Chapter 9
THE LAW OF INDIVIDUALITY.
All growth is by _learning_.
All learning comes by the gratification of desire. Truly, experience is not only the best teacher, but the _only_ infallible one.
The gratification of desire, good or bad, leaves always one imperishable residue of wisdom. The rest of the experience goes with the chaff for burning.
Desire points invariably according to the individual's intelligence. In proportion as this is faulty his desires are "bad."
What _is_ a bad desire, anyway? In the main "bad" desires are self-made or thoughtlessly accepted. Dancing is wicked to a Methodist and "good" to an Episcopalian.
But aside from these personal standpoints which are legion there is an immutable Law, to which intelligence is conforming all action and thought--the Law of Individuality--the Law recognized and expressed by Confucius and Jesus in negative and positive forms of the "golden rule"; "Do not unto others what ye would not they should do unto you."
Interference with the freedom of the individual is "bad"--that is, _it invariably brings pain_ to the one who interferes, in thought or deed. Listen to this:
"You cannot know anything of the sources or causes of the crisis you are judging, for no one who knows will tell you, and you would not know if you were told. The depths of elemental immortality, of self-deceit and revenge, lie in our eagerness to judge one another, and to force one another under the yoke of our judgments. When there is the faith of the Son of man in the world, life will be left to make its own judgments. The only judgment we have a right to make upon one another is the free and truthful living of our own lives." George D. Herron.
This forcing of others, in mind or action, under the yoke of _our_ judgment is the only possible way we can break a _real_ Law. To be _ourselves_ and to leave others free is to "_be good_." Dancing will come and go, and come again; so will fashions of all kinds; conventionalities and creeds; but this Law remains an eternal chalk line to be toed. And eternal torments await him who does not toe it.
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Take the case of a man who desires to "run away" with another man's wife. The one immutable Law of Individuality says _no man owns a wife_. Instead of this being a problem with two men and one man's property as factors, it is a case of _three individuals_ with god-given rights of individual choice. You have heard it said that "_where two are agreed_ as touching anything it shall be done unto them." It takes two to make, or to keep made, a bargain. No matter what hallucinations in regard to ownership any man may labor under, _he does not_ own a wife. He has no more "rights" over one woman than over another, or over another man, except as the _woman herself gives_ him the right and _keeps on_ giving it to him.
The Law of Individuality is absolute, and in due time husbands will know better than to imagine they own wives; wives will know better than to be owned; and the other man will not imagine he can gain great pleasure from "running away" with anything. Each will be free and leave the others so.
But "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." Until a man _recognizes_ the Law of Individuality his actions are governed by the Law he _does_ recognize, and his desires act accordingly. When he desires to "run away" with anything his _conscience_ tells him he is stealing. If desire is strong enough he steals a wife, and eventually suffers for it. For, though he may not have broken a real law, he _has_ broken an imagined one and in his _own mind_ he deserves punishment and in his own mind he gets it. "As a man thinketh so _is_ he," and what he is _determines what he attracts_.
Never was a deeper, truer saying than Paul's "BLESSED is the man that _doubteth not_ in that thing which he alloweth." The man who _waits_, until he is "_fully persuaded_ in his own mind" will be blessed in following desire, and he will grow in wisdom thereby.
The man who _thinks_ his desire is "bad" and yet follows it, will grow in wisdom _by the scourging he gets_. He has transgressed _his conception_ of the One Law and suffers in getting back to _at-one-ment_.
In either case he _grows in wisdom_ and eventually he will desire only in accordance with the One Law of Individual Choice.
There is no question of "ought" about it. The individual is free to follow desire or to crucify it. And the fact is, _he follows desire when he crucifies it_. He _desires_ to crucify desire, because he _is afraid_ to gratify it.
The man who is not afraid follows desire and grows fast _in wisdom and in knowledge_. He may make mistakes and suffer all sorts of agonies as a result. But he learns from his misses as well as from his hits, and he progresses.
The man who is afraid to follow desire crucifies _his life_ and stunts his growth.
It were better for the individual to follow his desire and afterward repent, than to crush his desires and repent for a lifetime under the false impression that the universe unjustly gives to another that which should have belonged to him.
There is just one kind of growth--_growth in wisdom._ We hear of children "who grow up in ignorance." We likewise hear that the earth is square and the moon a green cheese. Children can no more grow in ignorance than they can grow in a dark and air-tight case. _All_ growth, mental, moral, spiritual or "physical," is by increase in in-telligence; i.e., by _recognition_ of more truth. All things exist in a limitless sea of pure wisdom waiting, waiting _to be understood_. As fast as this universal wisdom is used it becomes _in-told--_intelligence-- _recognized_ wisdom. We _breathe in wisdom_ and grow in intelligence. _All_ growth, mineral, plant, animal, man or god, conscious or unconscious--ALL growth is by this process. It is DESIRE that makes us breathe. Everything cries out for more, _more!--it_ cannot define always _what_ it wants, but it _wants,_ with insatiable craving. It is _more wisdom_ the whole creation groaneth and travaileth to get. "Give me more understanding or I die!"--the visible eternally cries out to the Invisible. Desire is the ceaseless life-urge of all things, from amoeba to archangel. Desire is "Immanuer'--_God with us_--God _in_ us to will and to do."