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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

How Will You Measure Your Life?

by Clayton M. Christensen in Harvard Business Review

Don’t reserve your best business thinking for your career.
Read the Executive Summary

Editor’s Note: When the members of the class of 2010 entered business school, the economy was strong and their post-graduation ambitions could be limitless. Just a few weeks later, the economy went into a tailspin. They’ve spent the past two years recalibrating their worldview and their definition of success.

The students seem highly aware of how the world has changed (as the sampling of views in this article shows). In the spring, Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked HBS professor Clay Christensen to address them—but not on how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-HBS careers. The students wanted to know how to apply them to their personal lives. He shared with them a set of guidelines that have helped him find meaning in his own life. Though Christensen’s thinking comes from his deep religious faith, we believe that these are strategies anyone can use. And so we asked him to share them with the readers of HBR.

Before I published The Innovator’s Dilemma, I got a call from Andrew Grove, then the chairman of Intel. He had read one of my early papers about disruptive technology, and he asked if I could talk to his direct reports and explain my research and what it implied for Intel. Excited, I flew to Silicon Valley and showed up at the appointed time, only to have Grove say, “Look, stuff has happened. We have only 10 minutes for you. Tell us what your model of disruption means for Intel.” I said that I couldn’t—that I needed a full 30 minutes to explain the model, because only with it as context would any comments about Intel make sense. Ten minutes into my explanation, Grove interrupted: “Look, I’ve got your model. Just tell us what it means for Intel.”

I insisted that I needed 10 more minutes to describe how the process of disruption had worked its way through a very different industry, steel, so that he and his team could understand how disruption worked. I told the story of how Nucor and other steel minimills had begun by attacking the lowest end of the market—steel reinforcing bars, or rebar—and later moved up toward the high end, undercutting the traditional steel mills.

When I finished the minimill story, Grove said, “OK, I get it. What it means for Intel is...,” and then went on to articulate what would become the company’s strategy for going to the bottom of the market to launch the Celeron processor.

I’ve thought about that a million times since. If I had been suckered into telling Andy Grove what he should think about the microprocessor business, I’d have been killed. But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what I felt was the correct decision on his own.

That experience had a profound influence on me. When people ask what I think they should do, I rarely answer their question directly. Instead, I run the question aloud through one of my models. I’ll describe how the process in the model worked its way through an industry quite different from their own. And then, more often than not, they’ll say, “OK, I get it.” And they’ll answer their own question more insightfully than I could have.

My class at HBS is structured to help my students understand what good management theory is and how it is built. To that backbone I attach different models or theories that help students think about the various dimensions of a general manager’s job in stimulating innovation and growth. In each session we look at one company through the lenses of those theories—using them to explain how the company got into its situation and to examine what managerial actions will yield the needed results.

On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions: First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not. Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.

Sidebar IconThe Class of 2010 (Located at the end of this article)

As the students discuss the answers to these questions, I open my own life to them as a case study of sorts, to illustrate how they can use the theories from our course to guide their life decisions.

One of the theories that gives great insight on the first question—how to be sure we find happiness in our careers—is from Frederick Herzberg, who asserts that the powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements. I tell the students about a vision of sorts I had while I was running the company I founded before becoming an academic. In my mind’s eye I saw one of my managers leave for work one morning with a relatively strong level of self-esteem. Then I pictured her driving home to her family 10 hours later, feeling unappreciated, frustrated, underutilized, and demeaned. I imagined how profoundly her lowered self-esteem affected the way she interacted with her children. The vision in my mind then fast-forwarded to another day, when she drove home with greater self-esteem—feeling that she had learned a lot, been recognized for achieving valuable things, and played a significant role in the success of some important initiatives. I then imagined how positively that affected her as a spouse and a parent. My conclusion: Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team. More and more MBA students come to school thinking that a career in business means buying, selling, and investing in companies. That’s unfortunate. Doing deals doesn’t yield the deep rewards that come from building up people.

I want students to leave my classroom knowing that.
Create a Strategy for Your Life

A theory that is helpful in answering the second question—How can I ensure that my relationship with my family proves to be an enduring source of happiness?—concerns how strategy is defined and implemented. Its primary insight is that a company’s strategy is determined by the types of initiatives that management invests in. If a company’s resource allocation process is not managed masterfully, what emerges from it can be very different from what management intended. Because companies’ decision-making systems are designed to steer investments to initiatives that offer the most tangible and immediate returns, companies shortchange investments in initiatives that are crucial to their long-term strategies.

Over the years I’ve watched the fates of my HBS classmates from 1979 unfold; I’ve seen more and more of them come to reunions unhappy, divorced, and alienated from their children. I can guarantee you that not a single one of them graduated with the deliberate strategy of getting divorced and raising children who would become estranged from them. And yet a shocking number of them implemented that strategy. The reason? They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.

It’s quite startling that a significant fraction of the 900 students that HBS draws each year from the world’s best have given little thought to the purpose of their lives. I tell the students that HBS might be one of their last chances to reflect deeply on that question. If they think that they’ll have more time and energy to reflect later, they’re nuts, because life only gets more demanding: You take on a mortgage; you’re working 70 hours a week; you have a spouse and children.

For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.

Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of autocorrelation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned. I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, they’ll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered at HBS. If they don’t figure it out, they will just sail off without a rudder and get buffeted in the very rough seas of life. Clarity about their purpose will trump knowledge of activity-based costing, balanced scorecards, core competence, disruptive innovation, the four Ps, and the five forces.

My purpose grew out of my religious faith, but faith isn’t the only thing that gives people direction. For example, one of my former students decided that his purpose was to bring honesty and economic prosperity to his country and to raise children who were as capably committed to this cause, and to each other, as he was. His purpose is focused on family and others—as mine is.

The choice and successful pursuit of a profession is but one tool for achieving your purpose. But without a purpose, life can become hollow.
Allocate Your Resources

Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy.

I have a bunch of “businesses” that compete for these resources: I’m trying to have a rewarding relationship with my wife, raise great kids, contribute to my community, succeed in my career, contribute to my church, and so on. And I have exactly the same problem that a corporation does. I have a limited amount of time and energy and talent. How much do I devote to each of these pursuits?

Allocation choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended. Sometimes that’s good: Opportunities that you never planned for emerge. But if you misinvest your resources, the outcome can be bad. As I think about my former classmates who inadvertently invested for lives of hollow unhappiness, I can’t help believing that their troubles relate right back to a short-term perspective.

When people who have a high need for achievement—and that includes all Harvard Business School graduates—have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments. And our careers provide the most concrete evidence that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale, teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.
Create a Culture

There’s an important model in our class called the Tools of Cooperation, which basically says that being a visionary manager isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s one thing to see into the foggy future with acuity and chart the course corrections that the company must make. But it’s quite another to persuade employees who might not see the changes ahead to line up and work cooperatively to take the company in that new direction. Knowing what tools to wield to elicit the needed cooperation is a critical managerial skill.

The theory arrays these tools along two dimensions—the extent to which members of the organization agree on what they want from their participation in the enterprise, and the extent to which they agree on what actions will produce the desired results. When there is little agreement on both axes, you have to use “power tools”—coercion, threats, punishment, and so on—to secure cooperation. Many companies start in this quadrant, which is why the founding executive team must play such an assertive role in defining what must be done and how. If employees’ ways of working together to address those tasks succeed over and over, consensus begins to form. MIT’s Edgar Schein has described this process as the mechanism by which a culture is built. Ultimately, people don’t even think about whether their way of doing things yields success. They embrace priorities and follow procedures by instinct and assumption rather than by explicit decision—which means that they’ve created a culture. Culture, in compelling but unspoken ways, dictates the proven, acceptable methods by which members of the group address recurrent problems. And culture defines the priority given to different types of problems. It can be a powerful management tool.

In using this model to address the question, How can I be sure that my family becomes an enduring source of happiness?, my students quickly see that the simplest tools that parents can wield to elicit cooperation from children are power tools. But there comes a point during the teen years when power tools no longer work. At that point parents start wishing that they had begun working with their children at a very young age to build a culture at home in which children instinctively behave respectfully toward one another, obey their parents, and choose the right thing to do. Families have cultures, just as companies do. Those cultures can be built consciously or evolve inadvertently.

If you want your kids to have strong self-esteem and confidence that they can solve hard problems, those qualities won’t magically materialize in high school. You have to design them into your family’s culture—and you have to think about this very early on. Like employees, children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works.
Avoid the “Marginal Costs” Mistake

We’re taught in finance and economics that in evaluating alternative investments, we should ignore sunk and fixed costs, and instead base decisions on the marginal costs and marginal revenues that each alternative entails. We learn in our course that this doctrine biases companies to leverage what they have put in place to succeed in the past, instead of guiding them to create the capabilities they’ll need in the future. If we knew the future would be exactly the same as the past, that approach would be fine. But if the future’s different—and it almost always is—then it’s the wrong thing to do.

This theory addresses the third question I discuss with my students—how to live a life of integrity (stay out of jail). Unconsciously, we often employ the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t ever look at where that path ultimately is headed and at the full costs that the choice entails. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this once.”

I’d like to share a story about how I came to understand the potential damage of “just this once” in my own life. I played on the Oxford University varsity basketball team. We worked our tails off and finished the season undefeated. The guys on the team were the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. We got to the British equivalent of the NCAA tournament—and made it to the final four. It turned out the championship game was scheduled to be played on a Sunday. I had made a personal commitment to God at age 16 that I would never play ball on Sunday. So I went to the coach and explained my problem. He was incredulous. My teammates were, too, because I was the starting center. Every one of the guys on the team came to me and said, “You’ve got to play. Can’t you break the rule just this one time?”

I’m a deeply religious man, so I went away and prayed about what I should do. I got a very clear feeling that I shouldn’t break my commitment—so I didn’t play in the championship game.

In many ways that was a small decision—involving one of several thousand Sundays in my life. In theory, surely I could have crossed over the line just that one time and then not done it again. But looking back on it, resisting the temptation whose logic was “In this extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK” has proven to be one of the most important decisions of my life. Why? My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed.

The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.
Remember the Importance of Humility

I got this insight when I was asked to teach a class on humility at Harvard College. I asked all the students to describe the most humble person they knew. One characteristic of these humble people stood out: They had a high level of self-esteem. They knew who they were, and they felt good about who they were. We also decided that humility was defined not by self-deprecating behavior or attitudes but by the esteem with which you regard others. Good behavior flows naturally from that kind of humility. For example, you would never steal from someone, because you respect that person too much. You’d never lie to someone, either.

It’s crucial to take a sense of humility into the world. By the time you make it to a top graduate school, almost all your learning has come from people who are smarter and more experienced than you: parents, teachers, bosses. But once you’ve finished at Harvard Business School or any other top academic institution, the vast majority of people you’ll interact with on a day-to-day basis may not be smarter than you. And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited. But if you have a humble eagerness to learn something from everybody, your learning opportunities will be unlimited. Generally, you can be humble only if you feel really good about yourself—and you want to help those around you feel really good about themselves, too. When we see people acting in an abusive, arrogant, or demeaning manner toward others, their behavior almost always is a symptom of their lack of self-esteem. They need to put someone else down to feel good about themselves.
Choose the Right Yardstick

This past year I was diagnosed with cancer and faced the possibility that my life would end sooner than I’d planned. Thankfully, it now looks as if I’ll be spared. But the experience has given me important insight into my life.

I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research; I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted this disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant that impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.

I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.
HBR.org > July–August 2010
The Class of 2010

Read the Executive Summary

“I came to business school knowing exactly what I wanted to do—and I’m leaving choosing the exact opposite. I’ve worked in the private sector all my life, because everyone always told me that’s where smart people are. But I’ve decided to try government and see if I can find more meaning there.

“I used to think that industry was very safe. The recession has shown us that nothing is safe.”

Ruhana Hafiz, Harvard Business School, Class of 2010

Her Plans: To join the FBI as a special adviser (a management track position)

“You could see a shift happening at HBS. Money used to be number one in the job search. When you make a ton of money, you want more of it. Ironic thing. You start to forget what the drivers of happiness are and what things are really important. A lot of people on campus see money differently now. They think, ‘What’s the minimum I need to have, and what else drives my life?’ instead of ‘What’s the place where I can get the maximum of both?’”

Patrick Chun, Harvard Business School, Class of 2010

His Plans: To join Bain Capital

“The financial crisis helped me realize that you have to do what you really love in life. My current vision of success is based on the impact I can have, the experiences I can gain, and the happiness I can find personally, much more so than the pursuit of money or prestige. My main motivations are (1) to be with my family and people I care about; (2) to do something fun, exciting, and impactful; and (3) to pursue a long-term career in entrepreneurship, where I can build companies that change the way the world works.”

Matt Salzberg, Harvard Business School, Class of 2010

His Plans: To work for Bessemer Venture Partners

“Because I’m returning to McKinsey, it probably seems like not all that much has changed for me. But while I was at HBS, I decided to do the dual degree at the Kennedy School. With the elections in 2008 and the economy looking shaky, it seemed more compelling for me to get a better understanding of the public and nonprofit sectors. In a way, that drove my return to McKinsey, where I’ll have the ability to explore private, public, and nonprofit sectors.

“The recession has made us step back and take stock of how lucky we are. The crisis to us is ‘Are we going to have a job by April?’ Crisis to a lot of people is ‘Are we going to stay in our home?’”

John Coleman, Harvard Business School, Class of 2010

His Plans: To return to McKinsey & Company
Copyright © 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Clayton M. Christensen (cchristensen@hbs.edu) is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Heroes of the Vietnam Generation - By James Webb

Heroes of the Vietnam Generation

By James Webb

The rapidly disappearing cohort of Americans that endured the Great Depression and then fought World War II is receiving quite a send-off from the leading lights of the so-called 60s generation. Tom Brokaw has published two oral histories of "The Greatest Generation" that feature ordinary people doing their duty and suggest that such conduct was historically unique.

Chris Matthews of "Hardball" is fond of writing columns praising the Navy service of his father while castigating his own baby boomer generation for its alleged softness and lack of struggle. William Bennett gave a startling condescending speech at the Naval Academy a few years ago comparing the heroism of the "D-Day Generation" to the drugs-and-sex nihilism of the "Woodstock Generation." And Steven Spielberg, in promoting his film "Saving Private Ryan," was careful to justify his portrayals of soldiers in action based on the supposedly unique nature of World War II.

An irony is at work here. Lest we forget, the World War II generation now being lionized also brought us the Vietnam War, a conflict which today's most conspicuous voices by and large opposed, and in which few of them served. The "best and brightest" of the Vietnam age group once made headlines by castigating their parents for bringing about the war in which they would not fight, which has become the war they refuse to remember.

Pundits back then invented a term for this animus: the "generation gap." Long, plaintive articles and even books were written examining its manifestations. Campus leaders, who claimed precocious wisdom through the magical process of reading a few controversial books, urged fellow baby boomers not to trust anyone over 30. Their elders who had survived the Depression and fought the largest war in history were looked down upon as shallow, materialistic, and out of touch.

Those of us who grew up, on the other side of the picket line from that era's counter-culture can't help but feel a little leery of this sudden gush of appreciation for our elders from the leading lights of the old counter-culture. Then and now, the national conversation has proceeded from the dubious assumption that those who came of age during Vietnam are a unified generation in the same sense as their parents were, and thus are capable of being spoken for through these fickle elites.

In truth, the "Vietnam generation" is a misnomer. Those who came of age during that war are permanently divided by different reactions to a whole range of counter-cultural agendas, and nothing divides them more deeply than the personal ramifications of the war itself. The sizable portion of the Vietnam age group who declined to support the counter-cultural agenda, and especially the men and women who opted to serve in the military during the Vietnam War, are quite different from their peers who for decades have claimed to speak for them. In fact, they are much like the World War II generation itself. For them, Woodstock was a side show, college protestors were spoiled brats who would have benefited from having to work a few jobs in order to pay their tuition, and Vietnam represented not an intellectual exercise in draft avoidance, or protest marches but a battlefield that was just as brutal as those their fathers faced in World War II and Korea.

Few who served during Vietnam ever complained of a generation gap. The men who fought World War II were their heroes and role models. They honored their father's service by emulating it, and largely agreed with their father's wisdom in attempting to stop Communism's reach in Southeast Asia.

The most accurate poll of their attitudes (Harris,
1980) showed that 91 percent were glad they'd served their country, 74 percent enjoyed their time in the service, and 89 percent agreed with the statement that "our troops were asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in Washington would not let them win." And most importantly, the castigation they received upon returning home was not from the World War II generation, but from the very elites in their age group who supposedly spoke for them.

Nine million men served in the military during Vietnam War, three million of whom went to the Vietnam Theater. Contrary to popular mythology, two-thirds of these were volunteers, and 73 percent of those who died were volunteers. While some attention has been paid recently to the plight of our prisoners of war, most of whom were pilots; there has been little recognition of how brutal the war was for those who fought it on the ground.

Dropped onto the enemy's terrain 12,000 miles away from home, America's citizen-soldiers performed with a tenacity and quality that may never be truly understood. Those who believe the war was fought incompletely on a tactical level should consider Hanoi's recent admission that 1.4 million of its soldiers died on the battlefield, compared to
58,000 total U.S. dead.

Those who believe that it was a "dirty little war" where the bombs did all the work might contemplate that is was the most costly war the U.S. Marine Corps has ever fought-five times as many dead as World War I, three times as many dead as in Korea, and more total killed and wounded than in all of World War II.

Significantly, these sacrifices were being made at a time the United States was deeply divided over our effort in Vietnam. The baby-boom generation had cracked apart along class lines as America's young men were making difficult, life-or-death choices about serving. The better academic institutions became focal points for vitriolic protest against the war, with few of their graduates going into the military. Harvard College, which had lost 691 alumni in World War II, lost a total of 12 men in Vietnam from the classes of 1962 through 1972 combined. Those classes at Princeton lost six, at MIT two. The media turned ever more hostile. And frequently the reward for a young man's having gone through the trauma of combat was to be greeted by his peers with studied indifference of outright hostility.

What is a hero? My heroes are the young men who faced the issues of war and possible death, and then weighed those concerns against obligations to their country. Citizen-soldiers who interrupted their personal and professional lives at their most formative stage, in the timeless phrase of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, "not for fame of reward, not for place of for rank, but in simple obedience to duty, as they understood it." Who suffered loneliness, disease, and wounds with an often-contagious elan. And who deserve a far better place in history than that now offered them by the so-called spokesman of our so-called generation.

Mr. Brokaw, Mr. Matthews, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Spielberg, meet my Marines.
1969 was an odd year to be in Vietnam. Second only to 1968 in terms of American casualties, it was the year made famous by Hamburger Hill, as well as the gut-wrenching Life cover story showing pictures of 242 Americans who had been killed in one average week of fighting. Back home, it was the year of Woodstock, and of numerous anti-war rallies that culminated in the Moratorium march on Washington. The My Lai massacre hit the papers and was seized upon the anti-war movement as the emblematic moment of the war. Lyndon Johnson left Washington in utter humiliation.

Richard Nixon entered the scene, destined for an even worse fate. In the An Hoa Basin southwest of Danang, the Fifth Marine Regiment was in its third year of continuous combat operations. Combat is an unpredictable and inexact environment, but we were well led. As a rifle platoon and company commander, I served under a succession of three regimental commanders who had cut their teeth in World War II, and four different battalion commanders, three of whom had seen combat in Korea. The company commanders were typically captains on their second combat tour in Vietnam, or young first lieutenants like myself who were given companies after many months of "bush time" as platoon commanders in he Basin's tough and unforgiving environs.

The Basin was one of the most heavily contested areas in Vietnam, its torn, cratered earth offering every sort of wartime possibility. In the mountains just to the west, not far from the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the North Vietnamese Army operated an infantry division from an area called Base Area 112. In the valleys of the Basin, main-force Viet Cong battalions whose ranks were 80 percent North Vietnamese Army regulars moved against the Americans every day. Local Viet Cong units sniped and harassed. Ridgelines and paddy dikes were laced with sophisticated booby traps of every size, from a hand grenade to a 250-pound bomb. The villages sat in the rice paddies and tree lines like individual fortresses, crisscrossed with the trenches and spider holes, their homes sporting bunkers capable of surviving direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells. The Viet Cong infrastructure was intricate and permeating. Except for the old and the very young, villagers who did not side with the Communists had either been killed or driven out to the government controlled enclaves near Danang.

In the rifle companies, we spent the endless months patrolling ridgelines and villages and mountains, far away from any notion of tents, barbed wire, hot food, or electricity. Luxuries were limited to what would fit inside one's pack, which after a few "humps" usually boiled down to letter-writing material, towel, soap, toothbrush, poncho liner, and a small transistor radio.

We moved through the boiling heat with 60 pounds of weapons and gear, causing a typical Marine to drop 20 percent of his body weight while in the bush. When we stopped we dug chest-deep fighting holes and slit trenches for toilets. We slept on the ground under makeshift poncho hootches, and when it rained we usually took our hootches down because wet ponchos shined under illumination flares, making great targets. Sleep itself was fitful, never more than an hour or two at a stretch for months at a time as we mixed daytime patrolling with night-time ambushes, listening posts, foxhole duty, and radio watches. Ringworm, hookworm, malaria, and dysentery were common, as was trench foot when the monsoons came. Respite was rotating back to the mud-filled regimental combat base at An Hoa for four or five days, where rocket and mortar attacks were frequent and our troops manned defensive bunkers at night. Which makes it kind of hard to get excited about tales of Woodstock, or camping at the Vineyard during summer break.

We had been told while training that Marine officers in the rifle companies had an 85 percent probability of being killed or wounded, and the experience of "Dying Delta," as our company was known, bore that out. Of the officers in the bush when I arrived, our company commander was wounded, the weapons platoon commander wounded, the first platoon commander was killed, the second platoon commander was wounded twice, and I, commanding the third platoons fared no better. Two of my original three-squad leaders were killed, and the third shot in the stomach. My platoon sergeant was severely wounded, as was my right guide. By the time I left, my platoon I had gone through six radio operators, five of them casualties.

These figures were hardly unique; in fact, they were typical. Many other units; for instance, those who fought the hill battles around Khe Sanh, or were with the famed Walking Dead of the Ninth Marine Regiment, or were in the battle of Hue City or at Dai Do, had it far worse.

When I remember those days and the very young men who spent them with me, I am continually amazed, for these were mostly recent civilians barley out of high school, called up from the cities and the farms to do their year in hell and he return. Visions haunt me every day, not of the nightmares of war but of the steady consistency with which my Marines faced their responsibilities, and of how uncomplaining most of them were in the face of constant danger. The salty, battle-hardened 20-year-olds teaching green
19-year-olds the intricate lessons of the hostile battlefield. The unerring skill of the young squad leaders as we moved through unfamiliar villages and weed-choked trails in the black of night. The quick certainty when a fellow Marine was wounded and needed help. Their willingness to risk their lives to save other Marines in peril. To this day it stuns me that their own countrymen have so completely missed the story of their service, lost in the bitter confusion of the war itself.

Like every military unit throughout history we had occasional laggards, cowards, and complainers. But in the aggregate, these Marines were the finest people I have ever been around. It has been my privilege to keep up with many of them over the years since we all came home. One finds in them very little bitterness about the war in which they fought. The most common regret, almost to a man, is that they were not able to do more for each other and for the people they came to help.

It would be redundant to say that I would trust my life to these men. Because I already have, in more ways than I can ever recount. I am alive today because of their quiet, unaffected heroism. Such valor epitomizes the conduct of Americans at war from the first days of our existence. That the boomer elites can canonize this sort of conduct in our fathers' generation while ignoring it in our own is more than simple oversight. It is a conscious, continuing travesty.

*************************************************************************
*********** Former Secretary of the Navy James Webb was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, and Bronze Star medals for heroism as a Marine in Vietnam. His novels include The Emperor's General and Fields of Fire.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Who Is a Christian?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
From: Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels, 1911

Who is a Christian in this Christian land
Of many churches and of lofty spires?
Not he who sits in soft upholstered pews
Bought by the profits of unholy greed,
And looks devotion, while he thinks of gain.
Not he who sends petitions from the lips
That lie to-morrow in the street and mart.
Not he who fattens on another's toil,
And flings his unearned riches to the poor,
Or aids the heathen with a lessened wage,
And builds cathedrals with an increased rent.

Christ, with Thy great, sweet, simple creed of love,
How must Thou weary of Earth's 'Christian' clans,
Who preach salvation through Thy saving blood
While planning slaughter of their fellow men.

Who is a Christian? It is one whose life
Is built on love, on kindness and on faith;
Who holds his brother as his other self;
Who toils for justice, equity and PEACE,
And hides no aim or purpose in his heart
That will not chord with universal good.

Though he be pagan, heretic or Jew,
That man is Christian and beloved of Christ.

'Tis the Set of the Sail -- or -- One Ship Sails East

'Tis the Set of the Sail -- or -- One Ship Sails East

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1916

But to every mind there openeth,
A way, and way, and away,
A high soul climbs the highway,
And the low soul gropes the low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.

But to every man there openeth,
A high way and a low,
And every mind decideth,
The way his soul shall go.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

67th Bday Poem from Son Jonathan

Larger than life, Enveloping
Ever casting tendrils into the void
Fishing for connection

Oh, how comforting it is to be caught
Willingly

Though once
or twice released
And made a bit wild a bit early by a taste of uncertainty
I return to safety
Now and again
In my father's rapture.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Honorable Human Relationship

Adrienne Rich:

"An honorable human relationship is a process, delicate, ... often terrifying to both persons involved,
a process of refining the truths they tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us."

What about the effect of 'real love,' where fear is overcome?

Monday, July 12, 2010

Principles of Personal Transformation

Principles of Personal Transformation
by WingMakers


Each individual on Earth is exploring in a physical body new ways of experiencing life. Through this process of discovery, each of us is developing a deeper level of understanding of life and a greater ability to express our divine essence. This divine essence is the fullest expression of each individual's soul, and most closely exemplifies the Divine's capabilities therein.

Divine essence is a level of divine awareness that was "seeded" within each soul when it was initially conceived by the Divine. It is also the natural state of the soul that has removed itself from the controlling aspects of hierarchical belief systems through the complete awakening of its sacred intentions. All souls are in various stages of transformation, and all people are destined to attain a level of conscious awareness of divine essence as their sacred intentions are fully awakened.

Profound personal transformation is initiated by the realization that you are capable of direct access to the Divine. This is the realization that the wisdom of the Divine can be discovered deep within your own soul. In other words, your body, complete with its physical, mental, and emotional capabilities, is not the repository of your sacred intentions. Nor is your mind able to reach out and access this divine inner calling which tirelessly beckons, inviting you towards the glorious joy of ever deeper connection with All That Is.

It is the soul that is the harbor of your divine essence. And it is the soul that is the vehicle of access to the awakening of your sacred intentions, which opens the door to profound transformation through the integration of your body, mind, heart, and soul.

Through opening to meaningful connection not only with your own divine essence, but with that of all living beings, the experience of profound personal transformation eventually triggers the realization that perceived reality is the Divine personified in the form of individual preferences. Thus when your sacred intentions are fully awakened, divine reality and your perception of reality become inseparable as the wind and the air. This confluence is only completely realized through the full transformation experience, which is unlike anything known within human experience.

There have been those upon Earth who have ventured into the shallows of this boundless ocean. Some have called it ascension; others have attributed names like illumination, enlightenment, nirvana, and cosmic consciousness. While these experiences are profound by human standards, they are only the initial stirrings of divine essence as it becomes increasingly adept at touching and awakening the remote edges of its existence.

What most would define as the ultimate bliss is merely an impression of their divine essence whispering to its outposts of form and nudging them to look within to the roots of existence, and to unite with the formless and limitless divine intelligence that pervades all.

The full transformation experience is far beyond the scope of the human drama, much like the stars in the sky are beyond the touch of Earth. We can see the stars with our human eyes, but we will never touch them with our human hands. Similarly, we can dimly foresee the full transformation experience as humans, but we cannot experience it through being human. It is accessed through the wholeness of the soul, for it is only in wholeness that the soul's sacred intentions and their catalytic effect of divine perception can be fully experienced.

This level of wholeness is attained only when the individual consciousness has separated from time and is able to view its existence in timelessness. Nevertheless, the human stage of existence is essential in facilitating personal transformation and causing it to trigger – like a metamorphosis – the integration of your formful identities into divine essence.

Self-mastery through personal transformation is the next stage of perception and expression for your soul. It is initiated when you choose to design your life based upon principles that are symbolic of the Divine. As you become increasingly responsive to the Divine, you naturally gravitate towards life principles that symbolically express the formative principles of divine creation.

The below principles are divine templates of creation. They are designed to help you experience life from the perspective of divine essence. They are principles that construct opportunities for the integration of your formless and formful identities. They are bridges through which you can access the experience of wholeness by perceiving with your divine essence.

There is a wide range of means that can facilitate self-mastery through personal transformation and disengage the soul from external controls. Inasmuch as the means may vary, the intent behind the means is quite narrowly defined as the intent to expand into a state of integration whereby all aspects of your conscious self become increasingly aligned with your divine essence.

There are three particular life principles that help to align your perspective with the perspective of divine essence and thus inspire profound transformation.

They are:

1) Seeing the Divine in all
2) Nurturance of life
3) Gratitude

When you apply these principles, a deeper meaning will be revealed to the seemingly random events of your life experience – both in the personal and universal contexts.


Seeing the Divine in All

This is the principle that the Divine is present and can be seen everywhere and in all manifestations of life. It is interwoven in all things like an intricate mosaic whose pieces adhere to the same wall, and are thus unified. However, it is not the picture that unifies the mosaic, but the underlying wall upon which its pieces adhere. Similarly, the Divine paints a picture so diverse and seemingly unrelated that there appears to be no unification. Yet it is not the outward manifestations that unify. It is the inward center of divine energy upon which the pieces of diversity are layered that unifies all life.

This centerpiece of divine energy is the collective storehouse of all life within the universe. It is the full expression of the Divine, which invests itself in all forms through the projection of its divine intelligence into all manifestations of life. Thus, divine intelligence – acting as an extension of the Divine – is the unifying energy that is the "wall" upon which all the pieces of life's mosaic adhere.

Seeing the Divine in all is the principle that all manifestations of life convey an expression of All That Is. It does not matter how far the unifying energy has been distorted or corrupted; the Divine can be observed. It is the action of perceiving the unification of energy even when the outward manifestations appear random, distorted, or chaotic. It is the realization that all life flows from one divine energy source that links one to All and all to One.

When every manifestation of life can be genuinely perceived as a fragmentary expression of All That Is, the vibration of equality that underlies all life becomes perceptible to you. You realize that life initially emerges as an extension of the Divine, and then, as an individuated energy frequency invested within a form. This individuated energy vibrates, in its pure, timeless state, precisely the same for all manifestations of life.

This is the common ground that all life shares. This is the tone or vibration of equality that can be observed within all life forms that unifies all expressions of diversity to the very foundation of existence. If you are able to look upon any and all forms of life with the outlook of equality, then you are seeing the Divine in all.

While this may seem like an abstract concept, it is actualized through the practice of looking for both the outward and inward manifestations of the Divine. In a very real sense, you expect to observe the workings of divine intelligence in every facet of your experience.

The principle of seeing the Divine in all is the unassailable expectation that everything is in its rightful position, performing its rightful function, and serving its purpose to activate the fullest expression of its life in the present moment. It is the outlook that all life is in a state of optimal realization and experience regardless of condition or circumstance. It is the perception that life is perfect in its expression because it flows from perfection, and that no matter how divergent its manifestations are, all life is an extension of the Divine.

In light of the obvious turmoil and destruction that are apparent on Earth, this is an outlook or perception that may seem naive. How can life – in all its forms and expressions – be perceived as optimal or perfect? This is the great paradox of life, and it cannot be reconciled with your mental or emotional capabilities. It can only be understood in the context of the soul, which is deathless, timeless, and limitless. Paradoxes exist because the human drama is too limited in scope and scale to allow a perception of wholeness to illuminate how the pieces of the puzzle are perfectly interconnected in the ever-unfolding divine cosmic dance.

The human drama is circumscribed by the dimensions of time and space and the elements of energy and matter. It is played out upon the stages of survival and dysfunctional behavior because of the methods of controlling information and manipulating conditions used by those operating within the hierarchical paradigm. The soul within the human body is largely unexpressed and underutilized in this human drama, and therefore, life's apparent perversions and imperfections are seen in isolation as impediments to perfection rather than perfection itself.

Life is perfect in its resolve to expand and express an intelligence that is limitless. This is the fundamental purpose of life in all its diverse manifestations.

The presence of the Divine expressing itself as a vibration of equality can be seen in all things. Sensory input derived from the human body is limited to frequencies in specific ranges that only convey an echo of this divine vibration. The divine resonance of all life is understood only through deliberate and focused contemplation of the equality inherent in all things, and through the ability to penetrate beyond the image of a thing to the origin of the image.

Calling forth the divine perceptions of the soul within your own being is the ideal method to access lasting sensitivity to the divine vibration. This is how you develop the ability to see the Divine in all. It is not only that the Divine is found within you and within every individual manifestation of life; it is also in itself the wholeness of all life. Thus, this principle calls for seeing the Divine in all its diverse forms of manifestation, as well as in the wholeness of life itself.

These insights stimulate a new sensory system beyond the five senses that rule the physical world. These new senses are an outgrowth of the awakening of your sacred intentions. They are manifestations of the first stage of profound personal transformation. With this new perceptual ability, you will be capable of sensing not only the presence of the Divine, but also the timeless divine essence that exists at the core of every living being.


Nurturance of Life

Life, in this definition, is an individual's sovereign reality. It is subjective and impressionable. Life is the wholeness of experience flowing past the individual's field of perception in the present moment. There is never a closure to life, nor a final chapter written. It is eternal, not only in the abstract sense of never ending or beginning, but also in the real sense that life is ever expanding in order to express divine intelligence in all realities within the universe.

Nurturance of life is the principle whereby an individual is in alignment with the natural expansion of intelligence inherent within all life. This alignment enhances the life energy that flows past the individual with the clear intent of gentle support. It is the action of opening to the highest motive in all people and in all life and supporting the flow of this highest intention towards its ultimate expression. In so doing, the action is performed without judgment, analysis, or attachment to outcome. It involves simply nurturing the highest energy that flows from all people and all beings, and thus supporting the fullest expression of their deepest essence.

This is a departure from the normal perception that nurturing support can only be granted when others are in alignment with your personal will and desires. When, instead, you view everything in your life as an integrated energy flowing as an expression of ever-expanding divine intelligence, all life is honored as an extension of the Divine. In this context, there is no energy that is misdirected or unworthy of support and nurturance. While this may seem contrary to the evidence of abusive energy upon the Earth, even energy that is laden with "evil intent" is nevertheless energy that is flowing outward in search of a higher expression.

All people and all forms of life can be nurtured and supported to their highest expression. This is the fundamental purpose of this principle. It is greatly facilitated by the intention to perceive the original motive and ultimate expression of life energy as it passes through your field of awareness.

Energy is an element of life that is so subtly interwoven with form that it is one, in much the same manner as space and time are inextricably linked in union. Energy is a motive. It is intelligent beyond the mind's ability to reason. While it is a force that can be subject to applications that deny its highest expression, energy is always imbuing life with the motive to expand and evolve.

Life energy is always in a state of becoming. It is never static or regressive in its natural state. You are very capable of nurturing this natural expansion of energy to forge new channels of expression and experience. In fact, it is your primary purpose to expand the life energy that encircles your personal reality, and to transform it to new levels of expression that more clearly reflect the perspective of divine essence.

There are many specific actions that can be taken to nurture life. Each soul has the innate ability to transform energy through a tremendous variety of means. Working through your body, your soul is able to collect and store energy and redirect its purpose or application. This transformation of energy can occur on both personal and universal levels of expression. That is, within an individual's field of awareness, energy can be transformed at any time to conform more to a vision of personal welfare, or aligned with a vision of universal welfare and goodwill.

One of the best methods to transform energy is through one's belief system. All beliefs have energy systems that act like birthing chambers for the manifestation of your perceived reality. Within these energy systems are currents that direct life experience. Your soul is aware of these currents either consciously or unconsciously and allows them to carry you into realms of experience that engage your core belief system.

By cultivating beliefs that expand and transform energy, you are more able to explore energy systems that are nurturing to life in all its myriad forms. When your beliefs are clearly defined as intentions – as preferred states of being – your life energy engages more fully in the present moment. Your energy system becomes inseparable from your being and woven into your spirit like a thread of light. Clarity of intention is essential to engaging the energy system of your core beliefs, and to allowing the nurturance of life to prevail in all activities.

The nurturance of life is essential to both personal and collective realities within the universe, which contains all realities that are interlinked like threads of an infinitely expanding fabric. Thus, as you awaken to your own creative power to transform life energy outside of yourself and enhance it with the clear intent of gentle support, you naturally experience ever-unfolding transformation within yourself as well. You become an increasingly clear beacon of the Divine and the architect of a new paradigm based upon the intention to nurture all life in the universe.


Gratitude

This principle is based on the understanding that the universe represents a collective intelligence that can be personalized as a single universal soul – a composite expression of the Divine. Thus, in this perspective, there are only two souls in the entire cosmos: the individual soul and the universal soul. Inasmuch as the individual is impressionable and constantly changing to adapt to new information, so is the universal soul, which is a dynamic, living template of collective energies and experiences that are coherent and as knowable as a friend's personality and behavior.

The universal soul is responsive to the individual soul and its beliefs and perceptions. It is like a composite omni-personality that is imbued with divine intelligence and responds to the perceptions and belief systems of the individual like a pool of water mirrors the image that overshadows it.

Everyone is indeed, at their innermost core, an enlightened soul that can transform themselves into an instrument of divine essence. However, this transformation is dependent on whether the individual chooses to project an image of divine essence upon the "mirror" of the universal soul, or to project a lesser image that is a distortion of its essential state of being.

The principle of gratitude is primarily concerned with consciously designing your self-image through an appreciation of the universal soul's supportive mirror. In other words, the universal soul is a partner in shaping reality's expression in your life. If you choose to project a transformed image upon the mirror of the universal soul, reality gradually becomes an internal process of creation that is increasingly free of external controls and conditions.

This process involves an interchange of supportive energy between the individual and the universal soul. This energy is best applied through an appreciation of how perfect and exacting this interchange occurs in every moment of life. If you are aware – or at least interested in having the awareness – of how perfectly the Divine, as expressed in the form of the universal soul, supports your sovereign reality, there is a powerful and natural sense of gratitude that flows from you to the Divine.

It is this wellspring of gratitude that opens wide the channel of support from the Divine to the individual and establishes a collaboration of purpose to transform the individual soul into a pure expression of divine essence.

It is principally gratitude – which arises naturally through appreciation of how the relationship between the individual and the universal soul operates – that opens you to connection with your divine essence, and to your eventual transformation into the state of perception and expression of divine essence. The relationship of the individual with the universal soul is essential to cultivate and nurture, because this relationship, more than anything else, determines how accepting each individual is of life's myriad forms and manifestations.

When you accept changes in your sovereign reality as the shifting persona of the universal soul, you live in greater harmony with life itself. Life becomes an exchange of energy between you and the universal soul that is allowed to play out without judgment, and is experienced without fear. This is the underlying meaning of unconditional love: to experience life in all its manifestations as a single, unified intelligence that responds perfectly to the projected image of each soul.

It is for this reason that when you project gratitude, regardless of circumstance or condition, life becomes increasingly supportive in opening you to further awakening your sacred intentions. This feeling of gratitude coupled with the mental concept of appreciation is expressed like an invisible message in all directions and at all times. In this particular context, gratitude is the overarching motive behind all forms of expression to which humanity aspires.

Every breath, every word, every touch, every thought is centered on expressing this sense of gratitude; a gratitude that you are sovereign and supported by a universal soul that expresses itself through all forms and manifestations of life with the sole objective of creating the ideal reality to fully awaken your sacred intentions and to transform your entire being into divine essence. It is this specific form of gratitude that accelerates the awakening of your sacred intentions and their inherent ability to integrate your body, mind, heart, and soul, and to transform your ability to perceive and express from the place of divine essence.

Time is the primary factor that distorts the otherwise clear connection between the individual and the Divine. Time establishes separation of experience. This creates doubt in the Divine's system of fairness and overarching purpose. This doubt, in turn, creates fear that the universe is not a mirror but rather a chaotic, whimsical energy. Time intervenes to create pockets of despair, hopelessness, and abandonment. However, it is these very "pockets" that often motivate awakening the sacred intentions of your soul, as they cause you to seek a more intimate and harmonious relationship with the Divine.

When you choose to align with divine essence and to live from this perspective as part of an ever-unfolding reality, you attract a natural state of harmony. This does not necessarily mean that your life is without problems or discomforts; rather it signifies a perception that there is an integral purpose in what life reveals. In other words, life experience is meaningful to the extent that you choose to live in natural harmony with divine essence. When your personal reality flows in alignment with divine essence, you create lasting joy and inner peace.

Gratitude is an essential facet of love that opens you to acknowledge the role of the universal soul and to redefine your purpose as a supportive extension of the Divine, rather than the whimsical outreach of fate or the exacting reaction of a mechanical, detached universe. Establishing a relationship with the universe through the outflow of gratitude attracts life experience that is deeply transformative – experience that is richly devoted to uncovering life's deepest meaning and most formative purpose.


The Emergence of Divine Essence

Through the ongoing application of these principles of transformation, divine intelligence increasingly permeates your soul, and your soul becomes the identity of your entire being. Thus, identity is transformed, and in the wake of this transformation, divine essence unifies your entire being with your soul, and your soul with divine intelligence. It is this unification and shift of identity that is the explicit purpose of these life principles. If there is any other intention or objective, these principles will remain misunderstood and their catalytic powers will remain dormant.

It is the perspective of divine essence that all life is pure love in its fullest expression, and that in this single concept, all life is conceived and forever exists. This becomes the core belief from which all other beliefs arise. And as these beliefs expand outward, this core belief system emerges with a clear intent of supporting a fundamental perspective of seeing, nurturing, and appreciating the universe as the divine cradle from which all life is created and evolves.

These principles of transformation are merely symbols represented in words and served to you as a potential recipe to stir awake the embers of light that tirelessly burn within. There are no specific techniques or rituals that are required to invoke their power. They are simply perspectives. In a real sense, they are sacred intentions that attract experience that expands consciousness. They do not provide quick fixes or instant realizations. They are amplifiers of personal will and intention that clarify how one lives. Their transformative power is contained exclusively in the intent of their application.

Through these principles, you can become a master of empowering your deeper self. In the past, boundaries were set, secrets were kept, and your light was subdued simply because your perception of external, hierarchical controls created in you fear of the unknown and of the mystical practices of transformed souls.

Now, if you choose to apply these life principles with clear intent, you have the tools to accelerate the emergence of divine essence. You can awaken the perspective, insights, and empowered abilities of your divine essence to create new realms of possibility and shape them as learning adventures that liberate and expand your consciousness. This is the underlying purpose of these principles, and perhaps the best reason to explore them.


This is the first of a two-part essay, for part two:
http://www.weboflove.org/consciousnessparadigms

For a two-page summary of Principles of Transformation:
http://www.weboflove.org/transformation

Friday, July 9, 2010

A THEOSOPHICAL VIEW OF WAR AND VIOLENCE

Published in The American Theosophist, Volume 70, October, 1982.
The Theosophical Society in America

A THEOSOPHICAL VIEW OF WAR AND VIOLENCE
By John Algeo

How do Theosophists view war and violence? Or, perhaps more telling, how do
Theosophists respond to war and violence?
It may seem that such a question is needless. After all, the first of the eight parts of
yoga is yama—a list of five moral prohibitions; and the first of those five is ahimsa—
harmlessness, nonviolence. Theosophy is the yoga of the West, and the very first step
in yoga is nonviolence. That would seem to take care of that. But does it? When two
Theosophists meet, there are likely to be at least three opinions between them.
What exactly is a nonviolent response to violence? What is a harmless response to
harm? Is it doing nothing? If not, what do we do? How does nonviolence apply in
specific cases? Consider the following hypothetical, but by no means impossible,
situations and decide how you think you would respond in each situation, given a
very limited range of possible responses. Place yourself imaginatively in these
circumstances and answer honestly.
FIRST, let’s suppose that you are walking down the street in a big city late at night.
You are alone. Suddenly out of the shadows steps a very large man who shoves you
against the wall of a building and says with a threatening tone of voice, “Give me your
money. All of it.” You instinctively take a few steps to the right to get away, but he
follows and pulls a knife, saying, “Now!” As you are fumbling for your wallet,
suddenly you realize that now directly behind the man is an uncovered manhole. If
you quickly give him a push, he will fall into it, and quite likely be badly hurt. What
do you do? (A) Do you give the mugger your money? (B) Or do you push him into the
manhole?
SECOND, suppose you are a policeman walking down that same city street at
midday when you see a chimpanzee that has escaped from a local pet shop. The street
is full of pedestrians, and the chimpanzee—obviously in a state of intense agitation—is
attacking some of the people. It has already bitten several of them. What do you do?
(A) Do you get on your walkie-talkie and call for the animal detail to come with
tranquilizer darts? (B) Or do you pull out your revolver and shoot the chimp?
THIRD, suppose you are a physician. One of your patients is a young woman who
is pregnant, in her fifth month. Earlier in her pregnancy you prescribed a drug which
she took for some time. Now you have discovered that the drug has side effects,
hitherto unknown, that can damage a fetus. Tests reveal that the fetus is indeed
The Theosophical Society in America 2
malformed. The woman requests an abortion. What do you do? (A) Do you refuse to
perform the abortion? (B) Or do you perform the abortion?
FOURTH, you are still a physician. A woman in her mid-twenties and in excellent
health comes to you. She is in her fifth month of pregnancy, but unmarried. She says
that she is unwilling to have a child and requests you to abort the pregnancy. She is
sexually active, uses birth control only sporadically, and has had abortions before.
What do you do? (A) Do you refuse to perform the abortion? (B) Or do you perform
the abortion?
FIFTH, you are driving your automobile in very heavy traffic. You are stopped at
an intersection by a red light. There is a long line of cars behind you. Another car from
the rear of the line drives forward on the shoulder of the road and pulls up on your
right. That car edges forward, and the driver clearly intends to cut in ahead of you.
The light turns green. What do you do? (A) Do you let the other driver cut in ahead?
(B) Or do you step on the gas in your car to prevent the other car from cutting in?
SIXTH, you are the President of the United States. The Island of Guam has been
attacked and captured by a Far Eastern power which claims it has rightful title to that
island on historical grounds. The present inhabitants of the island overwhelmingly
want it to remain an American protectorate, but the Far Eastern power is on the island
and in military command of it. They have also rejected any discussion of the
sovereignty of the island and have declared that the only issue they will discuss is
how to evacuate those islanders who want to leave. What do you do? (A) Do you
begin setting up evacuation procedures? (B) Or do you order the U.S. military forces to
prepare for an invasion of the island?
SEVENTH, you are Director of the FBI. A terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on
the island of Manhattan. It is set to detonate within a few days unless he is paid
several million dollars, ten friends of his who are in jail for terrorism are released, and
safe passage to Libya is arranged for all of them. The FBI has the terrorist in custody,
but has no leads on the location of the bomb. One of your subordinates suggests that
there is only one way to discover the location of the bomb: subject the terrorist to
physical torture. What do you do? (A) Do you wait, hoping that the terrorist will have
a change of heart? (B) Or do you tell your subordinate to try physical torture?
EIGHTH, you are the mother of a newborn child. Your child has been kidnapped by
a terrorist group and is being held hostage for the release of political prisoners—other
terrorists in jail. The leader of the terrorist group has been caught, but refuses to reveal
the whereabouts of the others or of the baby. The FBI tells you that they have no clues,
but are considering the use of “pressure”—that is, physical torture—to discover where
the kidnappers have the baby. What do you do? (A) Do you ask them not to use
The Theosophical Society in America 3
physical violence on the kidnapper? (B) Or do you tell them you hope they will do
whatever is necessary?
NINTH, you are a member of a branch of the Society to which a new person has
applied for membership. The person is a member of the Ku Klux Klan and of a
political party organized along Nazi lines and affiliated with the Klan. He says he
intends to continue his membership in the Klan and the neo-Nazi party, but that also
he is in sympathy with the three objects of the Society and sees no conflict between
these memberships. You are asked to vote on his admission to the Society. What do
you do? (A) Do you vote to admit him? (B) Or do you vote to deny him admission?
TENTH, you are a member of a jury that must sentence a convicted murderer. This
is his fifth conviction of murder. Twice he killed during the course of armed robberies.
Once he was a hired killer. Once he killed a fellow inmate in prison. This time he
murdered a kidnap victim. Your choice is to vote for life imprisonment, with
automatic review for parole in ten years, or for the death penalty. What do you do?
(A) Do you vote for life imprisonment with possibility of parole? (B) Or do you vote
for the death penalty?
Although these problems vary greatly in seriousness and in their possible
consequences, none of them is necessarily a clear-cut moral issue. They are concocted
(some more than others) and the possible responses were deliberately limited to two
for each problem—an unreal limitation in most situations. However, not all
Theosophists agree on how they would, or should, respond in such dilemmas. These
problems, like most of those we face in day-to-day life, are not simple choices between
right and wrong, between the good and the bad, but are rather choices between two or
more options, none of which is clearly satisfactory. If life is a banquet, too often we
find that the menu consists only of dishes all of which give us indigestion.
There is a newspaper cartoon called “Kudzu,” about a teen-aged boy in a small
Southern town, who is trying to find his way about in a confusing and frustrating
world. His chief advisor is a preacher of uncertain denomination who aspires to be
spiritual counselor to the rich and powerful, but hasn’t made it. One day young
Kudzu, as the boy is named, complains, “Life is hard, Preacher!” The preacher
responds, “Kudzu, son, life is a test and you’ve got to be prepared.” “Oh,” answers
Kudzu, “I’m prepared for the test, Preacher . . . but I prepared for true-false and it’s
turning out to be multiple-choice!” That is exactly our problem. We would prefer that
our tests in life all be true-false, with a clear choice between good and evil, right and
wrong, peace and violence. Instead the tests are all multiple-choice, with directions
that read: “Choose the best response.” Only none of the options seems quite right.
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How does theosophy help in such dilemmas? How does it help us to see problems
of war and violence? In H. P. Blavatsky’s Key to Theosophy (section 3, pp. 48–49), the
inquirer asks, “Have you any ethical system that you carry out in the Society?” and the
Theosophist answers:
The ethics are there, ready and clear enough for whosoever would follow them.
They are the essence and cream of the world’s ethics, gathered from the teachings
of all the world’s great reformers. Therefore, you will find represented therein
Confucius and Zoroaster, Laotze and the Bhagavat-Gita, the precepts of Gautama
Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth, of Hillel and his school, as of Pythagoras, Socrates,
Plato, and their schools.
The ethics of all the great reformers and schools can be summed up simply in the
Golden Rule. In whatever words it is expressed, it is the basis of ethical action and
hence also of our response to violence: Deal with others as you would have them deal
with you. (The Rule is sometimes phrased in the negative—Do not do to others what
you would not want them to do to you—and is then called the Silver Rule. People
have argued about which form of the Rule is better. There is also what might be called
the Brass Rule—Do unto others before they do unto you.) The Golden Rule is usually
expressed in some such exoteric form. The esoteric form of the rule, however, might
go something like this: There are no others, so whatever you seem to do to another
you actually do to yourself. That esoteric form of the rule follows from the third
Fundamental Proposition of The Secret Doctrine: “the fundamental identity of all Souls
with the Universal Over-Soul.” If you and I are indeed one, identical with each other
through our identity ultimately with the Ground of all being, then how could I ever
want to harm or do violence to myself? All beings desire their own well-being. I must
therefore wish for you what I wish for myself, since we are one.
The Golden Rule can also be summarized in the single word ahimsa. In dealing
with our fellow beings, who are ourselves under another guise, we must be harmless,
nonviolent—that is, deal with them as we would have them deal with us, or as we
would deal with ourselves. But does nonviolence always mean doing nothing, just
passively observing what others do? Not necessarily. There are times when ahimsa
must be very active. Indeed, there are times when it is required to do what might look
like violence and harmfulness.
Think about children. Being kind to a child is not necessarily permitting it to do
whatever it likes, whenever it likes. A child who has no restrictions, no rules, no
penalties for infringements is not a happy child. In fact, it will be an emotionally
disturbed, ill-behaved, and thoroughly unhappy child. Children want and need to
know the limits of acceptable behavior, and they will test those limits to discover
them—to find out what they really are, as opposed to merely what they are said to be.
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The parent who punishes a child that has violated the limits of acceptable behavior is
not engaging in an act of violence, but on the contrary is practicing the Golden Rule,
and thus ahimsa, at a higher level. In The Key to Theosophy (section 12, p. 238), H.P.B.,
while discussing self-sacrifice as the highest standard of behavior, added:
We say, however, that self-sacrifice has to be performed with discrimination; and
such a self-abandonment, if made without justice, or blindly, regardless of
subsequent results, may often prove not only made in vain, but harmful. One of
the fundamental rules of Theosophy is, justice to oneself—viewed as a unit of
collective humanity, not as a personal self-justice, not more but not less than to
others; unless, indeed, by the sacrifice of the one self we can benefit the many.
It is the same with ahimsa and the Golden Rule. They have to be applied with
discrimination, to be sure that one is truly being nonviolent and is truly dealing with
others as one would actually want to be dealt with.
Haridas Chaudhuri (Mastering the Problems of Living, pp. 138–139) tells a story that
illustrates the need for discrimination in the practice of ahimsa:
One time a holy man was passing through a village. Some youngsters warned him
not to go too near a particular old tree in the hollow trunk of which a giant serpent
lived. Every now and then the serpent would come out of its dwelling place and
work havoc by killing a goat or biting an unwary child. To the amazement of the
children, the holy man headed right toward that very tree. He bent low and seemed
to whisper something to the serpent. As he resumed his journey, the youngsters
gathered around him and wanted to know what he had told the serpent. The holy
man said that he had given the serpent the motto of love (ahimsa). He said to the
serpent, “Look, you monster, you have been committing terrible sins by killing and
poisoning sacred living things. If you want to be saved, you must start practicing,
right from today, the motto of nonviolence.” The holy man left the village, and the
news of his visit spread. The next day the youngsters found the serpent meek as a
lamb. Pretty soon they gathered courage and began to handle him roughly. One day
they played tug-of-war with him, pulling at two ends. Once, they twisted him
around a stick like a rope. Then one naughty boy swirled the snake and forcefully
dashed him against the tree. After that they did not see the snake any more. Two
weeks later when that holy man came back to the village, the boys reported to him
the apparent death of the snake. When the holy man peeped into the hole of the
tree, the coiled serpent, terribly emaciated, complained, “Look, sir, what your
gospel of love has done to me. I am badly bruised and mutilated, and am about to
die now.” The holy man chided him by saying: “I told you not to bite any living
creature. But why did you not hiss when you were attacked?”
There are times when we need to hiss, and perhaps even times when we need to bite.
In “The Golden Stairs,” H.P.B. has given us a set of principles for guiding our
behavior that covers many situations. The statement of “The Golden Stairs” contains
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thirteen clauses or steps that fall into three groups. The last group, consisting of the
final four steps, gives practical suggestions about practicing ahimsa:
A courageous endurance of personal injustice.
A brave declaration of principles.
A valiant defense of those who are unjustly attacked.
And a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the sacred
science depicts.
—These are the golden stairs, up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple
of Divine Wisdom.
The first step is to endure courageously injustice directed against oneself. This is
the substance of Christ’s admonition to turn the other cheek. It is not unrealistic,
sentimental advice. It is the most realistic, practical counsel we can follow. As the
Buddha said:
If a man foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my
ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me.1
For the fact is that evil does not cease by evil, nor hatred by hatred; but evil ceases only
by being confronted with good, and hatred by being confronted with love. This fact
was the basis of Gandhi’s political program of satyagraha (holding on to truth) and of
Martin Luther King’s passive resistance. Yet, as Gandhi and King demonstrated, our
response to evil and hatred and injustice should not be one of passive acquiescence.
The next step of “The Golden Stairs” tells us that in the midst of our courageous
endurance, we must declare bravely those principles on which we stand and from
which we act—the principles that lead us to a nonviolent and loving response. Gandhi
made the distinction very clear:
Not to yield your soul to the conqueror means that you will refuse to do that which
your conscience forbids you to do. Suppose the “enemy” were to ask you to rub
your nose on the ground or to pull your ears or to go through such humiliating
performances, you will not submit to any of these humiliations. But if he robs you
of your possessions, you will yield them because as a votary of ahimsa you have
from the beginning decided that earthly possessions have nothing to do with your
soul.2
As topsy-turvy as it may seem to ordinary logic, earthly possessions are of infinitely
less worth than one’s conscience. To lose possessions is to lose nothing of enduring
value. To violate one’s conscience is to yield one’s soul—to risk breaking the golden
1 Altman, Daniel. Ahimsa. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980.
2 Ibid.
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cord that binds the personality to the immortal Self. Thus it is imperative, while
enduring personal injustice, to declare the basis of one’s action and thus of one’s
conscience.
It is also important to be aware that we are not asked to endure injustice to
another person. On the contrary, the next step tells us to defend valiantly any who
suffer an unjust attack. How far may such defense go and still remain within the
bounds of ahimsa? That is a question we must each answer when the time and
occasion demand. But His Holiness, the present Dalai Lama—a man noted for his
gentleness and long-suffering forbearance of violence—has said this:
I believe that having a sympathetic heart, a warm heart, a kind heart, is the essence
or the most important thing. Irrespective of whether you believe in a religion or
not, or no matter what ideology you follow, if you have this . . . then even such a
violent act of killing someone, if it is done with a really good motive, could go
beyond the usual level of killing.3
Ahimsa is no simple matter, and there are no simple answers to our moral problems.
How do we make the necessary discrimination, to know when someone has been
unjustly attacked or what degree and kind of force we may use in defending such a
person without ourselves crossing the boundary into violence?
The last step in “The Golden Stairs” gives us the direction to look for that
discrimination. We are to consider all actions in the light of the ideal of human
progression and perfection that the Ancient Wisdom reveals. We have come forth
from the One into the manifold. It is our destiny to return again to the One, enriched
by our experience of the many. Whatever helps in our return and in the perfecting of
our natures is ahimsa—nonviolence and love.
Nonviolence is not, however, by any means the same thing as absence of struggle.
H.P.B., who could certainly not be charged with being an uncritical Darwinian,
nevertheless accepted two of the key concepts in Darwinian evolution and pointed out
that they long antedated Darwin himself:
. . . the idea of Darwinian-like evolution, of struggle for life and supremacy, and of
the “survival of the fittest” among the Hosts above as the Hosts below, runs
throughout both volumes of our earlier work [Isis Unveiled], written in 1877. But the
idea was not ours, it is that of antiquity. . . . The “Struggle for Existence” and the
“Survival of the Fittest” reigned supreme from the moment that Kosmos
manifested into being, and could hardly escape the observant eye of the ancient
Sages.4
3 Ibid.
4 The Secret Doctrine, I:202
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Struggle is not incompatible with ahimsa because harmless nonviolence is not a matter
of action, but of motive.
We are here touching upon one of the most difficult of all philosophical and moral
questions—the problem of evil. Human beings doubtless have struggled with this
problem as long as they have had minds to do so. In theistic religions the problem is
put so: If God is both all-good and all-powerful, why does he permit evil to exist? The
Book of Job in the Jewish scriptures considers the problem, as does the epic poem
Paradise Lost, by John Milton. (A work that deals with the problem is called a theodicy
because it treats the justice [dike] of God [theos].) The Secret Doctrine envisions no
creator God of whom such a question can be asked. But the problem still exists. And in
considering it, H.P.B. suggests that what we call evil is as much a part of the nature of
things as what we call good:
Thus when the Occultist says that the “Demon is the lining of God” (Daemon est
Deus inversus) (evil, the reverse of the medal), he does not mean two separate
actualities, but the two aspects or facets of the same Unity.
. . . that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of both good and
evil.5
How can that be? What we call evil is sometimes the impulse to diversity, to
separateness, to matter, which is necessary for the universe to exist. It is the path of
forthgoing, Pravritti, which leads to samsara, the great illusion. On the other hand,
what we call good is the impulse to oneness, to union, to spirit. It is the path of return,
Nivritti, that leads to nirvana, the unity of all things. In this sense, evil and good are
relative to the position one has on the paths. Behavior that is appropriate and good on
the path of forthgoing becomes inappropriate and evil on the path of return. In this
sense, evil is merely displaced good.
One implication of that view is that “evil,” including war and violence, has a place
in the economy of the cosmos. That is a tough implication and an unpopular one. But
it is a theme of the Bhagavad Gita and of Annie Besant’s World War I pamphlet on
“The High Purpose of War.” In times of international conflict it is tempting, of course,
to seek justification for one’s own nation and to assume that God, or Dharma, is on our
side—that we are good and our “enemies” are evil. But the fact that a truth can be
perverted jingoistically does not make it less a truth. Shiva the Destroyer is as
necessary to the divine economy as Brahma to the Creator. The body needs both
anabolism and catabolism to survive. Civilizations are built up, and civilizations must
be torn down. The process of destroying and tearing down is often necessarily a
strifeful and strident one. Thus it is always a very difficult decision to know when
5 The Secret Doctrine, I:235-36, 411.
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“evil” is filling a proper and necessary place in the world process, but it is a decision
each person has to make.
At other times, what we call evil is a learning experience, a testing of the
boundaries that hedge our behavior. Just as children need rules and regulations, and
need to know where those rules set the boundaries of acceptable action, so all human
beings are constantly pushing at the boundaries of karma—testing the Great Law that
governs the universe, to find out what it is. In this sense, evil is our effort to find
where we are and to discover those consequences of the inexorable law that teach us
we have gone too far. When we lose our tempers, behave violently, or harm another,
we are really harming ourselves, and the Great Law sees to it that we find that out.
Karma is not punishment, but education. The Lords of Karma are not our stern
disciplinarians, but our loving teachers.
If we had the eyes of prophecy and could see the whole world process in the here
and now, if we could (as William Blake said) see a world in a grain of sand and
eternity in an hour—so that we understood the cosmic pattern—then we would see
that all things, even war and violence, have their orderly place. But, of course, to see
things that way requires a very large vision. When God spoke to Job out of the
whirlwind, he asked, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” To
comprehend the great pattern that embraces and harmonizes war and violence as well
as peace and love, the demonic as well as the divine, we need a vision that stretches
from the foundation of the world to its dissolution. Without such a vision, we can only
trust that the Great Plan does in fact order all things.
The fourteenth-century English mystic Dame Julian of Norwich had a number of
visions or “showings,” as she called them. She was profoundly disturbed by the
existence of evil in the world and in human beings (which Christians call sin). She put
the problem to Christ in one of her visions, and he responded: “Sin is behovely
(necessary) but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be
well.” Even what we call evil has a necessary place in the economy of the universe, but
all things work toward a final good. It is upon such assurance from the higher self to
the personality, from the One to the many, that we rely.
To come back, then, to the question with which these remarks began, how do
Theosophists view specific acts of war and violence? That is a question only individual
Theosophists can answer, each of us by ourselves. The principles Theosophists can be
expected to follow in viewing war and violence are clear enough—they are principles
embodied in ahimsa, in the Golden Rule, and in the last four steps of “The Golden
Stairs.” But those principles must still be applied in specific cases. And they can be
applied only by individual Theosophists, looking within to the dictates of the
individual consciences—which are finally one conscience, as we ourselves are finally
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one. Our view of war and violence must grow out of our view of our oneness and of
the love that unites all humanity and all beings. That is the love which, as Dante said,
moves the sun and the other stars.
The world is now threatened by wars and violence. It has always been so
threatened, but what is alarming today is the awful ability we have developed to wage
war and inflict violence. However, violence is less what we do than how we do it—our
motive and attitude. We can learn to purify our motives and better our attitudes only
by making conscious, self-aware choices when we are faced with those difficult
problems that have no obviously right solution. We must deal with moral ambiguity
without succumbing to moral paralysis. And it is possible to learn how to do that by
study, meditation, and effort.
Right motives and attitudes are purely individual responsibilities. The world
cannot be at peace until you and I are at peace within ourselves. But how, we may ask,
can a few persons have any effect on the world. A bit of leaven, as Christ says in the
gospels, can raise a whole loaf. No one knows how great the effect is of even a few
persons who live, or strive to live, at peace with themselves.
A kabbalistic tradition says that the world includes only a handful of perfectly just
persons, but it is on account of those few completely just individuals that the world
continues to exist. If they ceased to be, so would all the rest of us. That tradition
expresses symbolically a great truth. The peace and progress of the world depend on
and grow out of the lives of those persons—however few their number may be—who
lead lives of peace and wisdom and love.
As members of the Theosophical Society, we are called upon to lead lives of
ahimsa, which means striving to join that small, select company of the perfectly just,
those whom we call the Masters. We are called upon to become like them—rooted in
the One Life. Our efforts in that direction, no matter how small, will eventually bear
fruit. But the personal effort must be made. All of us must do what we can. As in the
lyrics of a popular song: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
__________

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Longfellow Poem

Morituri Salutamus

Poem for the fiftieth anniversary of the class of 1825 in Bowdoin College.

"O Caesar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.

O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,
That once were mine and are no longer mine,--
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--
Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die,
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.

Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!
We are forgotten; and in your austere
And calm indifference, ye little care
Whether we come or go, or whence or where.
What passing generations fill these halls,
What passing voices echo front these walls,
Ye heed not; we are only as the blast,
A moment heard, and then forever past.

Not so the teachers who in earlier days
Led our bewildered feet through learning's maze;
They answer us--alas! what have I said?
What greetings come there from the voiceless dead?
What salutation, welcome, or reply?
What pressure from the hands that lifeless lie?
They are no longer here; they all are gone
Into the land of shadows,--all save one.
Honor and reverence, and the good repute
That follows faithful service as its fruit,
Be unto him, whom living we salute.

The great Italian poet, when he made
His dreadful journey to the realms of shade,
Met there the old instructor of his youth,
And cried in tones of pity and of ruth:
"Oh, never from the memory of my heart
Your dear, paternal image shall depart,
Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised,
Taught me how mortals are immortalized;
How grateful am I for that patient care
All my life long my language shall declare."

To-day we make the poet's words our own
And utter them in plaintive undertone;
Nor to the living only be they said,
But to the other living called the dead,
Whose dear, paternal images appear
Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sunshine here;
Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw,
Were part and parcel of great Nature's law;
Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid
"Here is thy talent in a napkin laid,"
But labored in their sphere, as men who live
In the delight that work alone can give.
Peace be to them; eternal peace and rest,
And the fulfilment of the great behest:
"Ye have been faithful over a few things,
Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings."

And ye who fill the places we once filled,
And follow in the furrows that we tilled,
Young men, whose generous hearts are beating high,
We who are old, and are about to die,
Salute you; hail you; take your hands in ours,
And crown you with our welcome as with flowers!
How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!
Book of Beginnings, Story without End,
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!
Aladdin's Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse,
That holds the treasures of the universe!
All possibilities are in its hands,
No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands;
In its sublime audacity of faith,
"Be thou removed!" it to the mountain saith,
And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud!

As ancient Priam at the Scaean gate
Sat on the walls of Troy in regal state
With the old men, too old and weak to fight,
Chirping like grasshoppers in their delight
To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield,
Of Trojans and Achaians in the field;
So from the snowy summits of our years
We see you in the plain, as each appears,
And question of you; asking, "Who is he
That towers above the others? Which may be
Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus,
Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?"

Let him not boast who puts his armor on
As he who puts it off, the battle done.
Study yourselves; and most of all note well
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit;
Minerva, the inventress of the flute,
Flung it aside, when she her face surveyed
Distorted in a fountain as she played;
The unlucky Marsyas found it, and his fate
Was one to make the bravest hesitate.

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere,--"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.

And now, my classmates; ye remaining few
That number not the half of those we knew,
Ye, against whose familiar names not yet
The fatal asterisk of death is set,
Ye I salute! The horologe of Time
Strikes the half-century with a solemn chime,
And summons us together once again,
The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.

Where are the others? Voices from the deep
Caverns of darkness answer me: "They sleep!"
I name no names; instinctively I feel
Each at some well-remembered grave will kneel,
And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss,
For every heart best knoweth its own loss.
I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white
Through the pale dusk of the impending night;
O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws
Its golden lilies mingled with the rose;
We give to each a tender thought, and pass
Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass,
Unto these scenes frequented by our feet
When we were young, and life was fresh and sweet.

What shall I say to you? What can I say
Better than silence is? When I survey
This throng of faces turned to meet my own,
Friendly and fair, and yet to me unknown,
Transformed the very landscape seems to be;
It is the same, yet not the same to me.
So many memories crowd upon my brain,
So many ghosts are in the wooded plain,
I fain would steal away, with noiseless tread,
As from a house where some one lieth dead.
I cannot go;--I pause;--I hesitate;
My feet reluctant linger at the gate;
As one who struggles in a troubled dream
To speak and cannot, to myself I seem.

Vanish the dream! Vanish the idle fears!
Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years!
Whatever time or space may intervene,
I will not be a stranger in this scene.
Here every doubt, all indecision, ends;
Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates, friends!

Ah me! the fifty years since last we met
Seem to me fifty folios bound and set
By Time, the great transcriber, on his shelves,
Wherein are written the histories of ourselves.
What tragedies, what comedies, are there;
What joy and grief, what rapture and despair!
What chronicles of triumph and defeat,
Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat!
What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears
What pages blotted, blistered by our tears!
What lovely landscapes on the margin shine,
What sweet, angelic faces, what divine
And holy images of love and trust,
Undimmed by age, unsoiled by damp or dust!

Whose hand shall dare to open and explore
These volumes, closed and clasped forevermore?
Not mine. With reverential feet I pass;
I hear a voice that cries, "Alas! alas!
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;
The unwritten only still belongs to thee:
Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be."

As children frightened by a thunder-cloud
Are reassured if some one reads aloud
A tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught,
Or wild adventure, that diverts their thought,
Let me endeavor with a tale to chase
The gathering shadows of the time and place,
And banish what we all too deeply feel
Wholly to say, or wholly to conceal.

In mediaeval Rome, I know not where,
There stood an image with its arm in air,
And on its lifted finger, shining clear,
A golden ring with the device, "Strike here!"
Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed
The meaning that these words but half expressed,
Until a learned clerk, who at noonday
With downcast eyes was passing on his way,
Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well,
Whereon the shadow of the finger fell;
And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found
A secret stairway leading underground.
Down this he passed into a spacious hall,
Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;
And opposite, in threatening attitude,
With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood.
Upon its forehead, like a coronet,
Were these mysterious words of menace set:
"That which I am, I am; my fatal aim
None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!"

Midway the hall was a fair table placed,
With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased
With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold,
And gold the bread and viands manifold.
Around it, silent, motionless, and sad,
Were seated gallant knights in armor clad,
And ladies beautiful with plume and zone,
But they were stone, their hearts within were stone;
And the vast hall was filled in every part
With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.

Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed
The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed;
Then from the table, by his greed made bold,
He seized a goblet and a knife of gold,
And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang,
The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang,
The archer sped his arrow, at their call,
Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall,
And all was dark around and overhead;--
Stark on the door the luckless clerk lay dead!

The writer of this legend then records
Its ghostly application in these words:
The image is the Adversary old,
Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;
Our lusts and passions are the downward stair
That leads the soul from a diviner air;
The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life;
Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;
The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone
By avarice have been hardened into stone;
The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf
Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.

The scholar and the world! The endless strife,
The discord in the harmonies of life!
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books;
The market-place, the eager love of gain,
Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!

But why, you ask me, should this tale be told
To men grown old, or who are growing old?
It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore years,
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had but begun his ?Characters of Men.?
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives.
Where little else than life itself survives.

As the barometer foretells the storm
While still the skies are clear, the weather warm,
So something in us, as old age draws near,
Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere.
The nimble mercury, ere we are aware,
Descends the elastic ladder of the air;
The telltale blood in artery and vein
Sinks from its higher levels in the brain;
Whatever poet, orator, or sage
May say of it, old age is still old age.
It is the waning, not the crescent moon;
The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon;
It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,
But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,
The burning and consuming element,
But that of ashes and of embers spent,
In which some living sparks we still discern,
Enough to warm, but not enough to burn.

What then? Shall we sit idly down and say
The night hath come; it is no longer day?
The night hath not yet come; we are not quite
Cut off from labor by the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.