Regeneration - James Allen

President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in

Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. But you can stop

them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let

voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections.

President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in

Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. But you can stop

them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let

voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections.

Regeneration. Submit to not but nobleness. Rejoice like a strong athlete straining for the prize.

When thy full strength is tried, be not the slave of lusts and cravings and indulgences of

disappointments, miseries and griefs, fears, doubts and lamentations. But control thyself with

calmness, master, that in thee which masters others, and which year to four has mastered thee,

let not thy passions rule, but rule thy passions. Subjugate thyself till passion is

transmuted into peace and wisdom crown thee, so shall thou action attain and by attaining no.

Having considered and examined the nature of temptation in its five interdependent stages,

let us now turn to the process of regeneration and also consider its nature so that the reader who

has already received some measure of enlightenment may be still further guided in his strenuous climbing

towards the perfect life. The five stages in regeneration already enumerated are one reflection,

two introspection, three self-analysis, four meditation, and five pure perception.

The first stage in a pure and true life is that of thoughtfulness. The thoughtless cannot enter

the right way of life. Only the reflective mind can acquire wisdom. When a man,

ceasing to go after enjoyment, brings himself to a standstill in order to examine his position,

and to reflect upon the condition of the world and the meaning of life, then he has entered

upon the first stage of regeneration. When a man begins to think seriously and with a deep

and noble purpose in view, he has stepped out of the broad way where the thoughtless and the frivolous

clutch at the bubbles of pleasure, and has entered the narrow way where the thoughtful and the

wise comprehend eternal verities. Such a man's liberation from sin and suffering is already assured,

for though he is, as yet, surrounded by much uncertainty, he is already releasing a foretaste

of the peace which awaits him. His passions, though still strong, are quieter, his mind is

calmer and clearer, his intercourse with others is pure and graver, and in his moments of deepest

thought he sees, as in a vision, the strength and calmness and wisdom, which he knows will one day

be his well-earned possessions. Thus he passes on to the second stage, reflecting day by day,

with ever-increasing earnestness upon life in all its faces. He comes to perceive the passions

and desires in which men are involved, and realizes the sorrows which are connected with their

strangely ephemeral existence. He sees the burning fevers of lusts and ambitions and cravings

for pleasure, and the chilling aguse of anxieties and fears, and the uncertainty of slowly approaching

death. And he aspires to know the meaning of it all, is eager to find the source and cause of

that which seems so sorrowful and inexplicable, recognizing himself as a unit in humanity,

as one involved in light passions and sorrows with all other men. He vaguely understands that somehow

the secret of all life is inevitably bound up with the neophyte, the mind purified, calmed, and his

own existence. And so, unsatisfied with the surface theories which are based on observation only,

and which still leave him subject to passions and sorrows, and the prey of anxieties and fears,

he turns his thoughts inwardly upon his own mind, thinking perchance, that the wishful revelation

of wisdom and peace awaits him there. Thus he becomes introspective, and so he passes on to the

third stage. When the introspective habit is fully ripened and acquired, there is called upon in

the mind a subtle process of inductive thought, by the aid of which the innermost recesses of the

man's nature, and therefore of all humanity, begin to unveil themselves, and yield up their secrets

to the penetrating insight of the patient's searcher, who unraveling now the tangled threads of

thought, and tracing out the warp and wolf of the web of life as it is woven in the mental processes,

and by the swift-flying shuttle of thought, begins for the first time to somewhat clearly

comprehend the inner causes of human deeds, and the meaning and purpose of existence.

As this purpose of thought is preceded with, the desires and passions are purified away from the

mind, the calmness necessary to a right perception of truth is acquired, and gradually the fixed

principles of things are presented to the comprehension, and the eternal laws of life are

coherently grasped by the understanding. And now, quietly, and almost as imperceptively,

as the soft light of dawn stealing upon the sleeping world, controlled, passes into the fourth stage,

and opens his long-sleeping eyes upon the rising light of truth.

He becomes habitually meditative, and in meditation he finds the master key which unlocks the

door of knowledge. It is at this advanced stage in the process of regeneration, that the sinner

becomes the saint, and the pupil is transformed into the master. For here the process of transmutation,

he, though too slow and painful, is greatly accelerated, so that the spiritual forces formerly

spent in pleasures, gratifications, passions, and afflictions, are now conserved, controlled,

and turned into channels of productive and reproductive thought, and so wisdom is born in the mind,

and bliss, and peace. A skill in power are acquired in meditation, the fifth and last stages reached,

where the perfect insight of the seer in the sage is evolved, so that the facts of life are

grasped, and the laws and principles of things stand revealed. Here the man is altogether regenerated,

is purified and perfected, all human passions are conquered, and human sorrows are transcended.

Here things are seen as they are, all the intricacies of life stand out naked in the light of truth,

and there is no more doubt in perplexity, no more sin in anguish. For he who's pure and enlightened

eyes perceive the hidden causes and effects, which operate infallibly in human life, he who knows how

the bitter fruits of passion ripen, and where the dark waters of sorrow spring. He it is who no more

sins and no more sorrows, low, he has come to peace. The five stages so pass through may be thus

presented. One, reflection, deep and earnest thought on the nature and meaning of life.

Two, introspection, looking inwardly, for the causes and effects which operate in life.

Three, self-analysis, searching the springs of thought and purifying the motives in order to find

the truth of life. Four, meditation, pure and discriminative thought on the facts and principles

of life. Five, pure perception, insight, direct knowledge of the laws of life.

The whole process of regeneration may be likened to the growth of a plant,

at first the small seed of reflection is cast into the dark soil of ignorance.

Then the little rootlets come forth and grow up about for light and sustenance, introspection.

Next, the strenuous self-examination, as the plant reaching upwards toward the light,

and then the development of the bud and opening flower of meditation.

Ending at last in that pure and wise insight, which is the spiritual glory of the sage,

the perfect flower of enlightenment. Thus beginning in sin and suffering and passing through

thoughtfulness, self-searching, self-purification, meditation, and insight. The seeker after the

pure life in the divine wisdom reaches at last the undenied habitation of a spotless life,

and so passes beyond the dark halls of suffering, knowing the perfect law.

President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough

seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,

but you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing

field and let voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st.

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Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked

power for two more years. But you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st.

Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide not politicians.

Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections.