The Farer
Why is man cast upon the sea of life
With no safe harbor from the storm and with
No anchor that will hold his fragile bark
From breaking on the reefs whose rock-
toothed jaws
Devour the stoutest ship?…How answer this!
The Presence
So quickly dost thou seek escape and turn
From him who has alone the answer to
The questions that you ask. The Farer
Who then is he?
And I will scour the world to seek him out. The Presence
It is thyself, my friend, thyself alone
In whom the answer lies. All that there is
Of wisdom, truth or light is found intact
Within each human soul. This is no wish
Or idle dream from which you wake to find
No meaning. Nor is the soul a dream,
Nor man a dream of gods who rule above.
For man is substance and not shadow, one
With Causing Cause, the Primal Cause,
That Which
Is All-Originating. The Farer
Whence then the tragedy of life—my life?
Why have the gods assigned such penalty
To ignorance? For sucking at the breast,
Man all but hears the curfew bell that tolls
The passing of his soul into the vale
Beyond—if so he pass at all! To what
And where—a mystery as great as whence
And why he came! The road ahead is blind
As is the jungle path he left behind.
The Presence
Man is not cast upon the sea of life
By deity in mere caprice, to sink
At length, unmourned, unnoted and
alone
In depths arcane. The sea is man’s to sail,
The stars are his to guide, the winds
are his
To drive his ship against the tide
and storm,
Or run with bellied sails to ports afar.
How glorious the great adventure of
The free-born soul where power to him
is giv’n
To choose his port and steer to hell
or heaven! The Farer
But there is pain that is not well deserved! The Presence
It is not pain imposed. And if there be
A mystery, ’tis less a mystery
To find it self-imposed than to conceive
A god who visits pain on good and bad
Alike and damns the very soul he loves.
There is no recourse known against
the gods.
But suffering when self-imposed can be
Deposed. The captive sets the captive free. The Farer
If this be so, then must it also be
In ev’ry evil lies a hidden good
And man can take a profit out of pain! The Presence
The Powers Above await the mind reborn
By discipline and faith and love of him
Whose soul has been redeemed, not by
their grace
But by an inner wakening to That-
Which-Is. Such wakening rests not upon
The gods but on the self that knows at last
That it is soul and cannot find release
Until the self with self has made its peace. The Farer
Is it then true that life but points to death
And reconciliation with the gods? The Presence
There is an end to form of flesh, but not
To that-which-truly is, thyself, the seed
Of life within, which Cosmic Life has strewn
Upon the earth, as yet not half-revealed,
But which in time will manifest its being;
Like to a lotus-seed that bursts in bud
And lifts its face in glory to the sun
When morning light has pierced the
fearsome dark,
Celestial seeds are planted deep, so deep
That man is unaware they had their source
Within the Garden of the Gods, until
The time has come to pluck the golden
fruit
That ripens when the harvest hour has
struck.
But all the while, the Higher Power keeps
guard;
Nor are men ever lost from sight by That
High Heavenly One Who knows and
cares and loves.
The Cosmic Mind can never fail nor does
It make mistakes. The end is sure and He
Will bring the seed to fruit in ripened souls. The Farer
Am I, O friend, such seed?
Can this be true
That I myself am what you have affirmed?
And if there be such self, or soul or God
Why am I then half swallowed up in dust,
And suffer need and feel the adder’s sting
Of pain and bear its venom in my veins? The Presence
The boundless seas, outflung from pole
to pole,
Surrender to the will of man; the stars
Are his by which to steer his bark; but each
Must pick his own—Polaris fixed and sure,
Or Algol, “Blinking Demon,” often called;
And when his star is set, it is man’s hand
Alone that holds the tiller to its course.
Within each man a sacred center lies
Which neither birth nor death can ever
change,
And here the self immortal waits the kiss
That wakes and weds him to eternal
bliss.•
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