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 DISCOVER THE POWER WITHIN YOU

By Eric Butterworth

Chapter 1 - The Eternal Quest

The hope of mankind today lies in the great undiscovered depths within. The time is at hand when men everywhere must for sake the fruitless search of the world at the circumference of being and embark upon a courageous quest into inner space. It is a very real world, and its depths can be sounded, its potency released. It is not a conquest but a bequest. It is not as much something within man as it is the deeper level of man. "Come, ye blessed . . ., inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). The history of man on the eternal quest has been a strange odyssey. In his search for the "holy grail” man has looked everywhere and in vain, but he has failed to look within himself. Occasionally, a prophet came, telling of the world within. But instead of following him into the deeper experience, men invariably made a god of the prophet—worshiped him and built monuments to him. They then trapped themselves in a religious practice that had no within. How many times has this happened? How many religions are there in the world? The pages of history tell and retell the story of mystic teachers who found it and of the ensuing religions that lost it. And the earth is dotted with monuments that tell of inner-space flights that never quite got off the ground. Yet somehow man has always known with Walt Whitman that not all of him is included between his hat and his boots. He has felt, with Wordsworth, A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.1 There is a strange paradox in the world today. The pressing social problems—warfare, the struggle for equality between races, and the exploding population and lagging production of foods—are framed between two contrasting spectacles: (1 ) the research and exploration into outer space, and (2) the psychedelic “trips” into the inner depths of consciousness. The one, meticulously scientific; the other, about as unscientific as you can get. Both of these activities may well be symbolic of a sense of frustra tion with the world of today—an attempt to “stop the world, I want to get off.” And the amazing thing is that both of these completely unrelated and contrasting quests may well have deep spiritual impli cations. For one thing, space research has enabled man to achieve a break through into another dimension. The more he sees of the Universe around him, the more he realizes that space and time are relative, and that the whole cosmos is like a great thought in the Mind of God. He begins to see that the Universe exists, as far as he is concerned, because he sees it. The center of the Universe, as far as you are concerned, is within you. As far as you are concerned, the Universe exists as an extension of you. The sun and moon and stars are there because you see them. In Zen Buddhism this point is made in the image of the “moon and the water.” The moon-in-the-water phenomenon is likened to human experience. The water is the subject, and the moon the object. When there is no water, there is no moon-in-the-water, and likewise when there is no moon. But when the moon rises, the water does not wait to receive its image, and when even the tiniest drop of water is poured out, the moon does not wait to cast its reflection. But the water does not receive the moon's image on purpose. The event is caused as much by the water as by the moon and, as the water manifests the brightness of the moon, the moon manifests the clarity of the water. Viewing the vastness of the Universe, we tend to become confused when we seem to be losing our identity. But we must remember that the Universe has meaning because we have meaning, and we have meaning because the Universe has meaning. All discovery is self discovery and all knowledge is self-knowledge. Thus the greatest discovery in science is not the outward accomplishments, but the inward revelation and the Truth that sets us free to take the outer step. Nations today may be pouring billions into the hardware needed for outer-space flights, but it is seldom realized that this is all being made possible because of the discoveries within matter, which are actually spiritual discoveries. We have come to know that matter, in the sense of something occupying space, does not exist. We can no longer view the Universe as a vast collection of nebulae, stars, and planets scattered about in empty space. All through the universe there are “force potentials.” What we have called “space” is really a presence, for there is one continuous, unified, intelligent, and in exhaustible potential that here and there precipitates itself as that which we call matter. Thus the ultimate of our research into the Universe around us must come in the knowledge of the Mind that sustains it, the Mind in which it actually has its only existence. And the study of Mind can only be done through introspection, self-contemplation, and spiritual research. In the words of Tennyson:2 Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. The other activity that along with space research is forming a frame around the world’s serious problems is that of the group, perhaps only caricatured by the “hippies,” attempting to forsake the decadent civilization of contemporary times by psychedelic flights into the world within. Much has been written on the subject of LSD and the newer STP—the so-called “consciousness-expanding” drugs. On the one hand, Dr. Timothy Leary leads a group who insist that the drugs are here to stay and that it is but a matter of time until everyone will be having his religious experiences synthetically. On the other hand, a growing number of medical scientists warn of the dangers of the drug in terms of permanent physical and mental damage that may result from continued or even occasional use. However, one fact stands out that cannot be overlooked. Psyche delics have helped to prove the existence of a nonmaterial world of spirit within man. There is serious question whether LSD is the way to reach this world or to release this inherent potential. Perhaps we will ultimately agree that it is an illicit picking of the lock of the door to the superconscious, or at best an improper window-peeking glimpse of the depths of the world within. The method of apprehen sion is all wrong, but the basic motivation is spiritual and the object of the quest is pure Spirit. An interesting account of a personal encounter with LSD appears in a book entitled Exploring Inner Space, by Jane Dunlap. She tells how it seemed to open the door and allow her to look into the core of life. She says: People who had such experiences usually agreed that deep within each of us lie goodness unimagined, wisdom, music, talents of every variety, joy, peace, humility, love and spirituality. Hidden away in each individual is a vast gold mine but, as yet, only a few puny and thread-like veins have been discovered. . . . Our fault lies, not in our lack of talent or poten tials, but in our refusal to believe that it exists. Only after we can accept such a belief and have thus gained enough confidence to look within ourselves can our development go full steam ahead.8 Does that mean we should all take LSD? Certainly not, any more than we should all send rockets out into space. Descriptions of psychedelic illusions do seem to support the spiritual discoveries of the mystics of the ages. There is obviously a great depth of splendor within us, but it must be unfolded through self-realization and self discipline. There is no synthetic short cut to the Kingdom. If you have a rosebud in your garden, you may be anxious to see its beauty in full bloom, and so you may force the bud open. For a moment you see the loveliness of its interior, but then it quickly fades and dies. By law, growth is an unfoldment—‘‘first the grain, then the ear, then the full-grain in the ear.” The quest for reality through psychedelics is a misguided quest. Man is a spiritual being with infinite possibilities within himself. If he must take psychedelics to prove it, he will find that even the momentary experience of heavenly visions will not endure long enough to make him really believe it over the long haul. The grievous problems facing mankind today can be solved. How ever, the solution must be a spiritual one, for material and intellec tual ones have been tried and found wanting. And “spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned/' The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for a serious and concerted drive to educate people in self-knowledge, self-reverence, and self-control. This has been the historic role of religion, but, as we have noted, religions have historically failed to get off the ground in terms of the quest into the world within. This book calls for a rediscovery of the teachings of Jesus Christ, a reappraisal of the achievements of His life, and a renaissance of the Christian faith. Two thousand years ago, Jesus made the great break through into the world within, when He demonstrated the miracle working implications of letting that inner kingdom come in earth as it is in heaven. It is a strange and yet simple story that is old and yet ever new. Certainly the concept of the great within has inspired philosophers and poets and mystic teachers through all the ages. None has put it more eloquently than Robert Browning in his poem “Paracelsus” :4 Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whatever you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, Where truth abides in fulness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception—which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error; and to know Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. About a hundred generations ago in far-off Palestine, some thing happened that may well be the greatest event in human history. It was the great break-through in man to the world of the spirit within. It happened to a young lad, the son of a simple carpenter. His name was Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth. This was no ordinary boy, though He was not unusual in the eyes of his neighbors. Many years later, He returned to Nazareth and was rejected by the people. In essence they said, “What's so special about Jesus? We knew him as a boy in the carpenter shop” (Matt. 13:54). Much has been made over the manner of His birth. The Bible seems to indicate that His fellow townspeople knew nothing unusual about the incident. Thus the great event was not the birth of Jesus, but a kind of awakening that took place within Him during the years of His growth “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke2:52). We don't know when it happened or even what happened. We only know that sometime between His birth and the beginning of His miracle-working ministry at thirty years of age, He achieved a unique relationship with God and became the channel for the expression of powers no one had ever before dreamed of. Many believe it was the result of His education. And this is puzzling, too, for we have little knowledge of His life. Some have conjectured that He must have had some exposure to the “masters” of the world of the intellect, in India or Egypt, or even some contact with the Druids in England! However, I believe that what happened had nothing to do with tuition, but was an intuition, an insight, a revelation. It could not have been taught, for there was no precedent. I like to believe that it happened to him as a youth of about eleven or twelve.