THE PERSONAL FACTOR
I have already pointed out that the presence of a single all-embracing
Cosmic Mind is an absolute necessity for the existence of any creation
whatever, for the reason that if each individual mind were an entirely
separate center of perception, not linked to all other minds by a common
ground of underlying mentality independent of all individual action, then
no two persons would see the same thing at the same time, in fact no two
individuals would be conscious of living in the same world. If this were
the case there would be no common standard to which to refer our
sensations; and, indeed, coming into existence with no consciousness of
environment except such as we could form by our own unaided thought, and
having by the hypothesis no standard by which to form our thoughts, we
could not form the conception of any environment at all, and consequently
could have no recognition of our own existence. The confusion of thought
involved even in the attempt to state such a condition shows it to be
perfectly inconceivable, for the simple reason that it is
self-contradictory and self-destructive. On this account it is clear that
our own existence and that of the world around us necessarily implies the
presence of a Universal Mind acting on certain _fixed lines of its own_
which establish the basis for the working of all individual minds. This
paramount action of the Universal Mind thus sets an unchangeable standard
by which all individual mental action must eventually be measured, and
therefore our first concern is to ascertain what this standard is and to
make it the basis of our own action.
But if the independent existence of a common standard of reference is
necessary for our self-recognition simply as inhabitants of the world we
live in, then _a fortiori_ a common standard of reference is necessary for
our recognition of the unique place we hold in the Creative Order, which is
that of introducing the Personal Factor without which the possibilities
contained in the great Cosmic Laws would remain undeveloped, and the
Self-contemplation of Spirit could never reach those infinite unfoldments
of which it is logically capable.
The evolution of the Personal Factor is therefore the point with which we
are most concerned. As a matter of fact, whatever theories we may hold to
the contrary, we do all realize the same cosmic environment in the same
way; that is to say, our minds all act according to certain generic laws
which underlie all our individual diversities of thought and feeling. This
is so because we are made that way and cannot help it. But with the
Personal Factor the case is different. A standard is no less necessary, but
we are not so made as to conform to it automatically. The very conception
of automatic conformity to a _personal_ standard is self-contradictory, for
it does away with the very thing that constitutes personality, namely
freedom of volition, the use of the powers of Initiative and Selection. For
this reason conformity to the Standard of Personality must be a matter of
choice, which amounts to the same thing as saying that it rests with each
individual to form his own conception of a standard of Personality; but
which liberty, however, carries with it the inevitable result that we shall
bring into manifestation the _conditions_ corresponding to the sort of
personality we accept as our normal standard.
I would draw attention to the words "Normal Standard." What we shall
eventually attain is, not what we merely wish, but what we regard as
normal. The reason is that since we sub-consciously know ourselves to be
based upon the inherent Law of the Universal Mind we feel, whether we can
reason it out or not, that we cannot force the All-producing Mind to work
contrary to its own inherent qualities, and therefore we intuitively
recognize that we cannot transcend the sort of personality which is normal
according to the Law of Universal Mind. This thought is always at the back
of our mind and we cannot get away from it for the simple reason that it is
inherent in our mental constitution, because our mind is itself a product
of the Creative Process; and to suppose ourselves transcending the
possibilities contained in the Originating Mind would involve the absurdity
of supposing that we can get the greater out of the less.
Nevertheless there are some who try to do so, and their position is as
follows. They say in effect, I want to transcend the standard of humanity
as I see it around me. But this is the normal standard according to the Law
of the Universe, therefore I have to get above the Law of the Universe.
Consequently I cannot draw the necessary power from that Law, and so there
is nowhere else to get it except from myself. Thus the aspirant is thrown
back upon his own individual will as the ultimate power, with the result
that the onus lies on him of concentrating a force sufficient to overcome
the Law of the Universe. There is thus continually present to him a
suggestion of struggle against a tremendous opposing force, and as a
consequence he is continually subjecting himself to a strain which grows
more and more intense as he realizes the magnitude of the force against
which he is contending. Then as he begins to realize the inequality of the
struggle he seeks for extraneous aid, and so he falls back on various
expedients, all of which have this in common that they ultimately amount to
invoking the assistance of other individualities, not seeing that this
involves the same fallacy which has brought him to his present straits, the
fallacy, namely, of supposing that any individuality can develop a power
greater than that of the source from which itself proceeds. The fallacy is
a radical one; and therefore all efforts based upon it are fore-doomed to
ultimate failure, whether they take the form of reliance on personal force
of will, or magical rites, or austerity practised against the body, or
attempts by abnormal concentration to absorb the individual in the
universal, or the invocation of spirits, or any other method--the same
fallacy is involved in them all, that the less is larger than the greater.
Now the point to be noted is that the idea of transcending the present
conditions of humanity does not necessarily imply the idea of transcending
the normal law of humanity. The mistake we have hitherto made has been in
fixing the Standard of Personality too low and in taking our past
experiences as measuring the ultimate possibilities of the race. Our
liberty consists in our ability to form our own conception of the Normal
Standard of Personality, only subject to the conditions arising out of the
inherent Law of the underlying Universal Mind; and so the whole thing
resolves itself into the question, What are those fundamental conditions?
The Law is that we cannot transcend the Normal; therefore comes the
question, What is the Normal?
I have endeavored to answer this question in the chapter on the Divine
Ideal, but since this is the crucial point of the whole subject we may
devote a little further attention to it. The Normal Standard of Personality
must necessarily be the reproduction in Individuality of what the Universal
Mind is in itself, because, by the nature of the Creative Process, this
standard results from Spirit's Self-contemplation at the stage where its
recognition is turned toward its own power of Initiative and Selection. At
this stage Spirit's Self-recognition has passed beyond that of
Self-expression through a mere Law of Averages into the recognition of what
I have ventured to call its Artistic Ability; and as we have seen that
Self-recognition at any stage can only be attained by the realization of a
_relation_ stimulating that particular sort of consciousness, it follows
that for the purpose of this further advance expression through individuals
of a corresponding type is a necessity. Then by the Law of Reciprocity such
beings must possess powers similar to those contemplated in itself by the
Originating Spirit, in other words they must be in their own sphere the
image and likeness of the Spirit as it sees itself.
Now we have seen that the Creating Spirit necessarily possesses the powers
of Initiative and Selection. These we may call its _active_ properties--the
summing up of what it _does_. But what any power does depends on what it
_is_, for the simple reason that it cannot give out what it does not
contain; therefore at the back of the initiative and selective power of the
Spirit we must find what the Spirit _is_, namely, what are its
_substantive_ properties. To begin with it must be Life. Then because it is
Life it must be Love, because as the undifferentiated Principle of Life it
cannot do otherwise than tend to the fuller development of life in each
individual, and the pure motive of giving greater enjoyment of life is
Love. Then because it is Life guided by Love it must also be Light, that is
to say, the primary all-inclusive perception of boundless manifestations
yet to be. Then from this proceeds Power, because there is no opposing
force at the level of Pure Spirit; and therefore Life urged forward by Love
or the desire for recognition, and by Light or the pure perception of the
Law of Infinite Possibility, must necessarily produce Power, for the simple
reason that under these conditions it could not stop short of action, for
that would be the denial of the Life, Love, and Light which it is. Then
because the Spirit is Life, Love, Light, and Power, it is also Peace, again
for a very simple reason, that being the Spirit of the Whole it cannot set
one part in antagonism against another, for that would be to destroy the
wholeness. Next the Spirit must be Beauty, because on the same principle of
Wholeness it must duly proportion every part to every other part, and the
due proportioning of all parts is beauty. And lastly the Spirit must be
Joy, because, working on these lines, it cannot do otherwise than find
pleasure in the Self-expression which its works afford it, and in the
contemplation of the limitlessness of the Creative Process by which each
realized stage of evolution, however excellent, is still the stepping-stone
to something yet more excellent, and so on in everlasting progression.
For these reasons we may sum up the Substantive Being of the
All-originating Spirit as Life, Love, Light, Power, Peace, Beauty, and Joy;
and its Active Power as that of Initiative and Selection. These, therefore,
constitute the basic laws of the underlying universal mentality which sets
the Standard of Normal Personality--a standard which, when seen in this
light, transcends the utmost scope of our thought, for it is nothing else
than the Spirit of the Infinite Affirmative conceived in Human Personality.
This standard is therefore that of the Universal Spirit itself reproduced
in Human Individuality by the same Law of Reciprocity which we have found
to be the fundamental law of the Creative Process--only now we are tracing
the action of this Law in the Fifth Kingdom instead of in the Fourth.
This Standard, then, we may call the Universal Principle of Humanity, and
having now traced the successive steps by which it is reached from the
first cosmic movement of the Spirit in the formation of the primary nebula,
we need not go over the old ground again, and may henceforward take this
Divine Principle of Humanity as our Normal Standard and make it the
starting point for our further evolution. But how are we to do this? Simply
by using the one method of Creative Process, that is, the
Self-contemplation of Spirit. We now know ourselves to be Reciprocals of
the Divine Spirit, centers in which It finds a fresh standpoint for
Self-contemplation; and so the way to rise to the heights of this Great
Pattern is by contemplating it as the Normal Standard of our own
Personality.
And be it noted that the Pattern thus set before us is Universal. It is the
embodiment of all the great principles of the Affirmative, and so in no way
interferes with our own particular individuality--_that_ is something built
up upon this foundation, something additional affording the differentiating
medium through which this unifying Principle finds variety of expression,
therefore we need be under no apprehension lest by resting upon this
Pattern we should become less ourselves. On the contrary the recognition of
it sets us at liberty to become more fully ourselves because we know that
we are basing our development, not upon the strength of our own unaided
will, nor yet upon any sort of extraneous help, but upon the Universal Law
itself, manifesting through us in the proper sequence of the Creative
Order; so that we are still dealing with Universal principles, only the
principle by which we are now working is the Universal Principle of
Personality.
I wish the student to get this idea very clearly because this is really the
crux of the passage from the Fourth Kingdom into the Fifth. The great
problem of the future of evolution is the introduction of the Personal
Factor. The reason why this is so is very simple when we see it. To take a
thought from my own "Doré Lectures" we may put it in this way. In former
days no one thought of building ships of iron because iron does not float;
yet now ships are seldom built of anything else, though the relative
specific gravities of iron and water remain unchanged. What has changed is
the Personal Factor. It has expanded to a more intelligent perception of
the law of flotation, and we now see that wood floats and iron sinks, both
of them by the same principle working under opposite conditions, the law,
namely, that anything will float which bulk for bulk is lighter than the
volume of water displaced by it, so that by including in our calculations
the displacement of the vessel as well as the specific gravity of the
material, we now make iron float by the very same law by which it sinks.
This example shows that the function of the Personal Factor is to analyze
the manifestations of Law which are spontaneously afforded by Nature and to
discover the Universal Affirmative Principle which lies hidden within them,
and then by the exercise of our powers of Initiative and Selection to
provide such specialized conditions as will enable the Universal Principle
to work in perfectly new ways transcending anything in our past experience.
This is how all progress has been achieved up to the present; and is the
way in which all progress must be achieved in the future, only for the
purpose of evolution, or growth from within, we must transfer the method to
the spiritual plane.
The function, then, of the Personal Factor in the Creative Order is to
provide specialized conditions by the use of the powers of Selection and
Initiative, a truth indicated by the maxim "Nature unaided fails"; but the
difficulty is that if enhanced powers were attained by the whole population
of the world without any common basis for their use, their promiscuous
exercise could only result in chaotic confusion and the destruction of the
entire race. To introduce the creative power of the Individual and at the
same time avoid converting it into a devastating flood is the great problem
of the transition from the Fourth Kingdom into the Fifth. For this purpose
it becomes necessary to have a Standard of the Personal Factor independent
of any individual conceptions, just as we found that in order for us to
attain self-consciousness at all it was a necessity that there should be a
Universal Mind as the _generic_ basis of all individual mentality; only in
regard to the generic build of mind the conformity is necessarily
automatic, while in regard to the specializing process the fact that the
essence of that process is Selection and Initiative renders it impossible
for the conformity to the Standard of Personality to be automatic--the very
nature of the thing makes it a matter of individual choice.
Now a Standard of Personality independent of individual conceptions must be
the _essence_ of Personality as distinguished from individual
idiosyncrasies, and can therefore be nothing else than the Creative Life,
Love, Beauty, etc., viewed as a Divine Individuality, by identifying
ourselves with which we eliminate all possibility of conflict with other
personalities based on the same fundamental recognition; and the very
universality of this Standard allows free play to all our particular
idiosyncrasies while at the same time preventing them from antagonizing the
fundamental principles to which we have found that the Self-contemplation
of the Originating Spirit must necessarily give rise. In this way we attain
a Standard of Measurement for our own powers. If we recognize no such
Standard our development of spiritual powers, our discovery of the immense
possibilities hidden in the inner laws of Nature and of our own being, can
only become a scourge to ourselves and others, and it is for this reason
that these secrets are so jealously guarded by those who know them, and
that over the entrance to the temple are written the words "Eskato
Bebeloi"--"Hence ye Profane."
But if we recognize and accept this Standard of Measurement then we need
never fear our discovery of hidden powers either in ourselves or in Nature,
for on this basis it becomes impossible for us to misuse them. Therefore it
is that all systematic teaching on these subjects begins with instruction
regarding the Creative Order of the Cosmos, and then proceeds to exhibit
the same Order as reproduced on the plane of Personality and so affording a
fresh starting point for the Creative Process by the introduction of
Individual Initiative and Selection. This is the doctrine of the Macrocosm
and the Microcosm; and the transition from the generic working of the
Creative Spirit in the Cosmos to its specific working in the Individual is
what is meant by the doctrine of the Octave.