Your Faith Is Your Fortune
| Chapter 24 |
CLAIRVOYANCE
Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? – Mark 8:18
True clairvoyance rests, not in your ability to see things beyond the range of human vision, but rather in your ability to understand that which you see.
A financial statement can be seen by anyone, but very few can read a financial statement. The capacity to interpret the statement is the mark of clear seeing or clairvoyance.
That every object, both animate and inanimate, is enveloped in a liquid light which moves and pulsates with an energy far more radiant than the objects themselves, no one knows better than the author; but he also knows that the ability to see such auras is not equal to the ability to understand that which one sees in the world around about him.
To illustrate this point, here is a story with which the whole world is familiar, yet only the true mystic or clairvoyant has ever really seen it.
SYNOPSIS
The story of Dumas’ “Count of Monte Cristo” is, to the mystic and true clairvoyant, the biography of every man.
I
Edmond Dantés, a young sailor, finds the captain of his ship dead. Taking command of the ship in the midst of a storm-swept sea, he attempts to steer the ship into a safe anchorage.
COMMENTARY Life itself is a storm-swept sea with which man wrestles as he tries to steer himself into a haven of rest.
II
On Dantés is a secret document which must be given to a man he does not know, but who will make himself known to the young sailor in due time. This document is a plan to set the Emperor Napoleon free from his prison on the Isle of Elba.
COMMENTARY
Within every man is the secret plan that will set free the mighty emperor within himself.
III
As Dantés reaches port, three men (who by their flattery and praise have succeeded in worming their way into the good graces of the present king), fearing any change that would alter their positions in the government, have the young mariner arrested and committed to the catacombs.
COMMENTARY
Man in his attempt to find security in this world is misled by the false lights of greed, vanity and power.
Most men believe that fame, great wealth or political power would secure them against the storms of life. So they seek to acquire these as the anchors of their life, only to find that in their search for these they gradually lose the knowledge of their true being. If man places his faith in things other than himself, that in which his faith is placed, will in time destroy him; at which time he will be as one imprisoned in confusion and despair.
IV
Here in this tomb, Dantés is forgotten and left to rot. Many years pass. Then one day, Dantés (who is by this time a living skeleton) hears a knock on his wall. Answering this knock, he hears the voice of one on the other side of the stone. In response to this voice, Dantés removes the stone and discovers an old priest who has been in prison so long that no one knows the reason for his imprisonment or the length of time he has been there.
COMMENTARY
Here behind these walls of mental darkness, man remains in what appears to be a living death. After years of disappointment, man turns from these false friends, and he discovers within himself the ancient one (his awareness of being) who has been buried since the day he first believed himself to be man and forgot that he was God.
V
The old priest had spent many years digging his way out of this living tomb only to discover that he had dug his way into Dantés’ tomb. He then resigns himself to his fate and decides to find his joy and freedom by instructing Dantés in all that he knows concerning the mysteries of life and to aid him to escape as well.
Dantés, at first, is impatient to acquire all this information; but the old priest, with infinite patience garnered through his long imprisonment, shows Dantés how unfit he is to receive this knowledge in his present, unprepared, anxious mind. So, with philosophic calm, he slowly reveals to the young man the mysteries of life and time.
COMMENTARY
This revelation is so wonderful that when man first hears it he wants to acquire it all at once; but he finds that, after numberless years spent in the belief of being man, he has so completely forgotten his true identity that he is now incapable of absorbing this memory all at once. He also discovers that he can do so only in proportion to his letting go of all human values and opinions.
VI
As Dantés ripens under the old priest’s instructions, the old man finds himself living more and more in the consciousness of Dantés. Finally, he imparts his last bit of wisdom to Dantés, making him competent to handle positions of trust. He then tells him of an inexhaustible treasure buried on the Isle of Monte Cristo.
COMMENTARY
As man drops these cherished human values, he absorbs more and more of the light (the old priest), until finally he becomes the light and knows himself to be the ancient one. I AM the light of the world.
VII
At this revelation, the walls of the catacomb which separated them from the ocean above cave in, crushing the old man to death. The guards, discovering the accident, sew the old priest’s body into a sack and prepare to cast it out to sea. As they leave to get a stretcher, Dantés removes the body of the old priest and sews himself into the bag. The guards, unaware of this change of bodies, and believing him to be the old man, throw Dantés into the water.
COMMENTARY
The flowing of both blood and water in the death of the old priest is comparable to the flow of blood and water from the side of Jesus as the Roman soldiers pierced him, the phenomenon which always takes place at birth (here symbolizing the birth of a higher consciousness).
VIII
Dantés frees himself from the sack, goes to the Isle of Monte Cristo and discovers the buried treasure. Then, armed with this fabulous wealth and this superhuman wisdom, he discards his human identity of Edmond Dantés and assumes the title of the Count of Monte Cristo.
COMMENTARY
Man discovers his awareness of being to be the inexhaustible treasure of the universe. In that day, when man makes this discovery, he dies as man and awakes as God.
Yes, Edmond Dantés becomes the Count of Monte Cristo. Man becomes Christ.
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