Page 70 - 102717-James Allen-Byways to Blessedness-flipbookversion_Neat

66 BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS

until he is reduced to the last extremity of spiritual starvation ; he has then reaped the experience
of pain and sorrow as the result of desire, and looks back with longing towards the true life of
peace and plenty; and so he turns round, and begins his toilsome journey back towards his Home,
towards that rich life of simple being wherein is emancipation from the thraldom and fever and
hunger of desire, and this longing for the true life, for Truth, Reality, should not be confounded
with desire: it is aspiration. Desire is the craving for possession: aspiration is the hunger of the
heart for peace. The craving for things leads ever farther and farther from peace, and not only
ends in deprivation but is, in itself, a state of perpetual want. Until it comes to an end rest,
satisfaction , is an impossibility. The hunger for things can never be satisfied, but the hunger for
peace can and the satisfaction of peace is found, is fully possessed, when all selfish desire is
abandoned. Then there is fulness of joy, abounding plenty, and rich and complete blessedness. In

this supremely blessed state life is comprehended in its perfect symmetry and simplicity and the
acme of power and usefulness is attained. Then even the hunger for peace ceases, for peace
becomes the normal condition, is fully possessed, constant and never-varying. Men, immersed in
desire, ignorantly imagine that the conquest of desire, leads to inactivity, loss of power, and
lifelessness. Instead , it leads to highly concentrated activity, to the full employment of power, and
to a life so rich, so glorious, and so abundantly blessed as to be incomprehensible to those who
hunger for pleasures and possessions. Of this life only can it be said:
“Here are no sounds of discord — no profane
Or senseless gossip of unworthy things-
Only the songs of chisels and of pens,
Of busy brushes, and ecstatic strains
Of souls surcharged with music most divine
Here is no idle sorrow, no poor grief
For any day or object left behind —
For time is counted precious, and herein
Is such complete abandonment of Self

That tears turn into rainbows, and enhance
The beauty of the land where all is fair.”

When a man is rescued from selfish desire his mind is unencumbered, and he is free to work
for humanity. No longer racing after those gratifications which leave him hungry still, all his
powers are at his immediate command. Seeking no rewards he can concentrate all his energies
upon the faultless completion of his duties, and so accomplish all things and fulfill all
righteousness.
The fully enlightened and fully blessed man is not prompted to action be desire but works from
knowledge. The man of desire needs the promise of reward to urge him to action. He is as a child
working for the possession of a toy. But the man of knowledge, living in the fulness of life and
power, can at any moment bring his energies into requisition for the accomplishment of that
which is necessary. He is, spiritually, a full-grown man; for him all rewards have ceased; to him all
occurrences are good; he lives always in complete satisfaction. Such a man has attained to life, and