A subject which has perturbed human thinking for thousands of years is the effort to discover what the rules are behind the evolution of living things. What is the plan? Some deny that there is a plan, which is a convenient answer, but no solution. Others believe that this plan is in the keeping of a Divine Power and that no mortal will ever be able to fathom this mystery of the Godhead. There are others, however, many devout and informed persons, who feel that while it is probably true that the ultimate and infinite answers to all questions are not available at this time, by careful and thoughtful consideration of the processes now functioning in nature a pretty good approximation of the rules behind the game can be made. Our panorama of life has been strengthened, broadened, and deepened by anthropology, zoology, archeology, and practically every research instrument that man has devised.

From these various sources, we derive accounts of living and life, and how things move forward through time. The correlations between cause and effect can be observed, and out of a simple and quiet meditation upon what is visible and knowable to us, we begin to recognize that destiny is a pattern, not a series of incidents or accidents. The processes of destiny seemingly are continuous and immutable. The most important of all things is the process itself, with which all life becomes involved. The more we know about the destiny of life, the better we can cooperate with it every day. There are some who suspect that man has been given a mind in order that he may use it to think about the reason for himself. While most persons use the mind simply to advance some important detail of their own, behind the thinking power is the energy necessary to contemplate, at least in part, the unfoldment of this thing called destiny.

We are in the same relationship with another word called “fate.” Fate has been associated with fatalism or fatalistic circumstances, and this idea that there is a fatal necessity against which we cannot revolt and which we cannot transmute or transform within ourselves, has led to religious fatalism. This is particularly obvious in the faith of Islam in which fatalism is an essential doctrine. It is part of the principle upon which its faith is built. To the average person, fate has become almost synonymous with luck. Fate is something that happens for no obvious or practical reason, or the cause of it is something we do not wish to investigate. A good many things that happen to us we accept with reluctance, but we do not wish to try to understand why they happen. One reason we are reluctant to explore the causes of occurrences is that they would almost certainly remind us of defects in our own character. We would gradually be

forced to recognize that ill fortune has to be earned - earned by doing the wrong thing, sometimes with a good spirit and a fine hope, but if it is the wrong thing it will not work. It would appear, therefore, that fate is particularly the expression of man experimenting with the processes of living. Fate can be understood as the result of observing our own actions, the actions of others, or of nations, and observing how closely the effects follow their causes. There are broad patterns of fatalism expounded by the teachings of Oswald Spengler, who points out that there is a constant relationship between events, and that similar causes always produce similar consequences. The consequences may be modified by time or place and will differ in detail because of nations, races, or cultural structures, but in essence a certain action will inevitably produce a correspondingly significant reaction. War, therefore, must result in war - not in peace.

Why then do we say that this lord of destiny is essentially benevolent? Because if war must always produce war, then war is eternal. This we do not believe. If every mistake that we make results in another catastrophe from which we have learned nothing and about which we make no thoughtful consideration, then the vicious circles of circumstances must go on indefinitely. They will not go on, however, forever. Indefinitely means for a limited time because man is so constituted in himself that he cannot enjoy suffering forever. The mere thought of suffering in a purgatory or perdition forever is too much for him. It is also obvious that the average person does desire to be comfortable, to live as pleasantly as conditions permit. He would like to live in a peaceful world and in a cooperative society because when he gets a taste of these benefits, he likes them. Unfortunately, his own character will not maintain his desire or his intention.

He drops back into being what he has always been, a competitive creature. He has not yet had enough suffering to realize that suffering is due to wrong action—that there is no possible way scientifically, religiously, or philosophically that the individual can make a mistake without paying for it. We like to hope that we can do as we please and all will come out well, but this is possible only in a person so enlightened that what he pleases to do is the greatest good for himself and everyone else. Until this is the basis of his pleasure, pleasure will alternate with displeasure down through time. The individual, facing the consequences of his own conduct, has developed a considerable literature on the subject, much of which we call history. History for most persons is a boresome subject, also a very unpleasant one. For the most part, modern histories are accounts and repetitions of the delinquencies of mankind. They contain

the constant record of our mistakes, and show the inevitable consequences of man’s inhumanity to his own kind and to other forms in nature. Everywhere history tells us that we are making mistakes, but we keep right on making them. We have not yet realized that history is a kind of scripture. It has a sacred meaning for it tells us what we ought and what we ought not to do. There is a concept of Goethe in which he points out that there are two selves, two souls, or two individualities inside each of us. One of these is forever struggling toward the good, and the other is constantly struggling toward the gratification of appetites. An appetite is a desire of any kind that satisfies an appetite within ourselves. We can say that cupidity is an appetite, or jealousy is an appetite, because in each case we are catering to something which we want to use to satisfy non-constructive attitudes.

Thus, according to Goethe, every individual is a divided person, having something in himself that is aspiring to union with the Eternal, something that should transcend all limitation and all material shortcomings. This something that is striving for perfection is an idealism in ourselves which is probably the basis of qualms of conscience. It also is constantly reminding us that we could do things better. It may impel us to unselfishness, to kindliness, or recommend that we forgive our enemies. The other being within is highly personal. This lower being does not wish to forgive or forget; it wishes to revenge. It wants to do an ill turn for every ill turn that is done to it. It wishes to revenge itself upon life, upon people. Where it cannot pick out an individual to be the subject or object of its revenge, it turns against society as a whole, trying desperately to get back at the world for any suffering that occurs to it.

These two struggling within us constitute the basis of most person's compound dispositions. In some, that part which is struggling toward the beautiful and the good is really dominant. It is making headway, becoming more and more involved in decisions, and making these decisions more kind, more gentle, more forgiving. The negative being gains strength because of disillusionment, frustration, or simply because the individual is becoming more and more centered upon the gratification of his personal appetites and desires. One thing, of course, that complicates the whole issue is the circle of the unknown which is drawn around the lives of all of us. We live in the midst of a circle, and there is a wall beyond which we cannot see nor even guess at with complete accuracy. In this environment, there are certain fallacies that have become almost canonical, and some of these fallacies are regarded as little less than of divine origin, when in reality, they are not.

Among the fallacies is the concept that we must build our entire way of life upon the basis of the seventy, eighty, or ninety years of our present embodiment. Everything that we can possibly do - to gratify ourselves must be done while we are here. After we are gone, what happens is of little concern for most folks. While we are here, we concentrate on what we can to please ourselves, to gratify every habit and appetite, and fulfill our ambitions. We must also get back at our enemies. An individual I knew carried an enmity to his deathbed and then, with his last attitude in this world, had something unpleasant to say about his enemy, dying with it on his lips. Many of us seem to feel that if someone has injured us, it is our divine right before heaven to dislike that person to the end of time. These types of attitudes have a very serious effect upon our environment,

resulting in conditions that have gone on generation after generation. This pattern is gradually tied into the concept of destiny. It is destiny that certain things happen, destiny that we should go on living as we do and passing on a heritage of suffering to our descendants. Fulfilling the pattern of things as they have always been brings the individual to a very important decision, namely, the problem of his ability to change. Can any individual really basically change his way of life? There are people who tell us they change, and perhaps in many ways they have. However, change means not merely a new adjustment to a situation; it may mean to move out of that situation entirely. A change means that the individual achieves a social change by a personal one. He improves his family by changing himself and not his family. He improves his ethics by becoming more ethical rather than demanding ethics from others. He achieves a spiritual insight not necessarily

because he receives instruction, but because he experiences the importance of self-improvement. Change, therefore, is the one thing that can change the course of destiny, for destiny is the thing as it is continuing to be as it is, and continuing to result in the difficulties associated with it until some long-range program changes it. Very few people are able to make a major change in their living while in the midstream of an embodiment. What motivates the few who in desperation try to make a change? In nearly every instance, change is brought on by suffering, disillusionment, frustration, or the inability of the individual to continue in his course because of health, financial condition, or something that requires a change in life pattern. This is not the way it should be done. We should not wait until change is forced upon us by our own mistakes. The individual should begin to change the moment he begins to think,

for every thought, every use of the mind should reveal elements of character, conduct patterns, associations, or relationships which can be improved and which, therefore, need to be changed from something less to something better. Change should be a voluntary growth inspired by the desire to be better, not the desire to escape difficulties. We should live well not because we fear pain, but because living well gives us health, which is a positive achievement in itself. Whenever we grow only because we cannot endure our own way, there is a grudging effort that makes no alteration in our basic morality and ethics. We are simply reluctantly giving up a bad habit that we would prefer to keep if it were not so difficult or painful. While this change seems to result in a magnificent reformation of character, very often this new character begins to find ways to make the old mistakes under new names,

repeating the pattern itself probably through the rest of life. There is really only one way that destiny can be changed. Prayers to heaven to change its ways are not effective. The universe will continue as it has done always because that is the best for all living things. The problem man has to face is: how long will it take him to recognize that nature’s ways are best? One of the most common defects we have today is our desperate desire to reform nature. We have a feeling that the time has come when we are empowered to instruct God how to operate. We are quite convinced that the Divine Plan needs revamping. We know that at the present time there is a little difficulty about ourselves in relation to this plan. Therefore, we would like to explain to Deity why we are right and Deity is wrong, and wish to make it clear that we are going to picket if things do not change. As you may remember in the little book

written years ago called “Heavenly Discourse,” there was a picketing presumably in heaven. Man rebels against the things he does not like, and the moment God disagrees with man, so much the worse for God as far as man’s thinking is concerned. He must in some way cause the universe to go the way he wants it to go, and he tries in some ways to rationalize that God also wants it to go that way. However, it is hard to prove that God wants man to keep on forever doing things that hurt him, disfigure his career, destroy his resources, impoverish his environment. It is difficult to believe that God wants this or that God wishes man to suffer as the result of it. Man does not suffer because God wants suffering; man suffers because of his own mistakes, and when these mistakes come back on him, he declares it to be a misfortune.

The cause of it has not been corrected, and if the individual continues to keep on causing trouble, he will suffer. This is a good form of parental discipline. Deity no longer stands as a wicked stepfather, punishing out of pleasure or conceit, but a wise parent that realizes every child needs discipline. The Universal Plan is built upon discipline, and discipline is the one thing the average individual would like to get rid of. He does not want to be disciplined. Yet a child who rejects discipline in his teens will blame his parents for not having given it to him when he reaches thirty, because he cannot live without discipline. When he is spoiled, he is damaged. We would like heaven to do just what we want, to make happy, wealthy people out of each of us. Heaven should not permit any evil to confront us, any problem to face us. Heaven should be a kind of paradise. According to

some of the old accounts. It started that way, but something went wrong. The thing that went wrong always was disobedience, and heaven will not tolerate it. Heaven does not pick out anyone particularly for revenge. During every process of nature, every moment of our lives, we are operating within a network of laws. We only breathe because of laws. We only have bodies because of laws. We can only think because of laws. Every single thought, action, emotion we possess within ourselves as faculties or powers are all under laws. Every one of them is subject to a right and wrong use. These laws tell us that the processes will work smoothly and properly if they are not abused. If, however, we disobey rules, then a whole group of faculties goes out of equilibrium. The individual who becomes a narcotics addict is destroying a whole group of law patterns which he needs for a successful life. He is damaging himself;

no one is making him do it. We may say that he is beginning at a time when he is not wise enough to know what to do. He is over-influenced by others. That is the reason why the growing person, the immature person, must be given adequate discipline, parental control, and direction. This may be a very difficult job, and in some cases impossible, but where this fails then the State has to step in and complete the discipline. The individual cannot live an undisciplined life and expect anything but disaster. Destiny is ourselves catching up with ourselves. It is what we have set in motion finally coming back to us - the blackbirds coming back to roost under our own eaves. Destiny can be changed. The old Oxford theologians had much to say about this. Ptolemy pointed out in astrology that there is no inevitable destiny. What we call fatalism consists of facing consequences; good

actions, good consequences - corrupt, negative, or destructive actions, bad consequences. This is immutable and inevitable; there is no way to avoid it. It may take a lifetime to learn this and it may take fifty lifetimes to learn it. We may come back again and again, hating society because it will not fulfill our wishes. Someday we will learn the simple lesson that our happiness and the environment in which we find ourselves are the result, consequences, and harvest of our own integrities. Realizing this, we should be able to see what destiny really means. Every process that exists in nature has a reason for its existence. It is part of a perfection without which nothing can be complete. The complete pattern is the full structure or archetype for our existence. Within this grand archetype are innumerable small ways of existence. In the animal kingdom, we find a good example of the very simple, actual intuitional factor which controls animals.

We call it instinct. Animals seldom break laws. They do that which is inevitable to themselves. They fulfill the archetype of their own kind as do flowers, plants, and minerals. All forms of life fulfill their archetypes. By fulfilling them, they keep faith with the principle or destiny for which they were intended. It is obvious that if the living being does not mentally interfere with its own destiny, instinct will lead it in the way it should go. Instinct is very valuable. Human beings still have it, but only in residual quantities. Instinct is no longer dominant with man. Man has been raised to another level, and it is this other level to which he belongs that makes his humanity. Man is not simply an animal standing on its hind legs, but a creation of itself, the creation being different from all others because it has self-determinism through the existence of mind. Mind makes the human being an individual species,

not tied to any other except perhaps in the long patterns of evolution. As a creation, it is unique; unique because it has to change from instinct to reason. It has to be guided no longer by principles operating through it, but must direct and use these resources by conscious decision. Man becomes capable of fulfilling the mystery of evolution, for evolution is impossible except to a creature that is self-governing. A creature living entirely by instinct cannot be either virtuous or vice-ridden. He cannot earn something better or deserve something worse because he is not a free agent. He is bound only by instincts within himself which he cannot resist. Man, however, is no longer so bound. He has the power to use and abuse the resources of his own humanity. He is able to make good laws or bad ones. He has the right to live according to principles or to transgress them. He has the eternal

privilege of being happy, but he also has the responsibility for making himself miserable. Man is a self-motivating being. In his self-motivation, he is moving gradually and inevitably toward the great archetype of the universe itself, which is also a vast self-moving organism moving exactly according to law. When man fits into the pattern as one fragment of this great creation process, there is no inconsistency between his own conduct and that of the grand pattern. Pain, misery, suffering, and misfortune cease. They are always the result of the fact that man’s conduct does not agree with the inevitable conduct necessary for the perfection of the Divine Plan. The most successful structures in nature are those which are built according to natural laws and are merely a specialization within natural law. Human life is a specialization within natural law. If this specialization is by virtue of a self-resident intellect and if this specialization is unfolded properly and correctly, humanity can live in peace and happiness in a secure world.

indefinitely. He can live in such complete peace that he will then be able to further develop still higher resources, which he cannot work with until he overcomes the common problems of daily living. They have to be overcome; they cannot be evaded. A man looking at these problems gets all kinds of attitudes about them. One thing he is always hoping - that somewhere in nature the great laws will become sentimental and will pat him on the head and say, “You poor fellow will make an exception in your case.” We are all looking for this kind of paternalism and trying to figure in some way how to escape the consequences of our own conduct. We have developed philosophies and ideas for evasion of our own responsibilities. We have not yet decided to earn our way out of our troubles, but have hoped that someone will forgive them and let us go sailing on our way in peace and impropriety.

It will not work this way. No matter how much we believe we can break rules and still be happy, we are still miserable because we do not have sense enough to realize from experience that we cannot succeed in doing that which nature denies. Destiny is actually the perfection of all that lives. By perfection, we mean that every living thing in a certain level or condition will achieve one hundred percent unfoldment of that potential and will go as far in the environment as this potential requires. In each environment, there is a different level of potential. The individual is not expected to achieve a condition suitable to a creature from a different environment. He is not expected to be better than the environment makes possible, but the environment in every case proves itself by the fact that living beings gradually through their own conduct, through disciplining themselves and their environment, achieve its final graduating mark. They graduate with honors when there is nothing in their own conduct that conflicts with their

environment. There is no longer any part of man’s human endowment that is not humanely unfolded. When there is something else to be done on another level of unfoldment, that will be for another time. In order to graduate from this level of education, he must graduate because he has learned the lesson and turned in an adequate dissertation. He must have graduated because he has learned the lesson that this environment requires. He can never learn the lesson by resenting it. He should never look upon this lesson as a hardship, a burden, a crime, or some indication that God does not love him. The truth of the matter is that the Lord so loveth man that he gave him these problems to face. The final product of the divine creative process is that the individual shall achieve integrity and come to grow into the likeness of the Divine Plan of which he is a part. The law of cause and effect, which many people talk about but very few live as though it meant

anything does have certain relationships to conduct. When an individual makes a long-range mistake, he may at the same time cause a short-range dilemma. We do something wrong, but think it is all right because we know someone else who did. The fellow we thought got away with it we have not seen in years, but we assume that he is still going gloriously on his way. The fact of the matter is that fate has probably caught up with him by this time. No one can escape the law of cause and effect. What happens as a result may be misfortune. Misfortune, however, is not something that is accidental but something that has to be part of a plan. In its various processes, nature has many plans we do not understand. We do not understand much of the confusion of our present day. We do not know why things have to be as they are. We do not understand why there has to be social injustice. We go out and picket and try our best

to present our displeasure to our representative leaders and order them to change, but this is not the answer to anything. The answer is that these problems arise from some form of ignorance. There is an ignorance which we all share in common. There is highly specialized ignorance we have to receive an advanced education to attain; it does not come naturally. There is also a kind of ignorance that arises from simply refusing to think. Most of our problems arise from ignorance. Anything that is selfish is ignorance. Anything that seeks self-advantage at the expense of others is ignorance - maybe ignorance cum laude, but still ignorance. Whenever we do it wrong we are ignorant. If we do it wrong because we do not know better, that is simple ignorance; if we do it wrong and know better, that is compound ignorance. An individual who breaks the common laws of human integrity is ignorant, and vice is one of the byproducts of ignorance. There is no way in which things

can change into what we want them to be until the tendency to seek ulterior advantages is overcome. There are many reasons why we should be unhappy. We are not sure what level of wisdom or ignorance is leading all this, but one thing is certain - we have for thousands of years been wrong. We have been wrong in our basic attitudes. We have been so wrong that in several thousand years we have had several thousand wars. We have had depressions and all types of financial disasters. We have had innumerable inquisitions and massacres. We have had the pillaging of people and the destruction of property. We have had in the present century more bloodshed probably than in the rest of history put together - all monuments to something that is tremendously and fundamentally wrong. As the mistakes get bigger, the penalties get heavier. If we do not correct these mistakes, there is no use shaking our fist at heaven or declaring that

destiny has moved against us. The truth is that we have moved selfishly and self-centeredly against destiny. It seems too bad that the human being, having been given a mind, has been so reluctant to use it intelligently. He would like to use it only to advance his own cause, and he would like to think of having a life in which he can do as he pleases-thinking as little as possible. This is too great a strain on his nervous system, and he prefers to depend upon righteous, genuine, enlightened, and virtuous leaders to do all of his thinking for him. This is one of the great errors of our time. Then we now come to an environment in which young people control, from which the older depart, and everyone is in trouble. It looks as though we are all ill sod, and we are reminded of the fact that the word “disaster” means “disaster,

evil sod.” We all think of disasters as coming from the heavens - a planet is doing it to us, but the planet can do nothing to us except fulfill what we are doing to ourselves. It can strengthen us toward the right or the wrong, according to our own integrities. There are no ill fortunes in the ordinary sense of the word; there are only lessons that have to be learned, and lessons which we resent learning. The problem would look bad, sad, and almost unsolvable if we continued to assume that our entire evolutionary procedure were limited to one embodiment in this world. If the one life we live here now is the sum and total of all our opportunities to grow or become, we are really in a bad condition, an impossible state. A great many persons have not contacted serious thinking until they are so far along in years they could not possibly put it all into practice.

How can we assume that destiny can be fulfilled in sixty or seventy, eighty, ninety years of human life? It is simply impossible. Destiny moved into manifestation billions of years before the creation of our universal system. Destiny is something that extends from the infinite past into the infinite future. It is so big that there is no possible way of capturing it completely in even the destiny of a solar system. Obviously, therefore, the individual cannot accomplish a perfect adjustment with processes, many of which have not yet even come into manifestation. A thousand years from now, there will be adjustments necessary which we do not even know about. Individuals will have to continue to grow into patterns we cannot even imagine. Destiny is so much larger than we are. The problem that confronts us we must learn. The only possible answer is that we have to think of ourselves as living eternally. We have to think

of ourselves as creatures that have a destiny long enough to accomplish the perfection of ourselves. The perfection of ourselves is not in order that we might take an aristocratic part in this plan of things. Perfection of ourselves means that we shall be completely united to the Divine Purpose, that we shall live for the fulfillment of infinite truth, not for the glorification of ourselves. This requires more opportunity for growth than can possibly be captured in a single lifetime. Destiny must also step in to regulate the lifetime because of the relationships of living things, which constantly vary and change due to the actions of the human beings themselves. If we create a war where thousands of young men and women die, children and villages and towns are destroyed, it becomes obvious that those who have perished have in some sense of the word been taken out of the world of opportunities to learn. They have been frustrated of their right to a life.

Many of them will never have the opportunity of parenthood, maturity, the achievement of wisdom, or the completion of education. Of those who survive, many will starve to death or suffer from plagues or pestilences. In the large pattern of things, no one is deprived of anything. Therefore, the person who apparently is deprived is only deprived by our selfishness, which, fortunately, cannot really touch the other person. We may try our best to destroy him, but all that we do is to destroy ourselves. The life of the other person will go on, be perfected, completed, and fulfilled just as surely as it was cut short in this embodiment. Nature has the large school. The best we can say is that our days here are merely days in school and that each incarnation is like a term or a course of study. We are going to go on into the university of the infinite.

We are going to keep on learning until we have learned. The proof of the learning is that we have perfected our own integrity and perfected our own level of moral values. There is nothing that will stop us, but because of the short range of our own perceptions and the limiting walls that separate embodiments so that things appear and disappear here, we are inclined to try to find justice in each separate appearance. We might be able to do that if we had a greater degree of internal sensory development, but for the most part we cannot. We tune in only a fragment of something, the larger pattern of which we do not see or understand. Therefore, the fragment looks dishonest, cruel, unkind, unfair, unreasonable. But this is because we can see only the fragment. In the larger pattern, there is no dishonesty, no mistake. Everything is working together for the ultimate good of all that lives.

It is heaven that has to decree these things; it is man who has to accept. Man, as he grows older, and humanity, as it becomes more mature, gains certain insights into acceptances. Thousands of years ago, there were enlightened persons. Some of them were leaders of our own race and kind; others were teachers from other realms. But there were great systems of instruction established. Probably the most important of these systems was the system of the mysteries. These were institutions that were set up under the leadership and patronage of deities—through oracles, sages, mystics, or through enlightenment and illumination. These systems had a key to the problem, and they accepted into their groups those who had a sincere desire to cooperate with the Divine Purpose of things. There have always been some who have realized the facts, but they were few in number in comparison to the body of humanity. Those who had the facts and tried to preach and teach them were

often heavily penalized. The individual who is ambition-ridden, wealth-dominated, and obsessed will turn against anyone or any system which threatens his superiority or security. Most of the great teachers of humanity have been martyred, disgraced, or ridiculed, and their systems have been gradually corrupted or perverted, if they survived. There has been a definite effort to block the type of thinking which would liberate the individual from the tyranny and oppression of ignorance which in some cases has succeeded. Today, as never before, thoughtful persons are turning to find solutions to some of these problems. They want to try to live better. The moment this effort is made, there is a distinct change in the social structure of mankind. Today, probably, there is greater emphasis upon an effort to find some working solutions than there has been in the last thousand years, and that is because the problem is now serious. The evil has come upon us, and we are beginning to wonder how we can change ourselves and

thereby change our destiny. The answer is that in changing ourselves, we change all things. An effect cannot follow if the cause has been changed. If there is an old cause that cannot be altered, a new pattern will transmute that old cause into power for spiritual integrity. In a long pattern of embodiment, we have the answer to the situation of fate or evil coming in at the moment of success to blight us—something coming in at the moment of power to cut us down. While these ideas may be hard to understand, they are all tied together in a concept, a concept so incredible that the human mind cannot contemplate it successfully. We cannot see the interaction of millions of forces, of tiny rays of light, or the magnificent vibrations radiating from innumerable and uncountable atoms—everywhere life moving, and everywhere this movement a manifestation of an eternal law unfolding and growing. Like

the seed growing in the ground, every plant is a magnificent testimony to a Divine Purpose. Where we consider all the fields of the earth, each bearing its own flora, we begin to realize a bit about the infinite diversity of life. Yet this infinite diversity of life is not a mass of accidents nor a condition in which some strange happenstance is responsible for the situation. It is all the unfoldment of one basic principle that will go on unfolding to the end of time. It is something that we must tune in to-something we must discover in our own way. We won’t start by finding all the answers, but by finding one answer. That one answer will suggest the second, and over a number of lifetimes we will begin to answer more questions than we will continue to ask because we will get answers to many that now seem unanswerable. Everywhere there is a potential in the human being that is infinite.

There is nothing in space that is not also within humanity. The unfoldment of humankind is as mysterious, as wonderful, and as glamorous as the unfoldment of the cosmos. It has to come, but we cannot understand. We wonder why it started in the first place. It is difficult to quite figure out some of these principles because we do not have the intelligence to do it. There are things about the Infinite Purpose that we cannot know at this time. Therefore, we have to have faith, which is indeed the realization of the reality of things unseen. But faith is more than this. Faith is the individual gaining confidence concerning the unknown by gaining understanding of the known. Faith is the gradual realization of the universal integrity of the plan. If the plan is right, then the individual has the right to have faith in it. If man can convince himself that he is a purposed being

and not simply some kind of a biological byproduct. If man can realize that birth, life, death, and rebirth are great truths of existence, then gradually faith is strengthened. Wherever there is evidence of the victory of virtue over vice, faith is strengthened. Wherever we see a divine dedicated purpose gaining support, we know that faith is increased. Faith comes as the inevitable evidence of little things that we have noticed and can notice which give us a sense of thankfulness - the realization that in some wonderful way we are protected creatures. Faith also finally gives us a live inscription upon the wall of space, namely, that while we do not know it all, what we do know tells us that what we do not know is good. All things are essentially right; what we do not understand when we do finally understand it will be beautiful and good. We will never come to an understanding that the Universal Plan had evil in it.

We will never be deceived that evil arises from immutable purposes, but we will understand that evil is what it appears to be - simply a reaction to ignorance, superstition, or fear. Ignorance and superstition have burdened the race up to now, and fear has made us the victim of almost every tyranny imaginable. Yet all these things are illusions; illusion is the evil; good is the reality. We cannot quite make the adjustment to so vast a concept, but we really do not have to, at this moment, if we will begin to simply accept that we are responsible agents, that we are living in a universe in which we have a part to play, that we live on a planet which we can help to save. We live in communities to which we can contribute in better ways. We are surrounded by problems of our own making, and we have the right to solve them.

We have the right to do that which is necessary to correct the mistakes that we have made or that we have inherited from our ancestors. There is no fatal necessity in the stars. There is no fatal necessity in conditions as they are. Anything that needs change can be changed, but only if the individual himself accepts his own responsibility and is willing to cooperate with a higher level of ethics than that which has brought him to his present dilemma. The universe is interested in producing the ethical creation, in producing a universe of value, in the gradual perfection of all life in order that that life may go on far beyond anything that astronomy knows about at the present time. Astronomy today is reaching out into space, into galaxies that we never knew existed. If we can get some bigger or stronger telescopes, or have greater ability at using electrical means of magnification, we will probably keep on having more and more stars.

Then maybe we will finally come to the edge of the whole business and have a moment of triumph until the next larger lens is developed and discover that what we have found is only one of innumerable completenesses of life so vast that we cannot even think what they are. Yet this is all on one level; this is all physical. What is behind it? Is the great universe of realities known by being objectified in stars and planets? Are all these little lights something that someone has lit in space? Or are they only symbols and evidences of a great order of life that is planted in space as trees and bushes and shrubs are planted on earth? What is the great earth that sustains space? What lies beyond all of this? What lies beyond the magnitudes and immensities of the physical existence? While science is getting more and more involved, there is no solution yet. There is as

yet no solution to why those lights are there in the first place. We may count billions of stars, but why are they there? How did they get there? What is the reason for them? The ancients believed that the star-strewn heaven was nothing but a beautiful jeweled robe concealing the true structure and nature of the Infinite. But the Infinite is not an infinitude of stars or suns or moons. It is not an infinity of microbes either. The Infinite is a tremendous reality beyond our conception. The Bible states that the waters which were above the firmaments were divided from the waters which were below the firmaments. We are now exploring that which is below the firmaments. But what lies above? What is it from which all these worlds are suspended? What is the great light that lights a hundred million suns? We do not know. We do think that our own destiny goes in that direction, that when we outgrow the littleness

that we know and have mastered the destiny we now deserve. We are going to be part of this life that goes on beyond a hundred million galaxies into a vastness which we might term eternity itself - an eternity that is not darkness nor death, but an eternity that is oneness with eternal life itself. Everything we are doing is growing toward something. Perhaps someday we will be gardeners in a garden of galaxies. Sometime the life and light and intelligence that is slowly growing up within us will burst forth to become a hundred million suns. We do not know, but we strongly suspect that even the smallest atom contains within it the prophecy of eternal life. Trying to work out these concepts religiously and philosophically causes problems simply because we are unable to understand this immensity. It goes beyond anything that we know or believe, but in our own way we have to cope with it.

We have to find in it the answer to our own vaster perspective - that the great life, the great purpose, the great plan of humanity is going to go on to be part of this larger mystery. The human being has an infinite future. Most people think they have had an infinite past and the last few years of it are not particularly appealing to them. We do not know where we came from in substance, but we know that we come here endowed with qualities, characteristics, powers, virtues, and values very much greater than we realize. We recognize that we have had a beginning elsewhere and that an ending elsewhere will be ours. In the meantime, we are good and faithful servants here, if we are wise. If we are otherwise, we are in trouble. This seems to be the burden of our present dilemma - that we are simply in trouble because we are not taking truly scientific, philosophic,

religious and ethical points of view in relationship to the common occurrences of life. We can say that we can prove by our civilization that people who do not like to work and do not work seem to succeed in many instances quite well, but study the record. A successful psychiatrist who is working with these people will tell you that each individual is the source of his own trouble. While we hardly like to admit this, it is healthy to admit it. A person who has a philosophical point of view or a spiritual conviction should realize this. It does not mean that we have to go out and hang our heads in shame, but that we must begin to search in ourselves for the causes of the troubles that beset us. They are there - something we are doing wrong is bringing this ill destiny upon us. There is something we want that we should not have. There is something we desire that is not good for us. We have not as yet the courage

to do that which is best. Many people who are considered to be intelligent, are reasonably well educated, and comparatively successful, have never found out that alcoholism is a menace. Just as bad, really, as alcoholism is jealousy. It is just as cruel and just as dangerous, yet there is not any effort made to change it. The individual feels he has a perfect right to be jealous. He does not realize that it is dangerous to his character. He does not realize that it is just as detrimental to his ethical life as alcoholism is to his physical life, but it is very hard to change it. It is very hard to give a good solid argument in favor of narcotics, but comparatively easy to give a strong argument in defense of selfishness. Yet selfishness is as cruel as the grave. Selfishness lies behind hundreds and thousands of miserable people. Yet they cannot change.

The only way all of these people can change and make a good job of it is to begin to think about their responsibilities to society. Lord Bacon was of the opinion that the simplest way of converting a delinquent is to let him see what happens to delinquents. Very often we can show a person by example how alcoholism, selfishness, greed, or jealousy produce misery for all involved, and then sometimes they can be reached. They suddenly realize their own mistake, and change. The moment this fault is corrected they will find that fate and destiny no longer burden them with the consequences of a fault that they have conquered. A fault once corrected does not return. Once the truth of the fact is driven home, it cannot be forgotten, and an individual is never confronted with the same debt twice, unless he has failed to pay it. The effort to avoid it may bring it back a hundred times until finally it is accepted, but it will

never burden the individual but once because he cannot correct the fault until he has outgrown it. His growth makes it impossible for him to relapse. He may have other faults, but the old ones are finished. It is not like conquering alcohol addiction, where the individual cannot drink again without danger of it coming back, because when this victory is achieved within yourself the alcohol is no longer desired. However, willpower and self-control can break down, if character has not been changed. From the world about us and the communications media we realize how destinies are built. We know how those who live by the sword will perish by the sword; those who corrupt others will themselves be corrupted. Destiny is telling us this story: no matter what others do, or how they act, the just person stands firm in the law and through the justice of his own integrity gains the courage to face the future with a good hope.

Out of justice within his own life, he becomes increasingly aware of the dignity and glory of divine justice, and he also discovers that justice is, for the most part, a mask. Even divine justice is a kind of mask, but behind the face of justice is mercy, always mercy. The Eternal Plan is merciful because it protects in the long run all good things. It is merciful and ever-loving because it will not permit hate to destroy anything. There may be suffering, but hate will finally die, and the individual who bears the hate will come into the fullness of love, understanding, and integrity. We live in a world of great principles, and our destiny is perfection. Our destiny is to recognize the fatherhood of divinity, the brotherhood of humanity, and to leave all things in peace. We will continue to kick against the pricks until we recognize this,

and then, as we begin to smooth out our own relationships with destiny, we will find that fate becomes more benevolent and good fortune more common, for there is absolutely no possibility of good fortune apart from a noble life. Anything that seems to conflict with that is an illusion. The plan has a magnitude that is simply beyond our understanding, but we do not have to understand it. The child does not have to know all about where its parents learned wisdom. The child can have faith, and because the parents love the child and the child loves the parents, there is a communion, and the transmission of a previous experience becomes a beautiful event. It is this transmission of experience from one to all, from each to the other, that can be the most wonderful experience, the most wonderful event in all our lives. In this way, we can become more and more servants of destiny, and as a reward, we will enjoy the most propitious relationships with life.

And if things become difficult, we shall also have the ever-present consolation of faith that all things will work out for good. And in this consciousness, I think many things will be solved in each of us. Thank you very much.

Manly P. Hall: Fate and the Philosophy of Destiny

Manly P. Hall: Fate and the Philosophy of Destiny

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