====== The Inner Life ====== == THE HERALD OF THE NEW AGE | OCTOBER 1937 == ---- ==== SHEKINAH ==== === The Healing === === I. === THE NIGHT before Shekinah reached her fifteenth birthday, Bengal sat alone in the silence, watching the pictures of her life opening and closing like a door in front of him. “So be it,” he said quietly, as he uttered thanks to the Unseen. “She has been a treasure in my life—a soul companion, but the parting of the ways has come, and each will carry what each has gathered from the other.” Shekinah went forth early on the morning of her birthday. The sun was peeping playfully behind the mists; delicious scents were rising from the dew-drenched grass. She paused sometimes to bless a little flower or to inhale the music of a singing bird. Someone stood watching her—it was a woman. She broke just like a vision on Shekinah’s radiant morning. She was small and old and unoffending, with eyes of a seeker who has failed to find. Her form was bent, but her face revealed the story of what it had been years ago. Shekinah went towards her. She felt the strength we feel when we see another’s weakness. She took the weather-beaten hands in her own—their souls met in a mutual understanding. “God bless you, child,” the woman said. “And God bless you,” replied Shekinah. They stood for a moment looking at each other, then the woman thankfully replied, “He has blessed me in meeting you. Did He not tell me I should find the healer through a child?” Shekinah looked perplexed, but she continued, “I want you to tell me all about it. Come and sit down with me, for we have met before.” “Where have we met?” “In dreams perhaps, or maybe, who can tell, on—” “On other planes?” “I don’t know, but let us talk about it; I was told that I should meet you here.” They sat together upon a fallen tree. The air was warmer now, the sun had wiped away dawn’s dripping tears. “I have a child your age,” the woman went on quickly, “a child sweet as the thoughts which angels drop to earth, fine as a piece of silk, and sensitive as a flower—but,” her voice dropped to a choking whisper, “the child is blind.” Shekinah closed her eyes, with a sudden consciousness of invisible sunlight and a world emptied of flowers. “Yes,” she continued with the intensity of one who has long borne in silence. “Many have come my way and tried to help. Doctors and healers of all kinds, but they were too removed, they could not touch him.” “Was he born so?” “Marriage came late into my life,” she answered. “When a young girl, I had admirers by the score, but not one pleased me. There are those who love easily and love again, but I wasn’t one of them. I had my ideal of a man, and unless I could meet him, marriage meant nothing to me. I was happy with my books and flowers. I loved the sunsets, sunrises and the lovely light at dawn. The girls that I had gone to school with married and had their children. I didn’t envy them, I couldn’t marry without love. The years slipped by and I was growing older. Then one came, and when I met him I knew he belonged to me. We had one year of married life together—a year of joy, such as I had never, in my most ideal moments, believed could be so great and wonderful. One thing I longed for above all things—to have a child, a child by him. I knew my age and limitations, but I prayed like Hannah prayed and my prayer was answered.” She paused a moment, and Shekinah’s hand, soft, cool and sympathetic, rested on hers in an understanding way. “When I told my loved one how God was going to bless us, it seemed as if our cup of joy would overflow. Perhaps it was too much, too great, too wonderful. Much as we love the glory of the sunrise, we have to see it fade before our eyes. But we never looked beyond the day, we basked in each other’s love, for a child, our own child, born of that love—was coming.” “Yes—” “But before that child came to the world, my loved one had gone from me. He told me that he could not forget me. Death was not separation. I believed it then. It is easy to believe so, when the body that we love is with us, but we are not so strong to face the empty chair. When he had gone I wandered in the darkness; I did not want to see the glory of a thankful world. It seemed to me the sun had not a right to shine. I wondered how the flowers could bloom. I wrapped myself in my robes of sorrow.” The understanding look Shekinah gave was deeper than a child’s. “And so my baby came sightless to the world.” There was a moment’s silence, then she came still nearer with the question—“You believe that those we love, return?” “How could they help it, if they love?” The woman’s voice sank almost to a whisper, like the voice of one who treads on holy ground. “My husband came to me,” she said. Her face looked young and lovely with the memory. “For fourteen years I’d been without him, borne and endured in silence, with my child’s sightless eyes reminding me of what had been, and then one night, one long sleepless night, such as I’d spent so many times, I prayed as I had never prayed before. I prayed to God to give my boy his sight, to pardon all the thoughts that I had held before his birth, to take him from the darkness where those thoughts had plunged him, and while I prayed, my loved one stood beside me. He came wrapped in a cloud which broke around him, and once again we were together. His voice came with the same old ring of gladness, came like the voice which came to Hagar in the desert. He told me to rise up, for God had heard my cry for the lad, and would restore him for a work he came here to do. Then he opened out a picture of a child like you, who took me by the hand and led me through a wood of weeds and flowers to a lovely building, such a one as I have never seen, and on the steps a man was standing, and I knew he was the one to heal my child.” “It was Bengal,” said Shekinah. “And after that I wept no more. I didn’t even pray that once again I might see my loved one’s face—I trusted and waited.” “How long ago was that?” “Twelve months or more. It’s hard to wait so long when want is pressing on the soul, when in front of you, is the helpless one you want to help. But I knew my vision hadn’t told me wrong. The one who never lied to me in this world could tell me no lie from beyond. I waited and I prayed, and then one day the opportunity came for us to come across the country. I didn’t know the reason why. I didn’t want to leave my home—the home that he and I had shared together, but I came in answer to the call, and brought the boy.” “And you found me waiting for you here.” “I found you, child. I knew you when I saw you.” “Bengal will know about you. He will have got your wireless long ago. He needs no outward instrument to hear. He must be waiting for us. Come now, and we will go to him.” She arose and took the woman’s hand, and they walked through the wood together—to make the vision real. Bengal stood outside the door of his Temple. The woman looked at him with the eyes of an oft-disappointed seeker, then with a cry, she rushed forward and fell upon her knees. “I have been searching years and years for you,” she said. Bengal raised her gently, and spoke in calm, quiet accents. In one brief glance he seemed to read all that she had passed through, all that she was passing through now, yet he put her courage to the test. “Rest for a while,” he said, calmly, “nothing is done well in haste. You are weary, although the morning sun is shining.” “No, not in body, but in soul,” she answered, “for the soul walks with long strides, while the body is at rest.” “Mammy will bring you some breakfast,” said Shekinah. “Our house is not so far away, and she is baking corn-bread now.” The woman shook her head. “I could not touch it, this is a richer banquet far than food, to know that I have found the one I sought.” “So, we neglect the house of God, and then wonder why it fails us,” answered Bengal. She was hungry only to talk about her child. “You desire your boy’s eyesight more than anything? That is quite natural. No one likes imperfection—it does not belong to God. Had I an animal in this house that had not sight, I would gladly give it what it lacked, if I were able. WANT of any kind destroys the body. There are many excellent physicians in the land.” She raised her hand impatiently. “They can do nothing—you alone can heal my child.” Bengal smiled slightly, as he continued, “I am no magician, I cannot with a ‘presto change’ open blind eyes because you ask me. People of all nations come to me with offers of their gold and silver for my secrets, but they return in darkness and unhealed. All that I do each one can do, if he is as simple-minded as a child.” She looked at him with fearless eyes—eyes filled with the memory of an unlost vision. “When the spirit of one we dearly love, answers our soul call from across the border, we are not going to doubt that voice,” she said. “So you were magnetized by the voice and by the vision? You believe it is the work of Unseen Forces to guide us and direct us? How do you know this voice was Truth?” She looked directly at him; her simple, almost child-like life of purity reflected on her face. “There are no lies in my heart,” she said, “so how could I attract them? If there are lying spirits then I do not know them, for they are not a part of me. I keep myself in the pure light of the one focus—the Eternal Good. Turn up a stone and let the sun shine on the dark things buried beneath it, and they will all flee from its light. The God Who sent His messengers to lead me to you, has not brought me here in vain, for you are one of the chosen souls, not chosen by any favoritism, for the Almighty is too great for that, but chosen because you were ready for the fuller light. You are the chosen vessel, and you will restore my child.” “Your reasoning is good. You speak of walking in the light, yet how is it that it is the light your child is lacking?” Tears for a moment filled the woman’s eyes, as she responded. “Before he came into the world, I lived in darkness. I closed my doors upon God’s light and love. My transgression met me in my child’s defective sight. But I have prayed for pardon for my sin. I have taught him all about the inner light, and since his birth, my constant prayer has been that always and forever I might walk in such a brightness that the light would penetrate and he would see.” “And may your selfless wish be answered. You have proven that you know. You have not rushed in where angels fear to tread. Go home now and devote time to silence and prayer. Tomorrow, just at sunrise, bring the boy to me.” —To be Concluded next month— The above is one of two chapters from the book of the same title reviewed on page 19 of the Advertising Section herein. It gives the reader a concept of the high quality of the story and of the deep spiritual understanding of the Author.—THE EDITOR. ————o———— ==== LET GO ==== BELOVED, let go—let go of everything. \\ Let Me possess you, and flood your consciousness with My Light, and be your Self—be all of you. \\ Lose yourself in Me, and feel My perfect Life, Harmony and Peace filling every center, nerve and part of your body. \\ For I AM your Self, your life, health, strength, vitality, supply, goodness, knowing, power—the Perfection of all things. \\ Having Me, feeling Me, KNOWING Me as all that you are, you need nothing. I AM your supply of every need. \\ Be still, and KNOW—I AM, God. ---- {{ shekinah193719-1034.jpg |}} ---- {{ shekinah193719-1035.jpg |}} ---- {{ shekinah193719-1036.jpg |}} ---- {{ shekinah193719-1037.jpg |}} ---- {{ shekinah193719-1038.jpg |}} ---- {{ shekinah193719-1039.jpg |}} ---- //← [[the_apostles_creed|previous]] // | [[:the_inner_life_vol._5|The Inner Life 1937]] | // [[the_childs_way_out_of_course_oct37|next]] → //