CONCLUSION
We are now in a position to see the place occupied by the individual in the
Creative Order. We have found that the originating and maintaining force of
the whole Creative Process is the Self-contemplation of the Spirit, and
that this necessarily produces a Reciprocal corresponding to the idea
embodied in the contemplation, and thus manifesting that idea in a
correlative Form. We have found that in this way the externalization of the
idea progresses from the condensation of the primary nebula to the
production of human beings as a race, and that at this point the simple
_generic_ reproduction of the idea terminates. This means that up to, and
including, _genus homo_, the individual, whether plant, animal, or man, is
what it is simply by reason of race conditions and not by exercise of
deliberate choice. Then we have seen that the next step in advance must
necessarily be by the individual becoming aware that he has power to mold
the conditions of his own consciousness and environment by the creative
power of his thought; thus not only enabling him to take a conscious part
in his own further evolution but precluding him from evolving any further
except by the right exercise of this power; and we have found that the crux
of the passage from the Fourth to the Fifth Kingdom is to get people so to
understand the nature of their creative power as not to use it
destructively. Now what we require to see is that the Creative Process has
always only one way of working, and that is by Reciprocity or Reflection,
or, as we might say, by the law of Action and Re-action, the re-action
being always equivalent and correspondent to the action which generated it.
If this Law of Reciprocity be grasped then we see how the progress of the
Creative Process must at length result in producing a being who himself
possesses the power of independent spiritual initiative and is thus able to
carry on the creative work from the stand-point of his own individuality.
Now the great crux is first to get people to see that they possess this
power at all, and then to get them to use it in the right direction. When
our eyes begin to open to the truth that we do possess this power the
temptation is to ignore the fact that our power of initiative is itself a
product of the similar power subsisting in the All-originating Spirit. If
this origin of our own creative faculty is left out of sight we shall fail
to recognize the Livingness of the Greater Life within which we live. We
shall never get nearer to it than what we may call its _generic_ level, the
stage at which the Creative Power is careful of the type or race but is
careless of the individual; and so at this level we shall never pass into
the Fifth Kingdom which is the Kingdom of Individuality--we have missed the
whole point of the transition to the more advanced mode of being, in which
the individual consciously functions as a creative center, because we have
no conception of a Universal Power that works at any higher level than the
generic, and consequently to reach a specific personal exercise of creative
power we should have to conceive of ourselves as transcending the Universal
Law. But if we realize that our own power of creative initiative has its
origin in the similar faculty of the All-Originating Mind then we see that
the way to maintain the Life-giving energy in ourselves is to use our power
of spiritual initiative so as to impress upon the Spirit the conception of
ourselves as standing related to It in a specific, individual, and personal
way that takes us out of the mere category of _genus homo_ and gives us a
specific spiritual individuality of our own. Thus our mental action
produces a corresponding re-action in the mind of the Spirit, which in its
turn reproduces itself as a special manifestation of the Life of the Spirit
in us; and so long as this circulation between the individual spirit and
the Great Spirit is kept up, the individual life will be maintained, and
will also strengthen as the circulation continues, for the reason that the
Spirit, as the Original Creative Power, is a Multiplying Force, and the
current sent into it is returned multiplied, just as in telegraphy the
feeble current received from a distance at the end of a long line operates
to start a powerful battery in the receiving office, which so multiplies
the force as to give out a clear message, which but for the multiplication
of the original movement could not have been done. Something like this we
may picture the multiplying tendency of the Originating Mind, and
consequently the longer the circulation between it and the individual mind
goes on the stronger the latter becomes; and this process growing habitual
becomes at last automatic, thus producing an endless flow of Life
continually expanding in intelligence, love, power and joy.
But we must note carefully that all this can only proceed from the
individual's recognition that his own powers are a derivative from the
All-originating Spirit, and that they can continue to be used
constructively only so long as they are employed in harmony with the
inherent Forward Movement of the Spirit. Therefore to insure this eternally
flowing stream of Life from the Universal Spirit into the individual there
must be _no inversion_ in the individual's presentation of himself to the
Originating Power: for through the very same Law by which we seek Life--the
Life namely, of reciprocal action and re-action--every inversion we bring
with us in presenting ourselves to the Spirit is bound to be faithfully
reproduced in a corresponding re-action, thus adulterating the stream of
Pure Life, and rendering it less life-giving in proportion to the extent to
which we invert the action of the Life-principle; so that in extreme cases
the stream flowing through and from the individual may be rendered
absolutely poisonous and deadly, and the more so the greater his
recognition of his own personal power to employ spiritual forces.
The existence of these negative possibilities in the spiritual world should
never be overlooked, and therefore the essential condition for receiving
the Perfect Fulness of Life is that we should present ourselves before the
Eternal Spirit free from every trace of inversion. To do this means to
present ourselves in the likeness of the Divine Ideal; and in this
self-presentation the initiative, so far as the individual is consciously
concerned, must necessarily be taken by himself. He is to project into the
Eternal Mind the conception of himself as identical with its Eternal Ideal;
and if he can do this, then by the Law of the Creative Process a return
current will flow from the Eternal Mind reproducing this image in the
individual with a continually growing power. Then the question is, How are
we to do this?
The answer is that to take the initiative for inducing this flow of Life
individually it is a _sine qua non_ that the conditions enabling us to do
so should first be presented to us universally. This is in accordance with
the general principle that we can never create a force but can only
specialize it. Only here the power we are wanting to specialize is the very
Power of Specialization itself; and therefore, paradoxical as it may seem,
what we require to have shown us is the Universality of Specialization.
Now this is what the Bible puts before us in its central figure. Taking the
Bible statements simply and literally they show us this unique Personality
as the Principle of Humanity, alike in its spiritual origin and its
material manifestation, carried to the logical extreme of specialization;
while at the same time, as the embodiment of the original polarity of
Spirit and Substance, this Personality, however unique, is absolutely
universal; so that the Bible sets Jesus Christ before us as the answer to
the philosophic problem of how to specialize the universal, while at the
same time preserving its universality.
If, then, we fix our thought upon this unique Personality as the embodiment
of _universal_ principles, it follows that those principles must exist in
ourselves also, and that His actual specialization of them is the earnest
of our potential specialization of them. Then if we fix our thought on this
potential in ourselves as being identical with its manifestation in Him, we
can logically claim our identity with Him, so that what He has done we have
done, what He is, we are, and thus recognizing ourselves in Him we present
_this_ image of ourselves to the Eternal Mind, with the result that we
bring with us no inversion, and so import no negative current into our
stream of Life.
Thus it is that we reach "the Father" through "the Son," and that He is
able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the
presence of the Divine glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24). The Gospel of
"the Word made flesh" is not the meaningless cant of some petty sect nor
yet the cunning device of priestcraft, though it has been distorted in both
these directions; but it can give a reason for itself, and is founded upon
the deepest laws of the threefold constitution of man, embracing the
_whole_ man, body, soul and spirit. It is not opposed to Science but is the
culmination of all science whether physical or mental. It is philosophical
and logical throughout if you start the Creative Process where alone it can
start, in the Self-contemplation of the Spirit. The more carefully we
examine into the claims of the Gospel of Christ the more we shall find all
the current objections to it melt away and disclose their own
superficialness. We shall find that Christ is indeed the Mediator between
God and Man, not by the arbitrary fiat of a capricious Deity, but by a
logical law of sequence which solves the problem of making extremes meet,
so that the Son of Man is also the Son of God; and when we see the reason
why this is so we thereby receive power to become ourselves sons of God,
which is the dénouement of the Creative Process in the Individual.
These closing lines are not the place to enter upon so great a subject, but
I hope to follow it up in another volume and to show in detail the logic of
the Bible teaching, what it saves us from and what it leads us to; to show
while giving due weight to the value of other systems how it differs from
them and transcends them; to glance, perhaps, for a moment at the
indications of the future and to touch upon some of the dangers of the
present and the way to escape from them. Nor would I pass over in silence
another and important aspect of the Gospel contained in Christ's commission
to His followers to heal the sick. This also follows logically from the Law
of the Creative Process if we trace carefully the sequence of connections
from the indwelling Ego to the outermost of its vehicles; while the effect
of the recognition of these great truths upon the individuality that has
for a time put off its robe of flesh, opens out a subject of paramount
interest. Thus it is that on every plane Christ is the Fulfilling of the
Law, and that "Salvation" is not a silly shiboleth but the logical and
vital process of our advance into the unfoldment of the next stage of the
limitless capacities of our being. Of these things I hope to write in
another volume, should it be permitted to me, and in the meanwhile I would
commend the present abstract statement of principles to the reader's
attention in the hope that it may throw some light on the fundamental
nature of these momentous questions. The great thing to bear in mind is
that if a thing is true at all there must be a reason why it is true, and
when we come to see this reason we know the truth at first hand for
ourselves and not from some one else's report--then it becomes really our
own and we begin to learn how to use it. This is the secret of the
individual's progress in any art, science, or business, and the same method
will serve equally well in our search after Life itself, and as we thus
follow up the great quest we shall find that on every plane the Way, the
Truth, and the Life are ONE.
"A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in
philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."--_Bacon. Essay xvi_.