Chapter IX: Appendix

The notes used by the leader at each meeting, and slightly remodeled afterward, as experience showed them to be faulty, are here presented, in the hope that they may be of use in some other club. Certain clubs have been formed by some of the original Seekers, in which the text of the book itself is being read aloud and discussed. But were an older person leading the club—and that is always to be desired—he might find it far more stimulating and fruitful to conduct the meetings by directing the conversation along the line of these notes. No doubt if he made this use of my experience, he would, by adding his own, give new value to the outcome.

_NOTES_

FIRST MEETING

_Why Are Our Religions Unsatisfying, and What Shall We Do?_

I. CONDITIONS TO-DAY:

_a._ Religions destroy religion. If you are wrong, I might be
wrong.

_b._ Men cling to traditional, half-conscious belief, or build
up an ethic or agnostic faith, because man must live by faith.

II. HISTORIC REASONS FOR PRESENT CONDITIONS:

_a._ Initiated and popular religion in history:

1. India; castes and the Brahmans.

2. Egypt; secret priesthood, annexed beliefs, and
interpretations of myths.

3. Greece; Rome; early Catholicism; the priests.

_b._ Analysis of initiated and popular belief:

1. Myths of Orpheus; of Moses and the Burning Bush; of
the divine parentage of Jesus.

2. The initiated is the religion of poetry and prophecy,
of symbols. These, taken literally by the people, become
a religion of idols and prose. One is a moving spirit,
the other a graven image. Words can be idols.

_c._ The modern trend:

1. Democratic spirit (since Reformation) destroys
initiated religion, keeps popular religion.

2. Science destroys popular myths.

III. WHAT MUST WE DO TO-DAY?

_a._ Scientific knowledge destroys popular myths, but does not
replace religion:

1. Every scientist has a philosophy or faith.

2. Science fosters new popular delusions, built on its
literal facts, such as atheism and scientific
superstitions of half-knowledge.

_b._ There is absolute religious knowledge:

1. Its record in history: Moses, Jesus, etc.

2. Its testimony in our own selves:

(What do we _know_?)

_c._ In a democracy every one must attain this knowledge; each
must be initiated; every man shall be a prophet.

IV. WHAT DOES EACH ONE BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD?

(Question for next week.)

SECOND MEETING

_God, and the Meaning of Progress_

I. THE IDEA OF GOD A PERSONAL CONVICTION:

_a._ A realization to be achieved, but, after that, silence on
the subject. Sacredness of the word.

_b._ Members’ individual ideas of God.

_c._ My idea stated:

1. God as Self (read from Vedas), as the completion of
myself. “I am that I am.”

2. The aspiration toward complete sympathy,
consciousness (selfhood) as the aspiration of God, and
the aim of progress.

3. The idea of “holiness” meaning “wholeness.”

II. HISTORIC IDEAS OF GOD:

_a._ The inner meaning of polytheism: many aspects of one God.

_b._ The inner meaning of trinity: the three as one, as the
contrast of life, and its unity. A true paradox. Myself, the
other Self, and love, the holy spirit.

_c._ The inner meaning of dualism: the two are two sides of one
thing, the negative and the positive. Light makes darkness.

_d._ Personal, parental, and all other ideas of God are included
in our larger view. The unity embraces all ideas and
diversities.

III. PROGRESS AS THE TREND TOWARD COMPLETE SELF:

_a._ Throughout history the only progress has been toward
greater understanding and brotherhood:

1. The value of railroads, telephones, etc.

_b._ The good is whatever leads toward understanding, sympathy,
wholeness.

_c._ The bad is whatever does not lead thither:

1. The bad is what was once good, and has been passed.

2. Or sometimes it is the necessary result of an
experimental progress.

3. Things are not “good” and “bad,” but better and
worse. Therefore evil itself is proof of progress.

_d._ The will toward good is in the world and ourselves.

1. Dissatisfaction is the will toward progress.

2. We use all bad things for the great good that we
love.

(This meeting might be divided into two, one on GOD, and one on
PROGRESS.)

THIRD MEETING

_Matter and Spirit_

I. SHORT REVIEW:

_a._ What is the aim of life?

_b._ How do you explain good and bad?

II. ARE MATTER AND SPIRIT ANTAGONISTIC, OR LIKE GOOD AND BAD, TO BE EXPLAINED THROUGH EACH OTHER?

_a._ All matter has shape or idea:

1. Matter takes the shape of spirit.

2. We know only the spirit, or idea, because all things
come to us through our senses.

3. Pure matter, if it exist, is a thing we cannot
experience.

III. MATTER IS THE MEDIUM THROUGH WHICH SPIRIT EXPRESSES ITSELF:

_a._ Expression is the means for reaching understanding.

_b._ All expression, at present, is through so-called material
means.

IV. SPIRIT CAN DO ALL THINGS IN THE FUTURE:

_a._ “Immovable” physical conditions are the result of will or
spirit in the past.

1. Our ancestors.

2. The mental beginnings of all physical ills.

_b._ Spirit force is the only shaping force in a universe of
spirit or will.

1. One can, therefore, control the physical.

2. One can shape one’s destiny.

FOURTH MEETING

_Evolution_

I. THE PLACE OF EVOLUTION IN A RELIGIOUS ENQUIRY:

_a._ We must believe in that, or in special creation.

1. Every religion has a theory of creation.

2. Evolution is a theory of creation.

_b._ It may throw light on the means of progress.

II. EVOLUTION MEANS DESCENT OF ALL CREATURES FROM A COMMON ONE-CELLED ANCESTRAL FORM:

_a._ Physical proof of the theory:

1. In likeness of structure.

2. In rudimentary organs.

3. In geological records.

4. In the Law of Recapitulation.

III. THEORIES OF THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION:

_a._ Natural Selection:

1. Variations in all directions, and adaptation.

2. Adaptation a struggle for life.

α. For place.

β. For food.

γ. For protection, through imitative color or
form.

3. The value of artificial selection as partly showing
us the processes of natural selection.

4. What natural selection fails to explain.

_b._ The theory of Sexual Selection, and its shortcomings.

_c._ The auxiliary theory of Isolation.

IV. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF EVOLUTION:

_a._ Evolution a self-evolving of uncreated life.

1. Wish, desire, love cause all change and creation.

2. Progress is from within, of our own will.

3. Change or re-birth necessitates death.

α. Death makes room for young.

β. We die for the sake of life.

_b._ Evolution and the aim of life:

1. Fitness and harmony the test of life.

2. It goes from likeness to unlikeness and recognition.

3. Pain, disease, death and changing standards of good
and bad are the path of progress toward wholeness and
understanding.

_c._ Evolution the simplest, clearest proof of relationship.

[Note.—For reference and illustrations, the first volume of
Romanes’ “Darwin and After Darwin” is more convenient to use and
show than Darwin’s own works.]

FIFTH MEETING

_Prayer_

I. A COMMUNION, NOT A BEGGING:

_a._ In a world that goes toward its own desire—which is also
ours—it is folly to ask one’s vast Self for anything.

_b._ Prayer is a momentary consciousness of the vast Self which
is God.

II. THE VALUE OF PRAYER:

_a._ To be conscious, by an effort, of the vast oneness, gives
us renewed calmness and strength.

_b._ To pray for what we can be is to call forth the power to
_be_ it.

_c._ Prayer puts us in a state of mind in which we draw upon the
endless source of power and possibility:

1. The value, therefore, of prayer before sleep.

III. THE MANNER OF PRAYER:

_a._ By conscious words that give the communion.

_b._ By an occasional state of mind.

_c._ By every creative action.

_d._ By the whole attitude of our life.

SIXTH MEETING

_Immortality_

I. IMPORTANCE TO US OF AN OPINION CONCERNING DEATH AND IMMORTALITY:

_a._ We know we must die soon:

1. Speak of the numberless generations of life.

_b._ We live according to our expectations:

1. Relation throughout history of beliefs concerning
immortality and of the morality of peoples.

2. Good and bad effects of belief in heaven and hell.

II. KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING IMMORTALITY:

_a._ What is Knowledge?

1. The relativity of all knowledge.

2. Knowledge through conviction loses force when there
is disagreement.

3. Knowledge through analogy is like circumstantial
evidence.

_b._ We know:

1. That matter and force do not die.

α. We know of nothing that is positively mortal.

2. That life works in a certain direction.

3. That death and re-birth are the means of moving in
that direction, _i.e._, of progress.

4. That this progress is of the spirit or self.

5. That we are forever a part of the world, related to
the whole.

6. As we know nothing but consciousness or self, we
believe it must be immortal, though we have no proof.

III. THE THEORY OF RACE-IMMORTALITY AS AN IDEAL:

_a._ It is more improbable than self-immortality.

1. All planets die.

2. The last generation, dies, too.

_b._ It is not true immortality:

1. The thing we cannot transmit is the Self which loves
and seeks.

IV. MEMORY AND PERSONALITY:

_a._ Admission of ignorance and indifference. Why?

1. Everything is a memory and a prophecy, since
everything exists forever, and advances.

2. The body is a memory.

3. Memory must continue at least in its results on the
self, if not more definitely.

_b._ Love and Meeting:

1. Love may have other satisfactions than we dream of.

2. We are all one, and cannot be separated.

V. “I AM” EXPRESSES IMMORTALITY:

_a._ Each least thing is eternal and universal.

SEVENTH MEETING

_The Meaning of Beauty_

I. BEAUTY IS THE SYMBOL OF COMPLETENESS AND HARMONY:

_a._ This is the reason beauty delights us:

1. It pictures the aim and desire of our whole life.

_b._ The smallest thing can be as a universe in itself, if it be
complete and harmonious, _i.e._, perfect:

1. A drop as well as a planet; a dog, in his way, as
well as a man; a day as well as a century.

II. THE GOOD, THE TRUE AND THE BEAUTIFUL HAVE THE SAME END, AND ARE SOUGHT, RESPECTIVELY, BY PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND ART:

_a._ Philosophy seeks the whole at once, therefore can never
reach that completeness.

_b._ Science seeks individual truths, not the moral truth, or
aim:

1. Darwin, the philosophical scientist.

_c._ Art gives us that completeness, our aim, symbolized in a
small and definite shape.

III. GENIUS IS THE COMMON HUMAN QUALITY, DISTINCT FROM TALENT:

_a._ The Genius differs not in _kind_, but in _degree_, from his
fellows.

_b._ The desire for understanding and completeness, present in
some measure in all, is genius.

_c._ The understanding in the spectator is akin to the genius in
the artist.

IV. TALENT IS THE POWER OF EXPRESSION:

_a._ To see all things as distinct wholes, impersonally.

_b._ The skill to portray, and to handle material.

_c._ Genius and talent vary in degrees of relation in different
artists’ work:

1. The great idea, imperfectly executed.

2. The small idea in perfect form.

V. ART AS THE SYMBOL OF COMPLETENESS AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION:

_a._ The sublime lie of the Symbol, truer than fact:

1. The effect of removal from life, of unreality, in
relation to beauty. It seems more self-sufficient.

_b._ A complete vision must not take sides:

1. When art is partisan, _for_ something, it is also
_against_ something. Complete representation.

_c._ Creative art gives us the joy of play, of creation:

1. Play—interplay—is the progress and will of life,
and work but a name for the disagreeable but necessary
part of the game.

EIGHTH MEETING

_Art_

I. REASON FOR ÆSTHETIC ENQUIRY:

_a._ Art (creation) is the service of religion.

_b._ Laws of beauty (completeness) may give us laws for life.

_c._ Will prepare us to deal more sanely and surely with the
involved problems of conduct.