Who Are You? Where Are
You Going? How Are You Going?
John Garrigues
John Garrigues
John
Garrigues (1868-1944)
The humblest of men can reverence the
reality of that in him he calls his “self.” Nor is any human being, however low
in station, debarred from acting as he sees fit - according to the law as he
understands it. And no man lives without desire, without a hunger or inchoate
longing that that which is shall be made better, that his labors shall bear
fruit.
These are the
eternal truths of man’s soul existence,
lacking which no understanding of the human being is possible. Wherever there
is man, be he pariah or Buddha, there is a being capable of Self-Knowledge,
capable of action, capable of envisioning an objective to his actions.
The Buddha has
realized his potentialities, but he is no more a man than the suffering outcaste. Fire is fire, whether it sputter
tremulously at a splinter’s end, or roar in the holocaust of a mighty furnace.
Fire is fire, and man is man; the great man,
the Mahatma, is one who has extended his humanity until he lives and breathes
in all, as all of nature lives and breathes in him.
Three questions
Life asks of every man, which only he can answer. Who are you? Where are you
going? How are you going? No one can tell another these three secrets, because
each one is for himself the mystery, the veil, and the holy of holies.
When a man knows
the first answer, he forgets himself. When he learns the second, he sees as one
his origin, his path, his destination. And then he needs no more to find the
way, for wherever the path extends, he is there.
Before these
questions can be answered, they must be heard. Nature writes them in every
blade of grass, in every drop of moisture; they are inscribed in the very
texture of existence. But only the soul can read them aloud to the wondering
mind.
Theosophy can say,
“There are three questions”. Theosophy can say, “Each man must ask and find the
answers for himself”. Theosophy can say, “There are those who Know”.
But to hear the
Song of Life is not enough. It is not even a beginning. We have to sing.
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The above text is reproduced from the
August 2012 edition of “The Aquarian
Theosophist”, p. 5. It was first published anonymously at “Theosophy” magazine, Los Angeles,
February 1938 edition, p. 145. Original title: “Three Questions”.
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