Chapter XVIII (part 1)

p. 213 CHAPTER XVIII Rationality and life. Life as knowledge. Intellect and emotions. Emotion as an organ of knowledge. The evolution of emotion from the standpoint of knowledge. Pure and impure emotions. Personal and impersonal emotions. Personal and super-personal emotions. The elimination of self-elements as a means of approach to true knowledge. "Be as little children. . . ." "Blessed are the pure in heart. . . ." The value of morals from the standpoint of knowledge. The defects of intellectualism. Dreadnaughts as the crown of intellectual culture. The dangers of morality. Moral esthetics. Religion and art as organized forms of emotional knowledge. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of Beauty . THE MEANING OF LIFE—this is the eternal theme of human meditation. All philosophical systems, all religious teachings strive to find and give to men the answer to this question. Some say that the meaning of life is in service, in the surrender of self, in self-sacrifice, in the sacrifice of everything, even life itself . Others declare that the meaning of life is in the delight of it, relieved against "the expectation of the final horror of death." Some say that the meaning of life is perfection, and the creation of a better future beyond the grave , or in future lives for ourselves. Others say that the meaning of life is in the approach to non-existence : still others, that the meaning of life is in the perfection of the race, in the organization of life on earth; while there are those who deny the possibility of even attempting to know its meaning. The fault of all these explanations consists in the fact that they all attempt to discover the meaning of life outside of itself , either in the future of humanity, or in some problematical existence beyond the grave, or again in the evolution of the Ego throughout many successive incarnations—always in something outside of the present life of man. But if instead of thus speculating about it, men would simply look within themselves, then they would see that in reality the meaning of life is not after all so obscure. IT CONSISTS IN KNOWLEDGE. All life, through all its facts, events and incidents, excitements and attractions, inevitably leads us TO THE p. 214 [paragraph continues] KNOWLEDGE OF SOMETHING. All life-experience is KNOWLEDGE. The most powerful emotion in man is his yearning toward the unknown. EVEN IN LOVE, the most powerful of all attractions, to which everything is sacrificed, is this yearning toward the unknown, toward the NEW— curiosity . The Persian poet-philosopher, Al-Ghazzali, says: " The highest function of man's soul is the perception of truth ." 1 In the very beginning of this book PSYCHIC LIFE and THE WORLD were recognized as existing. The world is everything that exists. The function of psychic life may be defined as the realization of existence . Man realizes his existence and the existence of the world, a part of which he is. His relation to himself and to the world is called knowledge. The expansion and deepening of his relation to himself and to the world is the expansion of knowledge. All the soul-properties of man, all the elements of his psyche—sensations, perceptions, conceptions, ideas, judgments, reasonings, feelings, emotions, even creation—all these are the INSTRUMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE which the I possesses. Feelings—from the simple emotions up to the most complex, such as esthetic, religious and moral emotion—and creation, from the creation of a savage making a stone hatchet for himself up to the creation of a Beethoven, indeed are means of knowledge . Only to our narrow HUMAN view do they appear to serve other purposes—the preservation of life, the construction of something, or merely pleasure. In reality all this conduces to knowledge..