Theodore Parker

American Preacher, 1810-1861

I was again sitting quietly in the meditation dome for it was approaching the time for the second visit from my Tibetan instructor. I made all the preparations for meditation with regard to physical cleanliness, and followed the ritual for mental-spiritual cleansing according to the outline given me. The ritual was concluded by listening to music composed upon a quarter tone scale. My mind was cleansed from mundane thinking by prayer. I sought to move into inner silence as I slowly chanted the sacred sound, Aaahhrriiieeeooouuummm, sounding the chant smoothly, I formed each vowel by gradually changing the shape of the mouth cavity with my cheeks and tongue. A spine tingling awareness of beauty and power expanded inside me until it made me unconscious of ordinary physical sensations.

At first, his presence was like the sensation one feels when there is a static electric charge in the air. Then, as I watched, his visible form took shape before me. Rama Sandlob projected a pleasing sequence of syllables into my mind. I assumed them to be words of a language that was incomprehensible to me. The cheerful and light hearted sentiment they seemed to convey was, "the top o' the morning to you, David."

"And the same to you, sir," I answered involuntarily, smiling broadly.

Rama Sandlob smiled at that comment and said, "I wrapped my greetings around the thought of foreign sounds and you understood me perfectly, David."

"Now just a moment," I said, "on that basis we would need no languages at all. We could convey thoughts by imprinting them upon primitive sounds."

"When the intuitive faculties are functioning normally, this would be true," said Rama. "You have the record of the gradual loss of this ability faintly preserved by the story about the tower of Babel."

"Now, will you tell my why we need vocal sounds at all. Why not use thoughts alone?"

"Once we were able to do that. Now we need sounds for a crutch. You might visualize the reason from a parallel drawn with your method of broadcasting by radio," answered Rama, smiling. "Thoughts are vibrations of a different character than sound. Each spoken sound is like the radio carrier wave and includes the thought wave just as the radio wave includes the sound wave. From audible sound the intuitive faculties extract the inaudible thought vibrations that were impressed upon the sound waves. The mind amplifies them into intelligible thoughts to a greater or lessor degree, depending upon the hearer's intuitive faculties. By this power to imprint thought vibrations upon sounds, a thought picture given by a highly evolved person may tell more than a thousand words by themselves could ever do."

"I do not see why we need to use vocal sounds at all," I said, "if the human mind is both a transmitter and receiver?"

"They were not needed when men were truly honest in their communications with each other. Sounds to help us communicate came into use gradually as man departed farther and farther from his Maker. Over the centuries, they were crystallized into the limiting forms of language. Because of the deceptive use of simple words and sound, the intuitive faculties were dulled more and more. Words will not be eliminated again but the need for them in person to person communication will be diminished in time as man learns not to misuse either words or thoughts in an attempt to deceive his brother. Right-use-ness will bring the restoration of the normal faculties of the soul, or psychic powers."

"Then our built-in radio transmitter-receiver sets for thoughts will be in good repair again," I commented thoughtfully. I felt I understood this discussion better than when Dr. Karoll and his family talked about it.

"Your comprehension is excellent, David. It proves your own psychic receiving set is functioning," Rama Sandlob stopped addressing thoughts to me after these words and I felt he was offering me the opportunity to think about other questions.

For several minutes I thought back to the period just prior to the collapse, as I remembered it. I thought over what I knew, or thought I knew, about astral travel. Would Rama Sandlob have been using his powers of astral travels then to make himself aware of events occurring outside of Tibet? I wondered to myself. Astral travel is not necessarily enlightening, I had been informed. Since one's powers of comprehension may be as limited by the ego as they are in the ordinary physical consciousness, one does not necessarily gain understanding by astral travel.

"Sir," I asked hopefully, "can you tell me about the events of the year 1984? It is hard for me to imagine what made my friends abandon me in a cave while in a suspended animation coma."

"Possibly I can, David. You see, I participated consciously in the great battle that was being fought in the thought world of the earth. Those who were attuned to the Infinite Spirit found themselves involved in the struggle to preserve our school room, Earth, from desecration. Have you a particular question in mind?" asked Rama.

"How did it take place and why?" I asked. "Dr. Karoll told me something about it but I should like to know more."

"That's a pretty broad picture to cover, David. A large book could do little more than touch the surface. On the other hand, the question is elementary with regard to the principles involved. We can make a comparison of America in her dying days with a self indulgent human being, a person whose misused body has become loaded with the poisonous wastes from his excesses. As his self destruction progresses, he is less and less able to render a useful service in exchange for what he seeks to satisfy himself. His cravings enslave mind, as well as body, and so with craft and dishonesty he seeks to obtain what he wants. At last, in a state of physical, mental, and moral wreckage, he departs his body because an abused vital mechanism suddenly gives ways."

"A shocking comparison, sir," I said.

"More appropriate that you might imagine, David."

"But, sir, a nation is made up of individuals and its actions can hardly be compared to those of a single individual."

"To the contrary, David. The comparison is very real. There is the physical body with its individual cells and organs and there is the nation with its individual members, its organized government agencies and its various industries that each serve functions similar to those of organs in the human body."

"In a way, I can see what you mean, sir," I said.

"Then you can see a parallel to the human body in the effect upon physical aspects of land, air and water of a nation which does not maintain control of its unwholesome tendencies. What was called free enterprise became the tool for enslaving the common man. Just as surely as a self indulgent individual will experience physical limitations through sickness and, finally, death, so did the nation. When groups sought to have unlimited resources to indulge their whims, the masses had to be enslaved and crushed. Yet corrupt government can only exist when selfish thinking is rampant throughout the land on the individual level. It takes the selfish thinking of the masses to create a tyranny. Natural law brings upon the masses the outpicturing of their own thoughts. To force the people of any nation to accept pollution of land, air and water, corruption of the morals of youth with debasing entertainment, destruction of physical health with improper food, conscription of the nation's youth for aggression and disregard for the common people of backward nations, hinges upon the moral compromise of each person who contributes his thought power to support these activities. The fatal disease in the nation of America could well be equated with cancer in the physical body," said Rama.

"Cancer," I said, "hmmmm, what particular activity in the nation was like a cancer in the human body?"

"Many were, David," said Rama. "You might say that cancerous thinking was widespread and those who were especially successful in applying it in business were highly respected."

"You have confused me, sir," I said. "How can you compare any business to a cancer?"

"The nature of the cancer is that of a parasite. It multiplies its own cells by drawing what it needs away from the useful parts of the body. The cancer grafts itself into an organ, absorbs nutrients and grows ever larger and larger. It throws off waste like all growing things but has no constructive function to balance this. Its purposeless growth is like a human living a selfish life in society. It blights or kills the body of its host. Cancer is a disease expressive of short-sighted self interest," said Rama Sandlob, "in its most elementary form. Stockholders, like cancer cells that have invaded an organ in the human body, may become parasites. They may draw upon the productivity of others to sustain themselves and multiply their kind but contribute nothing."

"We had lots of shortsighted self interest in America but I never thought of it in those terms," I said. "A stockholder was a parasite? Those are hard words."

"Usually things are neither black nor white but some shade of gray, David. The cigarette industry of your times was, possibly, the most obvious example of shortsighted self interest. Seldom acknowledged was the fact that such an industry could not exist a day unless the common people were individually willing to compromise their personal ideals by serving it in one way or another. The existence of the vast cigarette industry revealed the extent of shortsighted self interest on the part of the masses throughout the nation. Each store keeper who sold any product he knew in his heart was harmful to his brother, each parent who did not object to their advertisement, each employee in advertising who did not refuse to aid in preparing copy for harmful products, each newspaper owner who allowed his paper to promote them; these individuals were guilty of cancerous thinking. The cigarette industry did not represent crime against humanity by a small faction of wealthy persons motivated by greed. Not at all! Every person who knowingly aided a harmful industry to function revealed his own willingness to prosper at his brother's expense and even to be a director in the activity. Every person who knowingly cooperated with his government when he believed it was perpetrating the harm of another nation or participated in the manufacture or distribution of a product he believed injurious to man or his environment was, like a cancer cell in his flesh, committing treason against the human race."

"Then the kind of thinking that enabled the cigarette industry to flourish you would say caused the collapse of the nation?" I asked.

"That's right, David."

"Dr. Karoll connected the money system with the cause of the collapse," I said.

"This would be like saying a self-indulgent old man suddenly died because he happened to have apoplexy."

"Then Dr. Karoll meant that the money system was just the weakest link?" I asked.

"It's hardly possible to say it that way and be accurate, David," said Rama. "You see, cancerous thinking, that is the desire to get value without giving an equal value in exchange, had pervaded every level of your society. The danger of this error in thinking should be as obvious as the danger to health of a cancer in the flesh. Great corporations which originally prospered because they served the people gradually became perverted to serve first the interests of their stockholders. It was like observing a cancerous growth becoming engrafted into the flesh of a man's heart to see the politicians and those employed by the government putting their personal interests above those of the nation."

"Your analogy is shocking, but is clear enough," I said.

"This history of the rising and falling of civilizations," said Rama, "is the record of the see-sawing of life giving and disease producing thought. Noble thoughts produce health in nations just as in the human body. An elevated spirit demands obedience from mind and body. Disciplining all of his appetites, the noble man lives to serve others and uses his body as the instrument to make application of his ideals. A selfish human life is like a cancer cell and a minority that prospers by enslaving the common people is parallel to a malignant tumor. The enslavement of the cells of the body in an individual to serve his own sensual desires is like enslavement of the working classes of a nation. When a nation will allow mass production of contraceptives instead of teaching the virtue of continence to its people, we have cancerous thinking gone wild. To do this is akin to bringing down the curtain on the closing act. Many variations of cancerous thinking though there be, the most critical and destructive relates to the misuse of sexual powers on an individual level."

"Your analogies cover so broad an area, sir, almost all of the nation's troubles could be said to come from cancerous thinking."

"You might sum up all of man's travail, individually and collectively, by saying that it stems from selfishness, David."

"This point of view is difficult for me to accept without reservations. One individual we find born into circumstances which create problems with selfishness that are almost insurmountable. Another enters into the world with an opportunity presented that engenders his development into a superior person. Am I having a problems with words, even though you are conveying thoughts directly into my consciousness? Shouldn't the frame of mind we are calling selfishness be called ignorance? Is it not ignorance rather than selfishness when one creates painful destiny by disobedience to the laws of nature?"

"Oh, David, you are trying to oversimplify the question now. Stop and think a moment of the parallel that we have drawn between error in the individual and in the nation and then ask yourself these questions:

"Was there anyone who did not know in his heart that it was wrong to pollute the pure natural waters of a beautiful land?"

"Was there anyone who did not know it was wrong to allow any human child to be raised in the slums?"

"Was there anyone who did not know that it was wrong to furnish war weapons to other countries?"

"Was there anyone who did not know that it was wrong to permit advertising and entertainment which undermined the morals of youth?"

"Well," I commented, "it still looks like ignorance to me."

"No reasonably intelligent person could plead ignorance," Rama answered slowly. "It was not ignorance of the harm being done when those who owned factories dumped polluting wastes into streams. The right to pollute was a source of profit. They were in a position to use income gained through inexpensive disposal of waste in streams for lobbying or for legal assistance to obstruct efforts by the public to bring corrections. The plant workers as well as the owners were keenly aware of the foul injustice done posterity by the destruction of the natural environment."

"I'm not sure, sir, but I think you have just expressed your agreement with me," I said.

"Why do you say that, David?"

"Because of your belief that each individual meets himself in his personal circumstances, be they good or ill," I said, "and inherits the environment that, unbeknown to himself, he helped create."

"Words, words, words! How they do obstruct the understanding!"

We were both silent for a space of several minutes. During our silence Rama Sandlob projected ideas into my mind without using words until I responded, "All right, all right, sir, I follow you. I do not know how to use the graphic language you just used on me but I could not fail to understand it." I laughed out loud as I saw how ridiculous a position I had taken.

"Oh, you are using this language all the time, David. This is why no one takes offense with you. We understand what you are trying to say and we see how you have misunderstood our thoughts. Now, to get back to the question of equating ignorance and selfishness, suppose you re-state your view."

"Well, of course, I see that it is not so simple. The desire of individuals to take care of their families and to have the best that life offers for themselves is not evil or wrong or selfish in itself. It only becomes so when they set themselves apart in consciousness from any member of the race and are willing to satisfy their own needs by activities which place them out of harmony with the whole of society. In each individual we see the same conflict between desires and urges seeking expression within his own body that we see between factions within nations or throughout the earth. The man who does not control his appetites is well aware of the harm suffered by other members of his body, yet lacking incentive to do otherwise, may persist in an indulgence until it deforms and humiliates him. The desires and appetites of the physical body are good and serve needed functions. The key is to maintain balance among them. This can be done when the welfare of the entire organism is placed above its separate parts. Just as the individual human body is a functioning whole, so is the race a whole made up of many parts. In the long run, no one may prosper at the expense of another. All are equally dependent upon the whole. In his ignorance of the price he will pay a man willfully chooses to commit the only sin, the sin of self separation, or ... selfishness."

"You have the picture, David," said Sandlob. "You could have stated that selfishness was not a matter of being ignorant of the results of wrong doing but a lack of faith in the Immutable Laws which govern the universe. This is just another way of saying error results from unbelief in Divine Justice. God is LAW as much as He is LOVE."

With that Rama Sandlob slowly faded away from my view and I experienced his "God be with you" as a three dimensional thought form of exquisite beauty.