Nonagase Banka: Stream in Early Summer, 1918.
Shallow Brooks Are Noisy
First published in The All-Seeing Eye. April 1924
By Manly Hall
Have you ever stopped to consider how much valuable energy is wasted in tears, repentances, and wailings by individuals who follow blind alleys of sorrow, all of which lead to oblivion? At a moment when a great crisis presents itself energy should be conserved; when one who has long meant to us something which words cannot describe is taken away by the hand of death or our illusions are broken by grim reality and people raised upon pedestals have come tumbling down, when we are confronted with problems requiring the coolest calculation and the most discerning reason–about that time we collapse, heart-broken, and howling like a three-year-old child. The salt of life loses its savor, there is a total eclipse of hope, and we allow whatever energy remaining to trickle out of us in cold sweats or pour down our faces like a spring freshet in the mountains. As the result of this we are sick afterwards, all used up, and make the very worst possible decisions on all matters of importance.
Let the teachings on being emotionless from the East answer this problem. We may be called cruel and heartless because we do not drench our handkerchief and our neighbor's shoulder when someone dies, but we will find ourselves of a great deal more use in the long run if we are the only person present who has retained even the shadow of self-possession and is capable of issuing the necessary command at the critical moment.
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Let the teachings on being emotionless from the East answer this problem. We may be called cruel and heartless because we do not drench our handkerchief and our neighbor's shoulder when someone dies, but we will find ourselves of a great deal more use in the long run if we are the only person present who has retained even the shadow of self-possession and is capable of issuing the necessary command at the critical moment.
...
Subscribe to the New PRS Journal to read on...
Nothing comes from nothing. Manly Hall’s vision for the All-Seeing Eye was entirely supported by contributions from its readers who paid for their subscription with gifts made according to their means. Manly Hall wrote,
“This magazine is published and distributed privately to those who make possible with their financial support its publication. The magazine cannot be bought and has no fixed value. Like all of the ancient teachings which it seeks to promulgate, it has no comparative value, but the students must support it for its own intrinsic merit.”
