent which can never be stilled. And often this has produced a mental torture. The mind has cried out, 'Where can I find a sanctuary? Where can I find a haven, a refuge?' Problem after problem has arisen, but the answers have not been forthcoming. Listen, that maelstrom is due to your own make-up. The mercury runs quickly upward and tumbles down again. You are a paradox of apparent vola-tility and steadfastness. Tell me, so far, am I talking of that which you understand?"

　The reply was: "Absolutely. I understand, and it is right, in spite of all my sceking among the great philosophies."

　"I cannot give you truth," the guide continued, "because truth is infinite, and you, like I, am finite. There is a part of us that is infinite, but it is woefully incomplete in its expression. Not until

we could attain perfection would we be able to accept truth. Truth is a diamond of infinite facets; truth, the jewel that gleams with a million reflections; truth, illusive to those encased in matter, dimly comprehended by the spirit with which it has a natural affinity. I do not presume to be able to say, 'Here is truth.' What I can indicate, I think, is a partial answer to some of the things you are seeking.

　"You are sensitive, and unusually so for one who is a man. For that you must pay the price. You cannot be sensitive to delicate, subtle vibrations that elude others, without being equally sensitive to everything else."

　"How well I know that," was the writer's comment.

　"The ability to feel profoundly brings intense joy and intense sorrow," added Silver Birch. "If you climb to the heights you can drop down to the depths. You cannot have spiritual exulta-tion without also having intense mental depression. They go together. Where I can help you is to make you realise that you are not in a morass, you are not in a quagmire, you are being guided all the time. You have never been left alone. Fortunately you have the temperament that does not worry unduly. You are confident that you can achieve what you require, except for those times when black depression assails you.

　"Look up. The Great Spirit cannot fail. This universe in which you live was created by infinite love that holds you in its embrace. And there is a love which sustains you even more individually, that guides you and helps you and uses you. You are not conscious of it except on some occasions you have know what to do. Have I helped you?"

　"Very much," came the answer.

　At a previous sitting there had been present another writer, a woman, recently bereaved, who had used her pen to spread psychic knowledge. In welcoming her, Silver Birch said:

　"I am very happy to have this opportunity of greeting you and of expressing my gratitude on behalf of many here for the service you have rendered. We see hearts that have been com-forted, souls who have benefited from your ministrations. You have been very sincere in your desire to render service to the many poor unfortunates who have lost their way, and in their weariness and perplexity they come to you. And service, to us, is all-important."

　"I do so desire to serve, as you know," was the woman's comment.

　Silver Birch added: "Our standards are not the standards of earth. We do not look at the passing scene with eyes of matter, but with the knowledge of the soul. We are always ready to acclaim those who have performed the service of helping tears of sorrow to be replaced by the serenity and comfort that knowledge always brings. It is more important to raise up one soul than to attain much of the worldly things for which many people clamour.

　"In the fullness of life, with all its vicissitudes, your shoulders have had to carry the burden of sorrow and have had to walk alone through the valley of shadows to learn at first hand the truths that are to be found only when the soul touches reality. Do not over-value the material things by which, through sentiment and for other reasons, people in your world set great store. They are not so important. Hold on to the great central principles of the spirit that can never fail any soul."

　Touching on her bereavement, Silver Birch said: "The great lesson you will have to learn is complete reliance on the spirit. If you banish all wavering thoughts of anxiety as to what the morrow will bring, you will find that with peace and tranquillity in your heart and soul, the morrow will help you one step farther on the road that you must travel. It is a hard lesson to learn, but the whole of matter owes its existence to spirit. The universe exists because it is an expression of the Great Spirit, and you exist because you have part of the Great Spirit which gives life and animation to your body. All that is in your material world is due to the spirit and is the reflection of a light, it is not the light itself.

　"We must place the ideal in front of you. We can show you, without any equivocation, that if you have complete peace within you will have complete peace without. If you will allow your soul to know that there is nothing in the world of matter that can touch you or harm you, there is no difficulty so large that it cannot be overcome. Thus, each day that dawns will bring new happiness for you. It is the hardest lesson for any soul to learn.

　"When the testing time comes, all of you examine and re-examine the knowledge you have gained, the evidence that has come to you. You ask yourselves whether it is as true as you thought it was, and whether it will stand the test. Others have heard me say it before, but I must say it again. It is easy to have faith when the sun shines. The time to have faith is when the clouds obscure the sun, but they are only clouds and their obscurity cannot endure for ever."

　Later, the woman writer put this question to Silver Birch:

　"I have been thinking very much about the prevalence of the rising crime wave amongst young people and the abolition of corporal punishment. What would be the appropriate way of treating these young people who seem to have nothing to which one can appeal, who are in themselves brutes? How can one cope with a brute? What sort of punishment can one devise?"

　The guide answered: "When you have war you release the worst forces in mankind in addition to the most noble surges of the human mind. You find there are deeds of heroism which show the apex of human attainment, but at the same time there are deeds of foul brutality."

　"The two extremes get released," said the questioner.

　"Yes." was the answer, "and violence is encouraged as a necessary part of war. When it comes to an end, you cannot quickly end all the violence and brutality that have been un-leashed. You have a condition where the brutal side has become uppermost in large numbers. You ask how this is to be treated. There are two ways, and they are clearly set out in a book which is reverenced in your world. There is the old way, which says, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth', and there is the newer way, which was the law to supersede the old maxim, 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.' That is the clear choice.

　"If you follow the lower road, you are not obtaining any cures. You may obtain palliatives, temporary remedies, but you have not cured the evils or the brutality. If you adopt the other standard and recognise that all this viciousness is part of the maladjustment of mind, body and spirit, and treat it accordingly so that the maladjustment can be properly adjusted, then you will make better citizens. That is the way that I would advocate."

　"Yes I see that, but the difficulty is getting at these young thugs, how to get on the soft side," the woman writer declared.

　it is not a question of getting on the soft side," asserted the guide. "It is a question of giving them the kind of psychological and, if needs be, spiritual treatment that would subdue the brutality and allow what is in reality the soul to find some ex-pression. It is just like one who is ill and there is not a true align-ment of body and soul. There are various ways of curing illness. The most satisfactory method is to end the faulty alignment of body and spirit and allow a harmonious expression, and health automatically results. In the same way, if you could obtain the help of experts in psychology and allow even spiritual healers to work their will, you would get results, but unfortunately your world is not ready."

　The discussion continued as a member of the circle said: "It is a most interesting question. When you give these young thugs a good hiding they appear to behave themselves."

　"You instil fear, but you do not cure the malady," insisted the guide.

　"But do frighten them into behaving," said the writer.

　"Yes, but you have not solved the problem of the individual," Silver Birch declared. "You are looking at it purely from a very limited period. It is like hanging a man; you say if you hang him you have solved the problem. Yes, you have partially, but the man is still there."

　"Is the welfare of one reprobate more than the welfare of society?" asked the same member of the circle.

　"Society is composed of individuals," said the guide. "All must receive attention. I am pointing to what I think is the better wayーnot to meet violence with violence, but with understand-ing and to transform what was violence into good citizenship."

　Here another member of the circle commented: "We are all responsible for the thug. It is our responsibility."

　"We are all responsible," said the guide, "because all mankind is one and what affects my brother must affect me. We are living in a universe where the whole of life is interdependent on every

aspect and not one facet can be isolated from the rest."

　"Flogging is nothing but a palliative, it merely frightens them into behaving properly," said the writer.

　"Your modern society has not yet attained the stage where it knows the appropriate remedies for the evils which afflict it," added Silver Birch. "This is a matter of evolution. You used to hang people for stealing sheep. It was argued with force that unless you hang them, what would happen to all the sheep, they had to be protected?"

　"I suppose that in a half-evolved society it is correct to have a half-evolved treatment and punishment," said a member of the circle.

　"It is not correct as long as one soul understands the better way." Silver Birch insisted. "Which is the better, to fling men into horrible prisons or to work for the betterment of prison conditions, so that you transform the prisoner into a proper citizen? Better to have one success and ninety-nine failures than no attempt to raise them up at all."

　The woman writer added: "Am I right in believing that the tremendous evacuation scheme, which meant breaking up the family unit, is responsible for this appalling spread of irresponsible youth?"

　"That is partially the explanation," replied the guide, "but it is not solely the explanation. In the majority of cases, the family provides the ideal unit for the unfoldment of a child. There are,

unfortunately, many exceptions to that rule. I would say that war largely is to blame, not only for the unleashing of violence, but for the breaking down of moral standards. You cannot en-courage people to murder and then expect that all of them will value standards of decency that they had before."

　This brought from the writer the comment, "I suppose that the answer is to work for the betterment of conditions."

　"The answer is the spreading of knowledge of spiritual realities," assented Silver Birch, "because if all people understood that they are spiritual beings, not material ones, and that the pur-pose of earthly life is the unfoldment and development of the spiritual nature, then you would not have these cases of brutality and violence that are so troublesome."

　"There could not be such a thing as war in a case like that," interposed a member of the circle, which brought this comment from the guide:

　"When all mankind has the realisation of its spiritual nature, and that there is a link between every member of the human family, the enduring link of the spirit, which makes them all members of the Great Spirit's family, then war will be banished from the face of the earth."

　"That, I suppose is really the attitude of the pacifist, isn't it?" said another visitor to the circle.

　"I am not concerned with labels," said the guide. "I try not to get entangled with the labels that you wear in your world. I am concerned with ideals, ideas, motives, desires, which to me are paramount. It is not true, for example, that all those who call themselves Spiritualists are better people than those who do not call themselves Spiritualists. It is true that there are pacifists whose ideas are excellent, but you come back to the question about the evolution that has been attained. You cannot apply perfect remedies in an imperfect world. Sometimes you are forced to adopt half-way measures because the world is not ready. In our world the most evolved beings will always ask what the motive is, for motive is the index of the action. If the motive is sincere, the desire is not wholly selfish, and the standard of judgment is entirely different."

　"A fine soldier and a sincere pacifist could both be right," said the writer.

　"Yes," was the reply, "because what would their motive be? The motive would provide the indication of the spiritual develop-ment of the individual."

　"I do not think it is possible to know what one would do at a given moment."

　"No, because you yourselves are subject, not only to the evo-lution that you have now attained, but to the interplay of forces which you have inherited as part of your existence on earth. It is always the motive, the very simple method of determining which is right. If you kill for gain, for lust, for money, for selfish reasons, obviously your motive is very poor, but if you kill because you desire to protect or help one you love, motive is sincere and earnest. It is a very natural desire and it cannot harm your spirit. It is unfortunately true that very often these prob-lems are not clear cut."

　"But, of course, you do not agree with killing people; you cannot," said another member of the circle

　"No, as an ideal to be attained it is wrong, but as I have said before, sometimes you must choose between the lesser of two evils."

　"Would you agree that capital punishment is right?" the guide was asked.

　"No, I don't agree with that because it is not the lesser of two evils. In capital punishment, you are merely condoning legal murder. You say it is wrong for the individual to murder, but it is right for the state to murder. That is not logical."

　The writer asked: "Is your main objection because of the man shot out of life, or because it means a hangman is employed by the state to murder that man as an official act, and therefore, it is very bad indeed for the man who has to do the murder?"

　"I would emphasise both those viewpoints and the fact that if you persist in hanging it means that you are not yet an evolved society or community, because you do not realise that you have not solved the problem. All you have done is to commit one more murder, for which you are all responsibile. It is not punishment. All you have done is to precipitate a soul into an-other world."

　This produced the comment: "To make matters worse, quite a number of these obsession cases are probably caused by people who have been pitchforked into the other world and are so close to earth that they try to come back to it and seize on some-body else."

　"That is certainly true," said the guide, "and is one of the reasons why teachers in our world oppose capital punishment. You have not solved the problem. Besides, it is a very poor method, if it be a method at all, of decreasing crime, and it does not achieve even that object. You must not meet cruelty with cruelty, hate with hate, but with compassion, with tolerance. with the desire to serve and help all the time. These are the hall-marks of an evolved soul and an evolved community."

　"It is very hard to attain them."

　"Yes it is, but the names of those who attain them are written with lustre in the pages of history."

　Here the woman writer said, "I have always wondered, when an obsession descends upon a person, whether that argues a cer-tain weakness in the person concerned, that is, no seed would grow unless it fell on fertile ground."

　"Yes, that is sometimes the explanation. There is an inherent weakness in the obsessed person, a maladjustment again of body, mind and spirit. There is some condition which provides the means of attraction. It may be alcoholic drinks in excess, drug addiction, overwhelming vanity, or great selfishness that chain the soul to earth. These provide the attractions for individuals in our world, either consciously or unconsciously, to seek earthly satisfaction."

　At the end of this circle, a letter was read to Silver Birch from a heartbroken mother. She wrote:

　"I have lost my only daughter at nineteen years of age. My husband and I are inconsolable. She was our all. We have read about Silver Birch, who says he is ready to help those in great trouble. Our darling never walked and had a terrible time here on earth. Could Silver Birch give us a message as to how she is progressing? As she suffered much here, will she be rewarded for all she went through. I feel so terribly grief-stricken and feel that I am in a lost world."

　The guide asked that this reply should be conveyed to the mother:

　"Tell her that the Great Spirit is infinite love and nothing hap-pens in the whole universe without His knowledge. All suffering automatically brings its own reward because it touches the soul and, in doing so, gives it a greater awareness of the higher, deeper and more profound aspects of the universe. That awareness will enable the girl to have a greater appreciation of all the beauties and richness which are now hers and which she could never attain in a physical world.

　"Tell them that they may have lost, but she has gained. Their grief and sorrow and mourning are not for her but for them-selves. She is freed from all pain. If they would but understand that her passing has opened the door of the cage and enabled the bird to be free, they would dry their tears because their sorrow is not helping her. In the fullness of time they will have the under-standing that death is the great liberator and their daughter will be able to prove to them that she is a radiant being whose love could not be extinguished by the act of passing from one world to another."

　Having given his reply, Silver Birch commented: "When there is mourning in your world it means that there is gladness in ours. It is a departure for you but an arrival for us."

　At a subsequent sitting the woman writer paid her second visit. "I am glad to be able to say that your aura is much brighter than I have seen it before," the guide told her, "you have gradually come out of the shadows into the light, and with that has come the realisation that they have largely been shadows. You your-self must have been conscious of the arms of love around you which have sustained, upheld, protected and guarded you and which are still dedicated to that task.

　"You can see the gleams of light and realise that they are piercing the shadows all the time. The light will grow in strength, clarity and intensity. You have nothing to fear. You can go forward with full faith in the knowledge that all around you is a love which can and will guide you all the way. It is diffi-cult for you who are immersed in the daily problems of physical existence to realise how close and near are the protective forces of the spirit. They are there all the time. You are never alone."

　"I realise that," said the writer. "I try to fight the fear."

　"Yes, it is only fear," Silver Birch insisted. "Fear and worry these are the enemies to be vanquished. Square yourself for the tasks that come, day by day, and you will find that the power is there to enable you to deal with them.

　"Your feet are firmly planted on the right path now. You need have no fear. The guidance that you will receive will enable you to go forward. I see the road opens wide in front of you. Occa-sionally shadows come across the path, but they are only shadows.

　"We are not indifferent to earthly difficulties. You cannot work, as we do, in the world of matter without realising its problems. But the power of the spirit is supreme. Matter is the servant of the spirit, it is not the master. If you will allow the vital essence, which is the spirit, to regulate and control your activities, then you must triumph over all that comes your way.

　"It is simple, but it is nevertheless a great truth. Perfect faith, resolution, calmness and confidenceーall are the result of know-ledge and these are sufficient to enable you to treat each day as a means of increasing mental and spiritual growth. Always remem-ber that the purpose of earthly life is to equip the spirit. When you come to our world the things over which have worried will seem very trivial. The things which will be important will be those which enabled the spirit to grow in stature."

　To another visitor, whose husband passed on in tragic circum-stances, the guide said: "You think I am successful in the trans-mission of certain teachings and messages to you, but I am always conscious of my failure and of my inadequacy to measure up to what I see because I cannot convey it, We have to deal with such intangible forces, love, affection, guidance. These cannot be measured as you measure forces in your world, and yet these subtle powers, although intangible in an earthly sense are really vital in the spiritual sense. Love and affection are tremendous realities in our world, being more real than the things which you accept as solid and enduring. If I say that your husband is filled with love for you I do not convey it. How can I convey that for which there are no words?. Words are poor symbols for reality. Words are, indeed, all too inadequate to convey emotions and Words felings and facts which soar above the confines of any language."

　"Tell him I know within myself what he would say," said the widow.

　"You must try to realise this, and I have told you this before." Silver Birch said. "All who come to our world are confronted with a tremendous burst of self-awareness, of self-realisation. When the physical body is discarded, when the mind is free from what was in effect a prison, they tend to regard earthly faults with more importance than they possessed, and similarly to

undervalue the virtues.

　"When the spirit comes into its own, it does not get, for a long time, a true picture of itself. There is always what might have been, what should have been done, the knowledge that there were wasted opportunities. It is quite a time before the soul realises that to counterbalance there are the virtues, all the good-nesses and unselfishnesses."

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