Benedict M. Feken, 59, is married with six children. He is a columnist and field manager of the Cordillera Autonomous Region’s weekly newspaper Zigzag Weekly . He is a native of the Mt. Province, taught in a private school for one year and worked previously as regional information officer of the Department of Agriculture — CAR and as executive assistant to the governor.
Sometime in 1967 – I remember the year exactly – I read a book, and my life was never the same since. That may sound melodramatic but it’s true. When I got hold of the book and perused its contents, I found my entire outlook inexorably and irrevocably changing. Notions I had long held as absolute certainties became hollow platitudes. On the other hand, precepts and doctrines I had regarded as impractical exhortations issued by idealistic dreamers dwelling in some ivory tower assumed a solid verity. To state it simply, the book caused a full-blown revolution in my psyche.
Let me state at the outset that the book is not the Christian Bible or the Hindu Bhagavad Gita or the Buddhist Tripitaka or the Muslim Koran or any of the world’s major religious scriptures. It is not any of these, but it is kin to all. Kin in the sense that it treats the interior, invisible world of the soul, not the visible material world. Let me rephrase that to eliminate needless confusion: the book is concerned chiefly with man’s interior welfare rather than with his physical well-being. In short, it is a spiritual book.
The title of the book? It is The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power by Vernon Howard. Unlike most books on spirituality, it does not start by invoking God or expounding religious precepts. It ultimately mentions God but at the beginning and scrupulously avoids dogmatic pontificating. Instead it tells readers how to embark on a spiritual journey in simple, everyday terms the layman can understand. That is its greatest merit.
Howard evidently was very much aware that in this age rife with religious skepticism the conventional approach of presenting spiritual topics is guaranteed to make readers automatically switch off their interior attention knobs, hence his novel if not revolutionary approach. Had he started his book with trite religious references I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the patience to wade through even one chapter. But he wrote in such a novel and compelling way.
I should mention here that since I first learned to read I have developed the tendency to devour any book that catches my interest. The stories that first captivated my young mind were the fairy tales, particularly those delightful gems penned by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. Later on I was in thrall by the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson. That soon gave way to the western dime novels, foremost of which were on western romance and chivalry by Zane Grey. Of course, I also had more than a nodding acquaintance with the established figures in classical literature like William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Miguel Cervantes, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain and the rest.
After adolescence my literary attention shifted to a different plane of reading. I turned to how-to manuals, the self-improvement books that let you train yourself to think positively in order to win friends and influence people, get rich, become famous and obtain all sorts of worldly aggrandizement which more or less makes for human happiness.
The high guru of this genre is Dale Carnegie, whose series of self-improvement books are consistent best-sellers. Having latched on to Carnegie, I threw body and soul into carrying out his personality-building instructions with the set objective of making myself rich or famous, and, if possible, both. Propelled by the momentum of initial enthusiasm I became a virtual fanatic in preaching the virtues of positive thinking. I was such a "positive thinker" – so convinced was I by Carnegie’s precepts – I soon succeeded in making myself a nuisance to my friends and acquaintances. It got to a point where, when a group of them saw me approaching one of them was sure to remark, "Here comes Mr. Positive Thinker," and they would start drifting away in different directions.
At first Carnegie’s system seemed to work wonderfully. Look at things in a positive light and everything will turn out right. But since it maintains that everything depends on the individual himself, it was not long before the tremendous mental effort required to maintain a cheerful façade began to take its toll. At unguarded moments I would suddenly find myself engulfed in black doubts. Still I persevered. Carnegie had forewarned of such moments of temptation and urged the positive thinker to expect them as they are normal human weaknesses. But when one is young and unseasoned it is difficult to think positively when overtaken by unsettling experiences such as a humiliating failure, being blamed for something one is totally innocent of, a sudden death in the family or an unexpected disaster.
Though I put up a valiant show of resistance, the doubts multiplied like termites and started gnawing at the roots of the tree of positive thinking I was trying hard to nurture. It did not take very long before the concept of a man being able to transform himself purely by his ability to think positively began to appear as nothing more than a beautiful mirage. Still, seeing no better alternative, I plodded doggedly on. But the once-flourishing tree of my belief had started withering from the top down.
Then, The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power by Vernon Howard landed in my lap. At first I was skeptical. Having been disenchanted by the positivist books that promised so much and delivered so little, I was extremely wary about all books claiming to improve or change a person’s outlook. The blurb on this book’s cover claimed it could completely transform a person’s life – if the person made the effort. Well, that’s what they all say. The blurb also said the author is a world-renowned inspirational speaker. That may well be but the fact was I had never heard of him before – and since.
Despite my misgivings I started thumbing through the book, more out of curiosity than anything else. Immediately I saw that it was something totally different. An inner sense told me that it was an accurate guide for the earnest seeker of truth. The first thing that struck me was that its instructions were completely the opposite of those given in the self-help books by Carnegie and others.
As expounded by the gurus of self-improvement, a man’s happiness lies in his own hands. If you desire wealth, focus your mind on the acquisition of material riches. If you want fame, do the same — direct your mind and energy towards that end. The bottom line is that by constantly telling yourself that you will succeed, you will eventually convince yourself, through a sort of self-hypnosis, to harness hidden inner powers that will enable you to attain your heart’s desires.
Now here comes a book urging readers to rid themselves of all desires. But it does not state so bluntly. That would have prompted readers to brand it as impractical, if not insane. Instead it gives sets of practical instructions for the sincere reader to follow and practice. I’ll mention only one method which to me is the most revolutionary and thereby most effective. The author calls it simply "Self-Awareness" and devotes a whole chapter to it.
In practice it consists of observing everything that is happening around you and within you without getting emotionally involved. Be aware and observe everything but do not make any judgment. Detach yourself from yourself. Observe whatever is happening, both within and without, as if you are an unconcerned bystander. Let’s say you’re witnessing a riot. Automatically your adrenalin starts pumping. Maybe you feel fear, or panic, or rage. Be aware of all these but detach yourself, look at the exterior commotion and the interior turmoil it generates within you as if it’s happening to someone else. Don’t say "I am afraid" or "I am in a panic" or "I am boiling mad." Say "‘It’ is afraid," "‘It’ is angry," "‘It’ is panicky," etc. In other words, do not identify yourself with whatever you are seeing or feeling. Detach, detach, detach. Strive to be aware of everything — without any point of view. Be just an observer.
The purpose of this practice is to enable a man to see things as they are, not as he thinks or judges them to be. By seeing the true state of things, a man can begin to live in reality and leave the world of illusion. To the degree that a man sheds his illusions comprised of beliefs acquired through a lifetime, to the same degree will he advance in the world of the spirit. And it is the spirit that counts, not the material body.
Such is the way taught by the book. I cannot hope to explain it but as I progressed through its pages I found my whole outlook changing in a most profound manner. The pursuit of wealth and fame which were once my goals in life now appeared as a fool’s bad dream.
What is surprising is that the book was able to effect this transformation without preaching the conventional religious tenets. In fact, it makes no direct quotations of the well-known religious truths except obliquely. Its effectiveness lies in its method of presenting spiritual doctrines through a set of practical instructions. It does not just tell you to love your neighbor as yourself. It gives you simple instructions on how to heighten your spiritual awareness so that by yourself you will discover that loving your neighbor as yourself is not only the most sensible but the most practical way to live with your fellowman. It does not merely describe how a ripe mango fruit tastes; it puts the mango right in your mouth. What it did to me was to open my eyes in some mysterious way so that what once sounded like worn-out philosophical clichés became living truths. What it did was to remove the scales from my eyes so that I now see clearly that the things I had been running after so eagerly were shadows, liable to turn into straws the moment they were grasped. What it did was to turn my values upside down.
Of course, such a drastic change cannot happen without spawning a crisis. And a stupendous crisis was what I went through – and I came out of it a totally changed man. From then on my overriding concern in life was to find and know the truth. Gone was the allure of the world that formerly proved irresistible. Another after-effect was that I found myself naturally and effortlessly led to seek books dealing with the spiritual, and I found plenty. For I found that as in other areas of life, the sincere desire to tread the spiritual path brings with it the necessary tools or means for the pursuit. At first I read everything that purported to deal with things of the spirit. I read books on Buddhist and Hindu philosophy and even some on Sufi mysticism. Along the way I came across some occult books more suited to fakirs and exhibitionists than sincere spiritual questers. I also discovered, as others had before me, that mystics and devout seekers through the ages and of all the major world religions have identical conceptions, views and attitudes on the proper relationship of man and the source of life they call God. They use differing terminologies and approaches but the goal is the same. One spiritual writer likened the situation to several mountain climbers scaling the same peak from different bases to reach the same summit.
My quest is continuing and the goal is far from reached. But at least I am on the right path. And, right now, that is all that counts. I owe all that to The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power.
It reminded me of what Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who wrote the classic spiritual autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, said about William Blake, the English mystic-poet and artist. Writing after his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Merton said that although Blake was by no means a Catholic Christian, he nevertheless played a big role in his conversion. Rereading Blake’s works after many years in the monastery, he said, he had no more use for them since they had already served their purpose as far as his religious vocation was concerned. They had pointed him to the world of the mystical, which served as the first of many steps leading to his eventual conversion. If I may be permitted to say so, it is like a child having outgrown its stroller.
And that is exactly how I regard The Mystic Path To Cosmic Power. The author may be dead and the book out of print but I will eternally be grateful to it. It pointed me to the right path that I hope I will follow without deviation until the end of this mortal life.