WHAT a pleasure it is to meet anyone possessed of this rare and lovely virtue! Such a restful and yet, at the
same time, bright and invigorating atmosphere surrounds them, blessing with refreshment and strength all with
whom they come in contact.
What is the secret of its attainment and maintenance ? Is it only the fruit of natural disposition and temperament
? There is, truly, a species of contentment which seems to be the product of the constitution; the mere result
of a harmonious compound of mental and physical elements, suitably environed. But this sort of contentment will
soon wither in the rude, cold blasts of life. It requires sunshine, fair weather; and under stress of sorrow
is very apt to give way utterly, and to leave the sufferer on a level with the born grumbler and hypochondriac.
Is it that the person possessing it has no ambition, no desires, no stirrings after an unattained good, and so
is content with anything ? That is indifference, not contentment. Content implies satisfaction, which again implies
fulfilled desire. It is something other and more and greater than these.
What is most commonly understood by it may perhaps be thus defined — "the feeling which arises upon
the satisfaction of our ordinary and natural wishes and desires"; — such as the attainment of success
in our work in the world, the creation of congenial surroundings, the realizing of the love for which we sigh,
and the like. Aye ? But time after time experiences rudely give the lie to our fond expectation of entering into
rest by these means. How seldom to any, and to most how scarcely ever, are these "ordinary" desires
even approximately satisfied ! And when they are, is contentment the invariable result ? Anything but it. The
longed-for treasure grasped, we awake to find ourselves unsatisfied still; there is something within us which
is restless and still unsatisfied. We imagined that these desires were the strongest we had, that these longings
arose from the secret depths of our nature; and we find it is not so. The Inner, Higher Self is truer to its
innate divinity than the Common Self believed; it refuses to be — it cannot be — content with such
satisfaction. There is a thirst within the soul which the waters of earth may not quench; we rise from the feast,
hungry still; the fuller our hands become, the emptier they are. This is not misty theorizing; everyday experience
shows us that there are desires in the heart deeper, stronger than the desires of comfort, wealth, knowledge,
fame, power, love. And it is felt, vaguely, sadly that the hardest tiling remains yet to be done — namely,
to discover [Page 20] first what these desires are, and then how they may be satisfied. Till this has been done, contentment is to us
a word of eleven letters, and nothing
more.
This desire of desires, then, is — what ? The yearning of the Divine spark which is the core of the soul,
as the soul is the core of the body, which refuses to be ignored or smothered, which ever struggles to return to
the Central Fire, whence it emanated that it might by the accumulation of new experiences add to infinity — if
so wildly paradoxical a phrase
may be permitted.
"Son of Eternity, fettered in time, and an exile, the SpiritOnly when the desire dies away into the fruition of consummation, when “ the Dewdrop slips into the Shining Sea", will perfect contentment, the fulness of the "peace that passes understanding", be known. But even here and now foretastes of that crowning bliss may be realized. In proportion as the aspirations of the Spirit are encouraged, in strictly answering proportion will the man come to feel the blessedness which is his birthright.
Tugs at its chains evermore and struggles like flame ever upwards."
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