QUESTIONS ON "ETERNAL LIFE"

THE BUILDER OCTOBER 1920

In conducting the study meetings the Chairman should endeavour to hold
the discussions as closely as possible to the text and not permit the
members to speak too long at one time, or to stray onto another subject.

Whenever it becomes evident that a discussion is turning from the original
subject the Chairman should request the speaker to make a note of the
particular point or phase of the matter he wishes to discuss or inquire into,
and bring it up when the Question Box period is opened.

What does Brother Haywood consider to be the central idea of the Legend
of the Third degree?

In what respect does the term "Eternal Life" differ from Future Life?
Immortality? Resurrection?

What is Brother Haywood's definition of "Eternal Life"? How would you
define it? 

What are the two component parts of human nature?

What group of our activities has reference to the body?

What is man's "spirit"? What is this "spirit" eternal?

What is the principal fault of many of us? What is the result of this faith?
What is the remedy for this condition?

Why is the "Lost Word" the symbol of "Eternal Life"?

Do you agree with Brother Haywood's conception of the "Raising"? If not,
wherein do you differ from him? (A general question.)

Is it necessary for us to seek outside of our Blue Lodge ritual for the "Lost
Word"? If so, why?


SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES

Consult indexes to Volumes I, II, III, IV and V of THE BUILDER for
references to "Immortality" and "Resurrection." Mackey's Encyclopedia:

Immortality of the Soul, p. 347; Resurrection, p. 621.

THIRD STEPS
BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA

PART VI - ETERNAL LIFE

That which I believe to be the central idea in the whole Hiram Abiff drama,
and, consequently, the profoundest interpretation of it, is that which is
embodied in the term used as the title of this section.  I have chosen to
consider it in a section apart, not only because its importance is deserving
of such emphasis, but also because the truth of Eternal Life is so confused,
so mingled with other very different ideas, in the minds of men, that we
have need of a careful analysis of the matter.

By Eternal Life we do not mean quite the same thing as that meant by a
Future Life.  Future Life, by virtue of the very words used to describe it, is
a life that is supposed to lie in the Future, beginning after death; Eternal
Life will be lived in the great Future, true enough, but is something more
than that.

Nor is Eternal Life the same as Immortality, for Immortality means
deathlessness - that is, an existence of endless duration.  It suggests a
picture of life lived on a level line, of which line there is no end.  Eternal Life
includes this conception of infinite duration but it also includes much
besides.

Again, Eternal Life is not to be identified with Resurrection. According to
this latter hope the man who dies will be raised from the dead, and will be
the same man that he was before death.  This also may be true, in some
sense doubtless is true, but it is not the same truth as that meant by Eternal
Life.

What, then, do we mean by Eternal Life? Briefly it may be put thus - there
is something in every man, call it spirit, soul, a divine spark or what you
will, which even now is not concerned with time or space, but exists above
or outside them.  This God-like thing in us need not wait for death to make
it Eternal; it is Eternal now. 

From the most ancient times, as is proved by the history of every religion,
men have found human nature to be a kind of double thing, one half of
which is very different from the other half.  In behalf of simplicity we may,
as many teachers have done, call one of these halves the body, the other
the spirit.  Under one or the other of those two words we may group all of
our activities.

One group of our activities has reference always to the body.  If we work
to earn money it is that we may clothe, and feed, and shelter the body; if
we seek pleasure it is to please the same body; if we desire possessions
it is that the wants and needs of the body may be satisfied. By this very
nature, it is plain to see, these activities are temporal, because the body,
around which they all revolve, soon breaks down and is at last destroyed
by death.  It is because food is to feed the temporal body, and clothing to
cover it, etc., that we call these things temporalities.  What use will we have
for money, for houses, for land, clothing, food, and all similar things, when
we no longer have a body by which to use them?

But there is in each of us another set of activities which have reference to
the spirit.  By virtue of its very nature man's spirit is a thing that seeks
Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.  Just as food is the satisfaction of the
stomach's appetite so are these the satisfaction of the spirit's craving.  And
it must be noted that the things for which the spirit has need are not in any
sense necessarily tied up to, or dependent on, the body, or the earth of
time and space; in all worlds, with or without a body, and under any
imaginable circumstances, the spirit will necessarily keep on its search for
Goodness, Truth and Beauty.  For this reason we are justified in describing
this life of the spirit as Eternal.

It is the great tragedy in the life of many men that they so entirely devote
themselves to the body's needs that they forget, or neglect the spirit's
needs.  Giving themselves up to the search for things, for temporalities,
they leave the divinest cravings in them to go unsatisfied; as a result, they
become materialistic, self-centred, vain, greedy, and animalistic; the soul
becomes dissatisfied, God becomes unreal, and the future life uncertain;
and they even fall into the fatal habit of making such goodness, truth and
beauty as they do find in themselves or others, into a mere means to an
end.  Such a man's whole life revolves about himself; he becomes his own
world and his own God, and out of such a state grow the fears, doubts,
superstitions, quarrelings, graspings, prejudices, envyings, and hatreds
which so often make life a mere scramble after the things of self. In other
words, the body is set at the centre of existence so that all the man's life
is made up of temporalities.

The one remedy for this condition is to change the centre of gravity so that
the spirit is master and the body is servant, so that search is made for the
eternal things instead of wholly for the things that pass away.  When this
occurs, selfishness, envy and materialism vanish; the soul becomes the
great reality; God draws very near and becomes very certain; the
perspective of life is changed and its scale of values is reversed.  To be
horrorable and true, to love others, to live in pity, charity, and kindliness, to
know eternity as present and the present existence as a brief place of an
endless life, all this becomes for such a man the great ideal toward which
all his energies are bent. Loss and disease may be serious but they are not
fatal; even death is robbed of its terrors because the man's treasures are
out of the reach of destruction.

This is Eternal Life.  This is the "life of God in the soul of man," eternity in
the midst of time, a divine-human experience possible in the Here and
Now.  To reach such an existence is in the power of every man; nay, it is
the birthright, the God-intended plan, of every child of the race.

Herein, it seems to me, we have the reality of which the Lost Word is the
mystic symbol; and he who has found that word within him is victorious
always, whatever betide.  If he is betrayed by the friends in whom he has
trusted, waylaid by ruffians, put to death in the midst of his creative and
benignant work, and thrown into an unmarked grave, he is not defeated or
destroyed; the God-like spirit within him, dedicated to the Eternal Values,
raises him up from the level of death to the perpendicular of the life that
even now is eternal.

If this be the true interpretation of the Raising, we can no longer agree with
those who see in it merely a ceremony in witness to the Future Life of the
soul. How could it be? The Raising is not accomplished on the Other Side
of the grave but on This; out of the very disaster which overwhelmed him,
out of the midst of that dreadful "masterful negation which men call death,"
the master is lifted up and made victorious.  The Spirit is conqueror even
Here.

Furthermore, and as I have already hinted, this interpretation makes void
the theory which would have us believe that the Lost Word must be sought
outside the Blue Lodge Ritual.  When is the Master raised? Is it not in the
Third degree? Is not the very Power that raises him itself the thing we mean
by the Work? It is true that the secret is elaborated and made plain in a
higher degree, but the power, the actual upraising energy of which such a
word must be a mere symbol, is present, and does its work, inside the
limits of the Third degree!

As this understanding came home to me and opened up within my mind,
the whole of the Blue Lodge ritual, nay, the whole of Masonry became
transfigured; dark places became filled with light; obscure symbols, often
so cryptic and dim, became eloquent with wonderful meanings; I found
every ceremony, from the first activities of the preparation room on to the
solemn awful tragedy moving with steady tread and predetermined plan on
toward the sublime climax.  Freemasonry rose in my vision to the most
divine heights and I saw that it has in its heart an Eternal Gospel which
gives it a place among the great religions, and among the noblest of all the
philosophies, wherethrough men have sought for light on the brief broken,
bewildering mystery of existence, and strength to live, unconquered and
unashamed in the midst of so many enemies and defeats.


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