5. Reason reveals to man the meaning and the significance of his life.
6. Reason is not given to man to teach him to love God and his neighbor. This has been implanted in the heart of man independently of reason. Reason was given to man to point out to him what is true and what is false. Man need only reject that which is false and he will learn all that he needs.
7. The errors and the disagreements of men in the matter of seeking and recognizing truth are due to nothing as much as to their distrust of reason; as a consequence
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE • 139
human life, ruled by customs, traditions, fashions, superstitions, prejudices, violence and all sorts of things excepting reason, takes its own course, and reason exists by itself. It also frequently happens that if use is made of thinking at all, it is applied not to the search and the propagation of truth, but to a persistent endeavor to justify and to sustain customs, traditions, fashions, superstitions and prejudices at all costs.
The delusions and disagreements of people in the matter of recognizing the one truth are not due to a difference in the nature of human reason or to its inability to point them to the one truth, but to the fact that they do not trust it.
If they had faith in their reason they would find a method of verifying the indications of reason in themselves and in others. Having found such a method of mutual verification they would be convinced that reason is the same in all, and they would submit to its dictates.
ГЛ. Strakhoff.
8. Reason is one and the same in all people. Associations of men and their mutual influence one upon the other are based on reason. The dictates of reason—which is one and the same in all people-^are obligatory to all men.
9. To the degree that a man is truthful he is divine; the invulnerability, the immortality, the majesty of the divine enter man together with truthfulness. Emerson,
10. Remember your reason having the faculty of life in itself makes you free provided you do not turn it to the service of the flesh. The soul of man, enlightened by reason, free from passions which obscure this world, is a true fortress and there is no refuge open to man which is more secure and inaccessible to evil. He who does not knovii
this is blind, and he who knowing this does not trust to reason is truly unfortunate. Marcus Aurelius.
11. One of the principal duties of man is to aJlow that shining principle of reason which has been granted us by heaven to radiate in its full force.
Chinese wisdom.
12. I glorify Christianity because it expands, strengthens and elevates my rational nature. If I could not remain rational as a Christian I would reject Christianity. For the sake of Christianity I feel constrained to sacrifice my property, my reputation, my life, but no religion exists for which I would sacrifice that reason which elevates me above the animal and makes me a man. I do not know a greater blasphemy than to renounce the highest faculty given me by God. To do this is to oppose wilfully the divine principle which dwells in us. Reason is the highest expression of our thinking nature. It is in accord with the unity of God and universe and strives to make the soul a reflection and a mirror of supreme unity. Channing,
13. If a man did not know that he could see through his eyes and never opened them, he would be pitiable indeed. But still more is to be pitied the man who does not understand that reason has been granted to him so that he might bear all vicissitudes. With the help of reason we can bear all vicissitudes. Man endowed with reason will never in his life meet intolerable vicissitudes. Such do not exist for him. Yet how often instead of facing some vicissitude boldly we pusillanimously endeavor to avoid it. Is it not better to rejoice that God has given us the power to bear with equanimity that which happens to us independent of our volition and to thank him that he has put our soul under subjection
only to that which depends upon ourselves ? He did not put our soul under subjection to our parents, to our brothers, to our body or to death. In his goodness he put it under subjection to one thing only, namely our reason—and that depends on us. Epictetus.
14. Reason has been given us by God that we may serve Him. Therefore we must preserve it in all purity so that it may always distinguish the true from the false.
15. Man is free only if he abides in the truth. And \ truth is revealed by reason.
VI.
Reason—The Censor of Creeds
1. When a man uses his reason for the solution of such problems as why the world exists and why he lives in this world he experiences a sensation akin to dizziness or vertigo. The mind of man can not find answers to these problems. What does this mean ? It means that reason was not given to man to answer these questions, and that the very fact of formulating these questions is an error of reason. Reason only solves the question how we are to live. And the answer is very clear: so as to do good to ourselves and to others. This is needful to all that is living, myself included. And the possibility of living so is given to all that is living, including myself, through the exercise of reason. And this solution excludes all questioning as to why and wherefore.
2. "Are we not right ? Is it not necessary to keep the people deceived ? See how savage and uncultured they are."
No, they are savage and uncultured, because they have been rudely deceived. Therefore first of all cease to deceive them rudely.
3. If God, as an object of our faith, is above our rea-sootDg, it does not follow that we must neglect the activity of our reason and account it harmful.
Although the objects of our faith without a doubt are beyond the circle of our reasoning, reason has a vast importance in relation to them, because we can not possibly do without it. It has the functions of a censor which admitting from the domain of faith truth that is above our reason, in other words a metaphysical truth, still rejects all fictitious truths which contradict our reason.
But in addition to this affirmative function, reason has also a proper negative function in delivering man from sins, errors (which are excuses for stn) and superstitions. Th. Strakkoff.
4. Be a light unto yourself. Be a refuge unto yourself. Hold fast to the light of your lamp nor seek another refuge.
Sutta.
5. "While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." John Vll, 36.
In order to know the true religion it is needful not to crush reason—a? it is taught by false teachers—but to purify and to exercise it, to examine by its light all that is submitted to us.
6. If you would attain to the knowledge of the all-embracing "I," you must first know yourself. In order to know yourself you must sacrifice your own "I" to the universal "I," Sacrifice your life if you would live in the spirit. Remove your thoughts from external things and from all that appears frtMu without. Endeavor to keep away from yourself all images that arise so that they may not cast their Ызск shadows on your soul.
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
143
Your shadows live and vanish. That which is eternal in згой, that which has reason, does not belong to the evanescent life. This eternal principle it within you, transport yourself into it, and it will reveal unto you that which is false and all that which is true and all that which you need