What is Eschatology? Discussion

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DISCUSSION

IT has been my experience as a teacher that beginners in metaphysics are somewhat at sea regarding the nature of the subject. Many have the impression that it has to do with religion; others expect to find a kind of black magic, something mysterious and occult, something to be studied in secret and whispered about.

True metaphysics is not black magic, neither is it mysterious and occult, neither is it religion; and if you hold any or all of these wrong impressions remember, please, that you have gathered them, not from Eschatology, but from other fields.

There are many, many cults and isms being formed and promulgated today, nearly all of them claiming to be schools of metaphysics; nearly all claiming to be sciences, not religions; many claiming to be the very same wisdom known to the ancients; all claiming a great deal more than they will ever be able to live up to.

If there is confusion in your mind, then, as to what is and what is not true metaphysics; what is and what is not the one and only true way to gain a happier, more abundant life, surely it is not surprising. The surprising thing is, rather, that after hearing contradictory claims from so many of these sources of "all wisdom," you have not discarded the whole idea and gone back to the (seeming) safety of the pill box and the pew.

Possibly you have done just that — gone back to the old rut — but possibly that insistent something inside you keeps telling you that somewhere the truth is to be found. On the other hand, this booklet may contain the first word you have ever read on the subject of metaphysics.

Be it as it may, if you have read this far you must be of the frame of mind that is willing to admit the premise that there is something better in life for us than endless laboring for existence, endless dosing for fitness, endless mystery about the whys and wherefores of the universe over which we, on good authority, are supposed to have dominion.

It is the purpose of this booklet to introduce to you the science of Eschatology, to show you the relation of this science to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, on which it draws freely and frankly.

Right here it would be well to say that you must not allow yourself to be misled by the mention of the teachings of Jesus into thinking that because it makes use of the Scriptures, Eschatology is "just another religion." That is not so. It is unfortunately true that the science hidden in the recorded teachings of Jesus went for centuries undiscovered because of the veil of misunderstanding drawn over it by the various religious organizations. Remember, an individual may, at the cost of great personal labor and sacrifice, give to the world a priceless treasure; but what the world does with that treasure is the world's doing, and not the doing of the individual donor.

History implies that Jesus had to study, even as you and I, under human teachers; taking from each teacher all that that teacher could give, adding up the good and true, discarding the errors; working, working, working, until at last he understood a sufficient portion of the truth to begin teaching.

What Jesus gave the world is so filled with truth and good that it has survived the ravages of time and the awkward handling of those very ones who have pledged their lives to the spreading of it. Fortunately, that which is good and true is real and is everlasting and cannot be destroyed. For that reason alone, and in spite of the fact that religion has so long obscured the science of life as taught by Jesus, that science is still with us and is available today, under the name of Eschatology.

In Eschatology there is no organization, hence no politics, no finance, no formal discipline, no ritual, no by-laws. There is nothing to join. Simply a pure science of life; a living, growing, science of life. A science, the surface of which has no more than been scratched; a field of endeavor in which there is room for you to work on equal footing with all the rest of us, in your own home, on your own time.

In Eschatology you will never be called upon to say an unkind word to or about any doctor of medicine or any minister of any religion. Though you will learn to disagree most heartily with them, you will learn also to love them for their devotion to their work and to their fellow men. We have no fight with anyone. We learn to love our neighbors for the good we know to be in them.

Eschatology, therefore, while it is a pure and an exact science, is not a cold science. It is a science in which love is given its rightful place as the most important element of life. Brotherly love, and love of fellow men takes on real meaning here as it does nowhere else—not in mere speaking of the words on Sunday, but in every day practice and in every day living.