How much can be gained by the manipulations of the senses and of the brain mind on behalf of that divine being who moves serene and untouched through the greatest of our joys and the greatest trials, free and triumphant, poised in birth and death . . . how much can we do for our clearer knowledge of him?
Training the vehicle is all, training and training, until we have made order, made a workable process, through which to work his will and his inspiration. We must untie the knots, remove the barriers, clear the way. This is action in his name, there is no other.
Very important it is to know the value, and the valuelessness, of words. Perhaps words are the means by which we are bound most securely. The fact that words are so intimately associated with magical practices, and with the "creative aspect" of man and the cosmos, attests their potency. They are the instruments of Karman par excellence. Indeed, the words of one man can work more good or evil — sometimes both, at different times — than the actions of many people. Perhaps one of the great powers of language, generally speaking, is just that it has been set so high in human estimation. Because it has been used to represent the highest of values, it can be mistaken, it, mere language, for truth itself. Words left to their own devices, left to glare from the page, breed new spooks before every eye they meet; and yet, in themselves, they may appear the most innocent and dull of the whole dictionary. Words are born conjurors, and are just as unreliable as any other witchdoctor.
Look within.
What is it we are always trying to accomplish? Isn't it to reach that state, or attain that end, that good is the reflex of our involuntary natures, that we have truth for our every motive?
In the rumbling and blundering world of "facts" (i.e. things done or made), man is most truly an idea, and it is in the realm of ideas that he will find his order and his fulfillment. How much it is an understatement to the minds of most men, that "Ideas rule the world." Only when men have taken the trouble to rule themselves can they begin to understand the real meaning of those words, for only then can they attain to the realm of ideas. Until then, they are "ruled," with the world.
A real "command of the facts," that possession so much desired by many today, can be said to belong only to that man who recognizes an idea when he is one.
We can say that the world itself is the battered old hulk of the Tower of Babel, the confused and tumbling mass of facts, figures, signs, symbols, and words, words, words; representing a billion diverse points of view. Perhaps one day the stragglers among the ruins will welcome the coming of the great engineers and builders who will set up the City of the Sun from these poor random blocks, these orphaned buttresses and doorposts.
So, too, our own personalities correspond to this figure, are indeed the likenesses of the ruined old Tower of Babel, and cry out for the Architect, the Builder, the inspired one who has more care for a harmonious Unity than for all manner of curious and fascinating diversity.