Chapter I. The Spiritual Method
1901 original text, YOGeBooks typeset transcription; original text extent only
Chapter I. The Spiritual Method
What was the secret power of that great teacher whom the multitude followed to the mount, nearly nineteen centuries ago? Why did his hearers come away with the realisation that he spoke with authority, not as their former teachers had spoken? Why has the sermon on the mount held chief rank among discourses from that day to this?
Is that secret to be found in the words which Jesus uttered? Many had expressed truths which he taught that day, in some cases using words almost identical with his.
Was it the power of belief? Countless thousands have believed what he uttered with such emphasis. Many have believed yet have not wrought the works that Jesus wrought. And it is doubtful if his hearers took time to test his teachings by the canons of belief.
We may well imagine that never was audience more deeply moved than on that memorable day. Even if Jesus had said nothing, those who were drawn to him then would have gone away with new incentives. For above all it was the personal presence, the sweet peace, the kindly compassion which stirred the hearts and minds of that congenial multitude. It was the life, the power of a soul true in thought, word and deed to the doctrine he inculcated, which carried conviction where no teacher had moved people before.
Such a life needed no ornamentation to attract public notice. Such a teacher needed no gesture or loud voice to emphasise his utterances. It was only necessary for him to be there where men were receptive, in order to enfold one and all in a spirit of reverent worship and love. And he won them all because he appealed to all sides of the hungering, thirsting people who came to hear.
He was not a mere theorist, nor a mere doer of the word. He spoke not for beauty only, but for truth; not merely for virtue but for the fulness of God’s great life as manifested in the total universe. And when his hearers withdrew one by one, each must have borne away the consciousness of a new life, a glad, new message uttered as if specially meant for the individual soul.
When you and I turn to the brief record of that day of peace, let us not forget to place ourselves in the attitude of the reverent listeners who were thus stirred. Let us stand upon the mount alone. Or let us walk beside the Sea of Galilee, in imagination, that we may breathe the quiet air of solitude, rested by the presence of the waters,—the calm sea of inward rest and peace which the name of Galilee suggests. For to the one who has again and again journeyed where Jesus walked, each spot is sacred with a spirit which at once puts the mind into a worshipful attitude.
How else may we interpret the Christ ideal? Surely no one should expect to learn the secret of Jesus’s life who brings the sharp weapons of destructive criticism. Nor may one hope to win that secret who is deeply concerned to know what passages or gospels are most authentic.
Questions of authenticity are no doubt important, but they should surely never be paramount. Had one come in a critical spirit that day of days, he would hardly have felt the life-giving touch of the Christ.
That which is spiritual must ever be spiritually discerned.
For many centuries the spiritual simplicity of Jesus’s gospel has been covered over by the heavy burden of dogma, ceremonial and creed. It is time now to listen to Jesus as the most receptive of his hearers listened. It is time, too, to lay more stress upon life than upon belief.
Right belief is essential to right conduct, but we must have both.
Jesus appealed first to the heart; his gospel fed the hungry soul, he touched the lives of his hearers. He knew that right understanding would follow.
Let us approach his teaching in the same way. First the spirit, then the letter. First the peace, the love; then the thought, the assimilation.
Yet having felt the spiritual touch, it is no less important to grasp its philosophical meaning. For if Jesus’s teaching be true it is universal, and we must apply the Christ principle to every department of human thought.
They have made as grave a mistake who have suppressed their doubts, and held their intellects in check, as they who have made themselves slaves of sceptical criticism to the exclusion of the spirit.
The teaching of Jesus must satisfy the intellect or it is not true. It must harmonise with the revelations of God in nature. It must meet the demands of present-day Ideal social life.
Let a man then make all the demands he will, but let him remember how these demands can alone be met; for here, as nowhere else in the world of thought, a man shall find what he seeks, what he is.
It was said of Cuvier, the great French naturalist, that by the aid of one bone he could reconstruct in imagination the entire prehistoric animal to which the fragment belonged. Thus the scholar formulates a system of philosophy on the basis of a single statement. Thus may we philosophically construct and elaborate that which is merely hinted at in the scanty narrative ofJesus’s life.
The key to all that is obscure in the gospel narrative is therefore found when we regard Jesus’s teachings, not as fragments but as a whole; and here at last we have the essence of the spiritual method.
The intellect analyses, but often fails to put the parts together again. Our emotional nature apprehends the heart of things, but frequently loses all stability. We must therefore open wide our hearts to feel the divine presence, to receive the new life, then open our minds equally wide to learn its fullest meaning.
Thus may we listen not merely as the multitude listened so long ago, but think as the most philosophical may have thought when be withdrew.
Thus may we begin to realise the Christ ideal in all parts of our nature, seeking not merely to believe but to live; not only to know the truth but to feel the peace, to manifest the love; to be every day and hour what some are momentarily when they obtain glimpses of the secret of Jesus’s life.