OURSELVES IN THE DIVINE OFFERING
If we have grasped the principle I have endeavored to state in the last
chapter we shall find that with this new standpoint a new life and a new
world begin to open out to us. This is because we are now living from a new
recognition of ourselves and of God. Eternal Truth, that which is the
essential reality of Being, is _always_ the same; it has never altered, for
whatever is capable of passing away and giving place to something else is
not eternal, and therefore the real essence of our being, as proceeding
from God and subsisting in Him has always been the same. But this is the
very fact which we have hitherto lost sight of; and since our perception of
life is the measure of our individual consciousness of it, we have imposed
upon ourselves a world of limitation, a world filled with the power of the
negative, because we have viewed things from that standpoint. What takes
place, therefore, when we realize the truth of our Redemption is not a
change in our essential relation to the Parent Spirit, the Eternal Father,
but an awakening to the perception of this eternal and absolutely perfect
relation. We see that in reality it has never been otherwise for the simple
reason that in the very nature of Being it _could_ not be otherwise; and
when we see this we see also that what has hitherto been wrong has not been
the working of "the Father" but our conception of the existence of some
other power, a power of negation, limitation, and destructiveness, the very
opposite to all that the Creative Spirit, by the very fact of Its
Creativeness, must be. That wonderful parable of the Prodigal Son shows us
that he never ceased to be a son. It was not his Father who sent him away
from home but his notion that he could do better "on his own," and we all
know what came of it. But when he returned to the Father he found that from
the Father's point of view he had never been otherwise than a son, and that
all the trouble he had gone through was not "of the Father" but was the
result of his own failure to realize what the Father and the Home really
were.[9]
Now this is exactly the case with ourselves. When we wake up to the truth
we find that, so far as the Father is concerned, we have always been in Him
and in His home, for we are made in His image and likeness and are
reflections of His own Being. He says to us "Son, thou art ever with me and
all that I have is thine." The Self-Contemplation of Spirit is the Creative
Power creating an environment corresponding to the mode of consciousness
contemplated, and therefore in proportion as we contemplate ourselves as
centers of individualization for the Divine Spirit we find ourselves
surrounded by a new environment reflecting the harmonious conditions which
preexist in the Thought of the Spirit.
This, then, is the sequence of Cause and Effect involved in the teaching of
the Bible. Man is _in essence_ a spiritual being, the reflection on the
plane of individual personality of that which the All-Originating Spirit is
in Itself, and is thus in that reciprocal relation to the Spirit which is
Love. This is the first statement of his creation in Genesis--God saw all
that He had made and behold it was very good, Man included. Then the Fall
is the failure of the lower mentality to realize that God IS Love, in a
word that Love is the only ultimate Motive Power it is possible to
conceive, and that the creations of Love cannot be otherwise than good and
beautiful. The lower mentality conceives an opposite quality of Evil and
thus produces a motive power the opposite of Love, which is Fear; and so
Fear is born into the world giving rise to the whole brood of evil, anger,
hatred, envy, lies, violence, and the like, and on the external plane
giving rise to discordant vibrations which are the root of physical ill. If
we analyze our motives we shall find that they are always some mode either
of Love or Fear; and fear has its root in the recognition of some power
other than Perfect Love, which is God the ONE all-embracing Good. Fear has
a creative force which invertedly mimics that of Love; but the difference
between them is that Love is eternal and Fear is not. Love as the Original
Creative Motive is the only logical conclusion we can come to as to why we
ourselves or any other creation exists. Fear is illogical because to regard
it as having any place in the Original Creative Motive involves a
contradiction in terms.
By accepting the notion of a dual power, that of Good _and_ Evil, the
inverted creative working of Fear is introduced with all its attendant
train of evil things. This is the eating of the deadly tree which occasions
the Fall, and therefore the Redemption which requires to be accomplished is
a redemption from Fear--not merely from this or that particular fear but
from the very Root of Fear, which root is unbelief in the Love of God, the
refusal to believe that Love alone is the Creating Power in all things,
whether small beyond our recognition or great beyond our conception.
Therefore to bring about this Redemption there must be such a manifestation
of the Divine Love to Man as, when rightly apprehended, will leave no
ground for fear; and when we see that the Sacrifice of the Cross was the
Self-Offering of Love made in order to provide this manifestation, then we
see that all the links in the chain of Cause and Effect are complete, and
that Fear never had any place in the Creative Principle, whether as acting
in the creation of a world or of a man. The root, therefore, of all the
trouble of the world consists in the Affirmation of Negation, in using our
creative power of thought invertedly, and thus giving substance to that
which _as principle_ has no existence. So long as this negative action of
thought continues so long will it produce its natural effect; whether in
the individual or in the mass. The experience is perfectly real while it
lasts. Its unreality consists in the fact that there was never any real
need for it; and the more we grasp the truth of the all-embracingness of
the ONE Good, both as Cause and as Effect, on all planes, the more the
experience of its opposite will cease to have any place in our lives.
This truly New Thought puts us in an entirely new relation to the whole of
our environment, opening out possibilities hitherto undreamt of, and this
by an orderly sequence of law which is naturally involved in our new mental
attitude; but before considering the prospect thus offered it is well to be
quite clear as to what this new mental attitude really is; for it is our
adoption of this attitude that is the Key to the whole position. Put
briefly it is ceasing to include the idea of limitations in our conception
of the working of the All-Creating Spirit. Here are some specimens of the
way in which we limit the creative working of the Spirit. We say, I am too
old now to start this or that new sort of work. This is to deny the power
of the Spirit to vivify our physical or mental faculties, which is
illogical if we consider that it is the same Spirit that brought us into
any existence at all. It is like saying that when a lamp is beginning to
burn low the same person who first filled it with oil cannot replenish it
and make it burn brightly again. Or we say, I cannot do so and so because I
have not the means. When you were fourteen did you know where all the means
were coming from which were going to support you till now when you are
perhaps forty or fifty? So you should argue that the same power that has
worked in the past can continue to work in the future. If you say the means
came in the past quite naturally through ordinary channels, that is no
objection; on the contrary the more reason for saying that suitable
channels will open in the future. Do you expect God to put cash into your
desk by a conjuring trick? Means come through recognizable channels, that
is to say we recognize the channels by the fact of the stream flowing
through them; and one of our most common mistakes is in thinking that we
ourselves have to fix the particular channel beforehand. We say in effect
that the Spirit cannot open other channels, and so we stop them up. Or we
say, our past experience speaks to the contrary, thus assuming that our
past experiences have included all possibilities and have exhausted the
laws of the universe, an assumption which is negatived by every fresh
discovery even in physical science. And so we go on limiting the power of
the Spirit in a hundred different ways.
But careful consideration will show that, though the modes in which we
limit it are as numerous as the circumstances with which we have to deal,
the thing with which we limit it is always the same--it is by the
introduction of our own personality. This may appear at first a direct
contradiction of all that I have said about the necessity for the Personal
Factor, but it is not. Here is a paradox.
To open out into manifestation the wonderful possibilities hidden in the
Creative Power of the Universe we require to do two things--to see that we
ourselves are necessary as centers for focussing that power, and at the
same time to withdraw the thought of ourselves as contributing anything to
its efficiency. It is not I that work but the Power; yet the Power needs me
because it cannot specialize itself without me--in a word each is the
complementary of the other: and the higher the degree of specialization is
to be the more necessary is the intelligent and willing co-operation of the
individual.
This is the Scriptural paradox that "the son can do nothing of himself,"
and yet we are told to be "fellow-workers with God." It ceases to be a
paradox, however, when we realize the relation between the two factors
concerned, God and Man. Our mistake is in not discriminating between their
respective functions, and putting Man in the place of God. In our everyday
life we do this by measuring the power of God by our past experiences and
the deductions we draw from them; but there is another way of putting Man
in the place of God, and that is by the misconception that the
All-Originating Spirit is merely a cosmic force without intelligence, and
that Man has to originate the intelligence without which no specific
purpose can be conceived. This latter is the error of much of the present
day philosophy and has to be specially guarded against. This was perceived
by some of the medieval students of these things, and they accordingly
distinguished between what they called Animus Dei and Anima Mundi, the
Divine Spirit and the Soul of the Universe. Now the distinction is this,
that the essential quality of Animus Dei is Personality--not A Person, but
the very Principle of Personality itself--while the essential quality of
Anima Mundi is Impersonality. Then right here comes in that importance of
the Personal Factor of which I have already spoken. The powers latent in
the Impersonal are brought out to their fullest development by the
operation of the Personal. This of course does not consist in changing the
nature of those powers, for that is impossible, but in making such
combinations of them by Personal Selection as to produce results which
could not otherwise be obtained. Thus, for example, Number is in itself
impersonal and no one can alter the laws which are inherent in it; but what
we can do is to select particular numbers and the sort of relation, such as
subtraction, multiplication, etc., which we will establish between them;
and then by the inherent Law of Number a certain result is bound to work
out. Now our own essential quality is the consciousness of Personality; and
as we grow into the recognition of the fact that the Impersonal is, as it
were, crying out for the operation upon it of the Personal in order to
bring its latent powers into working, we shall see how limitless is the
field that thus opens before us.
The prospect is wonderful beyond our present conception, and full of
increasing glory if we realize the true foundation on which it rests. But
herein lies the danger. It consists in not realizing that the Infinite of
the Impersonal _is_ and also that the Infinite of the Personal _is_. Both
are Infinite and so require differentiation through our own personality,
but in their essential quality each is the exact balance of the other--not
in contradiction to each other, but as complementary to one another, each
supplying what the other needs for its full expression, so that the two
together make a perfect whole. If, however, we see this relation and our
own position as the connecting link between them, we shall see only
ourselves as the Personal Factor; but the more we realize, both by theory
and experience, the power of human personality brought into contact with
the Impersonal Soul of Nature, and employed with a Knowledge of its power
and a corresponding exercise of the will, the less we shall be inclined to
regard ourselves as the supreme factor in the chain of cause and effect
Consideration of this argument points to the danger of much of the present
day teaching regarding the exercise of Thought Power as a creative agency.
The principle on which this teaching is based is sound and legitimate for
it is inherent in the nature of things; but the error is in supposing that
we ourselves are the ultimate source of Personality instead of merely the
distributors and specializers of it. The logical result of such a mental
attitude is that putting ourselves in the place of all that is worshiped as
God which is spoken of in the second chapter of the Second Epistle to the
Thessalonians and other parts of Scripture. By the very hypothesis of the
case we then know no higher will than our own, and so are without any
Unifying Principle to prevent the conflict of wills which must then
arise--a conflict which must become more and more destructive the greater
the power possessed by the contending parties, and which, if there were no
counterbalancing power, must result in the ultimate destruction of the
existing race of men.
But there is a counterbalancing power. It is the very same power used
affirmatively instead of negatively. It is the power of the Personal with
the Impersonal when used under the guidance of that Unifying Principle
which the recognition of the ONE-ness of the Personal Quality in the Divine
Spirit supplies. Those who are using the creative power of thought only
from the standpoint of individual personality, have obviously less power
than those who are using it from the standpoint of the Personality inherent
in the Living Spirit which is the Source and Fountain of all energy and
substance, and therefore in the end the victory must remain with these
latter. And because the power by which they conquer is that of the Unifying
Personality itself their victory must result in the establishment of Peace
and Happiness throughout the world, and is not a power of domination but of
helpfulness and enlightenment. The choice is between these two mottoes:--
"Each for himself and Devil take the hindmost," or "God for us all." In
proportion, therefore, as we realize the immense forces dormant in the
Impersonal Soul of Nature, only awaiting the introduction of the Personal
Factor to wake them up into activity and direct them to specific purposes,
the wider we shall find the scope of the powers within the reach of man;
and the more clearly we perceive the Impersonalness of the very Principle
of Personality itself, the clearer our own proper position as affording the
Differentiating Medium between these two Infinitudes will become to us.
The Impersonalness of the Principle of Personality looks like a
contradiction in terms, but it is not. I combine these two seemingly
contradictory terms as the best way to convey to the reader the idea of the
essential Quality of Personality not yet differentiated into individual
centers of consciousness for the doing of particular work. Looked at in
this way the Infinite of Personality must have Unity of Purpose for its
foundation, for otherwise it would consist of conflicting personalities, in
which case we have not yet reached the ONE all-originating cause. Or to put
it in another way, an Infinite Personality divided against itself would be
an Infinite Insanity, a creator of a cosmic Bedlam which, as a scientific
fact, would be impossible of existence. Therefore the conception of an
Infinite of Personality necessarily implies a perpetual Unity of Purpose;
and for the same reason this Purpose can only be the fuller and fuller
expression of an Infinite Unity of Consciousness; and Unity of
Consciousness necessarily implies the entire absence of all that would
impair it, and therefore its expression can only be as Universal Harmony.
If, then, the individual realizes this true nature of the source from which
his own consciousness of personality is derived his ideas and work will be
based upon this foundation, with the result that as between ourselves peace
and good will towards men must accompany this mode of thought, and as
between us and the strictly Impersonal Soul of Nature our increasing
knowledge in that direction would mean increasing power for carrying out
our principle of peace and good will. As this perception of our relation to
the Spirit of God and the Soul of Nature spreads from individual to
individual so the Kingdom of God will grow, and its universal recognition
would be the establishing of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Perhaps the reader will ask why I say the Soul of Nature instead of saying
the material universe. The reason is that in using our creative power of
Thought we do not operate directly upon material elements--to do that is
the work of construction from without and not of creation from within. The
whole tendency of modern physical science is to reduce all matter in the
final analysis to energy working in a primary ether. Whence this energy and
this ether proceed is not the subject of physical analysis. That is a
question which cannot be answered by means of the vacuum tube or the
spectroscope. Physical science is doing its legitimate work in pushing
further and further back the unanalyzable residuum of Nature, but, however
far back, an ultimate unanalyzable residuum there must always be; and when
physical science brings us to this point it hands us over to the guidance
of psychological investigation just as in the Divina Commedia Virgil
transfers Dante to the guidance of Beatrice for the study of the higher
realms. Various rates of rapidity of motion in this primary ether,
producing various numerical combinations of positively and negatively
electrified particles, result in the formation of what we know as the
different chemical elements, and thus explains the phenomena of their
combining quantities, the law by which they join together to form new
substances only in certain exact numerical ratios. From the first movement
in the primary ether to solid substances, such as wood or iron or our own
flesh, is thus a series of vibrations in a succession of mediums, each
denser than the preceding one out of which it was concreted and from which
it receives the vibratory impulse. This is in effect what physical science
has to tell us. But to get further back we must look into the world of the
invisible, and it is here that psychological study comes to our aid. We
cannot, however, study the invisible side of Nature by working from the
outside and so at this point of our studies we find the use of the
time-honored teaching regarding the parallelism between the Macrocosm and
the Microcosm. If the Microcosm is the reproduction in ourselves of the
same principles as exist in the Macrocosm or universe in which we have our
being, then by investigating ourselves we shall learn the nature of the
corresponding invisible principles in our environment. Here, then, is the
application of the dictum of the ancient philosophy, "Know Thyself." It
means that the only place where we can study the principles of the
invisible side of Nature is in ourselves; and when we know them there we
can transfer them to the larger world around us.
In the concluding chapters of my "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science" I
have outlined the way in which the soul or mind operates upon the physical
instrument of its expression, and it resolves itself into this--that the
mental action inaugurates a series of vibrations in the etheric body which,
in their turn, induce corresponding grosser vibrations in the molecular
substance until finally mechanical action is produced on the outside. Now
transferring this idea to Nature as a whole we shall see that if our mental
action is to affect it in any way it can only be by the response of
something at the back of material substance analogous to mind in ourselves;
and that there is such a "something" interior to the merely material side
of Nature is proved by what we may call the Law of Tendency, not only in
animals and plants, but even in inorganic substances, as shown for instance
in Professor Bose's work on the Response of Metals. The universal presence
of this Law of Tendency therefore indicates the working of some
non-material and, so to say, semi-intelligent power in the material world,
a power which works perfectly accurately on its own lines so far as it
goes, that is to say in a generic manner, but which does not possess that
Personal power of _individual selection_ which is necessary to bring out
the infinite possibilities hidden in it. This is what is meant by the Soul
of Nature, and it is for this reason I employ that term instead of saying
the material universe. Which term to employ all depends on the mode of
action we are contemplating. If it is construction from without, then we
are dealing with the purely material universe. If we are seeking to bring
about results by the exercise of our mental power from within, then we are
dealing with the Soul of Nature. It is that control of the lower degree of
intelligence by the higher of which I have spoken in my Edinburgh Lectures.
If we realize what I have endeavored to make clear in the earlier portion
of this book, that the whole creation is produced by the operation of the
Divine Will upon the Soul of Nature, it will be evident that we can set no
limits to the potencies hidden in the latter and capable of being brought
out by the operation of the Personal Factor upon it; therefore, granted a
sufficiently powerful concentration of will, whether by an individual or a
group of individuals, we can well imagine the production of stupendous
effects by this agency, and in this way I would explain the statements made
in Scripture regarding the marvelous powers to be exercised by the
Anti-Christ, whether personal or collective. They are psychic powers, the
power of the Soul of Man over the Soul of Nature. But the Soul of Nature is
quite impersonal and therefore the moral quality of this action depends
entirely on the human operator. This is the point of the Master's teaching
regarding the destruction of the fig tree, and it is on this account He
adds the warning as to the necessity for clearing our heart of any
injurious feeling against others whenever we attempt to make use of this
power (Mark xi: 20-26).
According to His teaching, then, this power of controlling the Soul of
Nature by the addition of our own Personal Factor, however little we may be
able to recognize it as yet, actually exists; its employment depends on our
perception of the inner principles common to both, and it is for this
reason the ancient wisdom was summed up in the aphorism "Know thyself." No
doubt it is a wonderful Knowledge, but on analysis it will be found to be
perfectly natural. It is the Knowledge of the cryptic forces of Nature. Now
it is remarkable that this ancient maxim inscribed over the portals of the
Temple of Delphi is not to be found in the Bible. The Bible maxim is not
"Know thyself" but "Know the Lord." The great subject of Knowledge is not
ourself but "the Lord"; and herein is the great difference between the two
teachings. The one is limited by human personality, the other is based on
the Infinitude of the Divine Personality; and because of this it includes
human personality with all its powers over the Soul of Nature. It is a case
of the greater including the less; and so the whole teaching of Scripture
is directed to bringing us into the recognition of that Divine Personality
which is the Great Original in whose image and likeness we are made. In
proportion as we grow into the recognition of _this_ our own personality
will explain, and the creative power of our thought will cease to work
invertedly until at last it will work only on the same principles of Life,
Love and Liberty as the Divine Mind, and so all evil will disappear from
our world. We shall not, as some systems teach, be absorbed into Deity to
the extinction of our individual consciousness, but on the contrary our
individual consciousness will continually expand, which is what St. Paul
means when he speaks of our "increasing with the increase of God"--the
continual expanding of the Divine element within us. But this can only take
place by our recognition of ourselves as _receivers_ of this Divine
element. It is receiving into ourselves of the Divine Personality, a result
not to be reached through human reasoning. We reason from premises which we
have assumed, and the conclusion is already involved in the premises and
can never extend beyond them. But we can only select our premises from
among things that we know by experience, whether mental or physical, and
accordingly our reasoning is always merely a new placing of the old things.
But the receiving of the Divine Personality into ourselves is an entirely
New Thing, and so cannot be reached by reasoning from old things. Hence if
this Divine ultimate of the Creative Process is to be attained it must be
by the Revelation of a New Thing which will afford a new starting-point for
our thought, and this New Starting-point is given in the Promise of "the
Seed of the Woman" with which the Bible opens. Thenceforward this Promise
became the central germinating thought of those who based themselves upon
it, thus constituting them a special race, until at last when the necessary
conditions had matured the Promised Seed appeared in Him of whom it is
written that He is the express image of God's Person (Heb. I: 3)--that is,
the Expression of that Infinite Divine Personality of which I have spoken.
"No man hath seen God at any time or can see Him," for the simple reason
that Infinitude cannot be the subject of vision. To become visible there
must be Individualization, and therefore when Philip said "Show us the
Father," Jesus replied, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The
Word must become flesh before St. John could say, "That which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we
have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life." This is
the New Starting-point for the true New Thought--the New Adam of the New
Race, each of whom is a new center for the working of the Divine Spirit.
This is what Jesus meant when he said, "Except ye eat the flesh and drink
the blood of the Son of Man ye have no life in you. My flesh is meat
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed--" such a contemplation of the Divine
Personality in Him as will cause a like receiving of the Divine Personality
into individualization in ourselves--this is the great purpose of the
Creative Process in the individual. It terminates the old series which
began with birth after the flesh and inaugurates a New Series by birth
after the Spirit, a New Life of infinite unfoldment with glorious
possibilities beyond our highest conception.
But all this is logically based upon our recognition of the Personalness of
God and of the relation of our individual personality to this Eternal and
Infinite Personality, and the result of this is Worship--not an attempt to
"butter up" the Almighty and get Him into good temper, but the reverent
contemplation of what this Personality must be in Itself; and when we see
it to be that Life, Love, Beauty, etc., of which I spoke at the beginning
of this book we shall learn to love Him for what He IS, and our prayer will
be "Give me more of Thyself." If we realize the great truth that the
Kingdom of Heaven is _within_ us, that it is the Kingdom of the innermost
of our own being and of all creation, and if we realize that this innermost
is the place of the Originating Power where Time and Space do not exist and
therefore antecedent to all conditions, then we shall see the true meaning
of Worship. It is the perception of the Innermost Spirit as eternally
subsisting independently of all conditioned manifestation, so that in the
true worship our consciousness is removed from the outer sphere of
existence to the innermost center of unconditioned being. There we find the
Eternal Being of God pure and simple, and we stand reverently in this
Supreme Presence knowing that it is the Source of our own being, and wrapt
in the contemplation of This, the conditioned is seen to flow out from It.
Perceiving this the conditioned passes out of our consideration, for it is
seen not to be the Eternal Reality--we have reached that level of
consciousness where Time and Space remain no longer. Yet the reverence
which the vision of this Supreme Center of all Being cannot fail to inspire
is coupled with a sense of feeling quite at home with It. This is because
as the Center of _all_ Being it is the center of our own being also. It is
one-with-ourselves. It is recognizing Itself from our own center of
consciousness; so that here we have got back to that Self-contemplation of
Spirit which is the first movement of the Creating Power, only now this
Self-contemplation is the action of the All-Originating Spirit upon Itself
from the center of our own consciousness. So this worship in the Temple of
the Innermost is at once reverent adoration and familiar intercourse--not
the familiarity that breeds contempt, but a familiarity producing Love,
because as it increases we see more clearly the true Life of the Spirit as
the continual interaction of Love and Beauty, and the Spirit's recognition
of ourselves as an integral portion of Its own Life. This is not an
unpractical dreamy speculation but has a very practical bearing. Death will
some day cease to be, for the simple reason that Life alone can be the
enduring principle; but we have not yet reached this point in our
evolution. Whether any in this generation will reach it I cannot say; but
for the rank and file of us the death of the body seems to be by far the
more probable event. Now what must this passing out of the body mean to us?
It must mean that we find ourselves without the physical vehicle which is
the instrument through which our consciousness comes in touch with the
external world and all the interests of our present daily life. But the
mere putting off of the body does not of itself change the mental attitude;
and so if our mind is entirely centered upon these passing interests and
external conditions the loss of the instrument by which we held touch with
them must involve a consciousness of desire for the only sort of life we
have known coupled with a consciousness of our inability to participate in
it, which can only result in a consciousness of distress and confusion such
as in our present state we cannot imagine.
On the other hand if we have in this world realized the true principle of
the Worship of the Eternal Source from which all conditioned life flows
out--an inner communing with the Great Reality--we have already passed
beyond that consciousness of life which is limited by Time and Space; and
so when we put off this mortal body we shall find ourselves upon familiar
ground, and therefore not wandering in confusion but quite at home,
dwelling in the same light of the Eternal in which we have been accustomed
to dwell as an atmosphere enveloping the conditioned life of to-day. Then
finding ourselves thus at home on a plane where Time and Space do not exist
there will be no question with us of duration. The consciousness will be
simply that of peaceful, happy being. That a return to more active personal
operation will eventually take place is evidenced by the fact that the
basis of all further evolution is the differentiating of the
Undifferentiated Life of the Spirit into specific channels of work, through
the intermediary of individual personality without which the infinite
potentialities of the Creative Law cannot be brought to light. Therefore,
however various our opinions as to its precise form, Resurrection as a
principle is a necessity of the creative process. But such a return to more
active life will not mean a return to limitations, but the opening of a new
life in which we shall transcend them all, because we have passed beyond
the misconception that Time and Space are of the Essence of Life. When the
misconception regarding Time and Space is entirely eradicated all other
limitations must disappear because they have their root in this primary
one--they are only particular forms of the general proposition. Therefore
though Form with its accompanying relations of Time and Space is necessary
for manifestation, these things will be found not to have any force in
themselves thus creating limitation, but to be the reflection of the mode
of thought which projects them as the expression of itself.
Nor is there any inherent reason why this process should be delayed till
some far-off future. There is no reason why we should not commence at once.
No doubt our inherited and personally engendered modes of thought make this
difficult, and by the nature of the process it will be only when _all_ our
thoughts are conformed to this principle that the complete victory will be
won. But there must be a commencement to everything, and the more we
habituate ourselves to live in that Center of the Innermost where
conditions do not exist, the more we shall find ourselves gaining control
over outward conditions, because the stream of conditioned life flows out
from the Center of Unconditioned Life, and therefore this intrinsic
principle of Worship has in it the promise both of the life that now is and
of that which is to come. Only we must remember that the really availing
worship is that of the Undifferentiated Source _because It is the Source,_
and not as a backhanded way of diverting the stream into some petty channel
of conditions, for that would only be to get back to the old circle of
limitation from which we are seeking to escape.
But if we realize these things we have already laid hold of the Principle
of Resurrection, and in point of principle we are already living the
resurrection life. What progress we may make in it depends on our practical
application of the principle; but simply as principle there is nothing in
the principle itself to prevent its complete working at any moment. This is
why Jesus did not refer resurrection to some remote point of time but said,
"I am the resurrection and the life." No principle can carry in itself an
opposite and limiting principle contradictory of its own nature, and this
is as true of the Principle of Life as of any other principle. It is we who
by our thought introduce an opposite and limiting principle and so hinder
the working of the principle we are seeking to bring into operation; but so
far as the Principle of Life itself is concerned there is _in it_ no reason
why it should not come into perfect manifestation here and now.
This, then, is the true purpose of worship. It is to bring us into
conscious and loving intercourse with the Supreme Source of our own being,
and seeing this we shall not neglect the outward forms of worship. From
what we now know they should mean more to us than to others and not less;
and in especial if we realize the manifestation of the Divine Personality
in Jesus Christ and its reproduction in Man, we shall not neglect His last
command to partake of that sacred memorial to His flesh and blood which He
bequeathed to His followers with the words "This do in remembrance of Me."
This holy rite is no superstitious human invention. There are many theories
about it, and I do not wish to combat any of them, for in the end they all
seem to me to bring us to the same point, that being cleansed from sin by
the Divine Love we are now no longer separate from God but become
"partakers of the Divine-Nature" (II Peter I: 4). This partaking of the
Divine Nature could not be more accurately represented than by our
partaking of bread and wine as symbols of the Divine Substance and the
Divine Life, thus made emblematic of the whole Creative Process from its
beginning in the Divine Thought to its completion in the manifestation of
that Thought as Perfected Man; and so it brings vividly before us the
remembrance of the Personality of God taking form as the Son of Man. We are
all familiar with the saying that thoughts become things; and if we affirm
the creative power of our own thought as reproducing itself in outward
form, how much more must we affirm the same of that Divine Thought which
brings the whole universe into existence; so that in accordance with our
own principles the Divine Idea of Man was logically bound to show itself in
the world of time and space as the Son of God and the Son of man, not two
differing natures but one complete whole, thus summing up the foundation
principle of all creation in one Undivided Consciousness of Personality.
Thus "the Word" or Divine Thought of Man "became flesh," and our partaking
of the symbolic elements keeps in our remembrance the supreme truth that
this same "Word" or Thought of God in like manner takes form in ourselves
as we open our own thought to receive it. And further, if we realize that
throughout the universe there is only ONE Originating Life, sending forth
only ONE Original Substance as the vehicle for its expression, then it
logically follows that _in essence_ the bread is a portion of the eternal
Substance of God, and the wine a portion of the eternal Life of God. For
though the wine is of course also a part of the Universal Substance, we
must remember that the Universal Substance is itself a manifestation of the
Life of the All-Creating Spirit, and therefore this fluid form of the
primary substance has been selected as representing the eternal flowing of
the Life of the Spirit into all creation, culminating in its supreme
expression in the consciousness of those who, in the recognition of these
truths, seek to bring their heart into union with the Divine Spirit. From
such considerations as these it will be seen how vast a field of thought is
covered by Christ's words "Do this in remembrance of Me."
In conclusion, therefore, do not let yourselves be led astray by any
philosophy that denies the Personality of God. In the end it will be found
to be a foolish philosophy. No other starting-point of creation is
conceivable than the Self-Contemplation of the Divine Spirit, and the
logical sequence from this brings us to the ultimate result of the Creative
Process in the statement that "if any man be in Christ he is a New
creature," or as the margin has it "a new creation" (II Cor. v: 17). Such
vain philosophies have only one logical result which is to put _yourself_
in the place of God, and then what have you to lean upon in the hour of
trial? It is like trying to climb up a ladder that is resting against
nothing. Therefore, says the Apostle Paul, "Beware lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of man, after the
rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." (Col. II: 8.) The teaching
of the Bible is sound philosophy, sound reasoning, and sound science
because it starts with the sound premises that all Creation proceeds out of
God, and that Man is made in the image and likeness of his Creator. It
nowhere departs from the Law of Cause and Effect, and by the orderly
sequence of this law it brings us at last to the New Creation both in
ourselves and in our environment, so that we find the completion of the
Creative Process in the declaration "the tabernacle of God is with men"
(Rev. xxi: 3), and in the promise "This is the Covenant that I will make
with them after those days (i.e., the days of our imperfect apprehension of
these things) saith the Lord, I will dwell _in them_, and walk _in them_,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and I will put my
laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their
sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb. x: 16. II Cor. vi:
16. Jeremiah xxxi: 33).
Truly does Bacon say, "A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to
atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
--Bacon, Essay, xvi.
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1: See my Doré Lectures, 1909.
Footnote 2: See my Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science.
Footnote 3: See my Doré Lectures, 1909.
Footnote 4: For the relation between conscious and sub-conscious mind see
my "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science."
Footnote 5: See "Self-Synthesis" by Dr. Cornwall Round.
Footnote 6: For the relation between subjective and objective mind see my
"Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science."
Footnote 7: This view, it may be remarked, is not necessarily
incompatible with the conception of reincarnation, on which theory the
final resurrection or transmutation of the body would terminate the series
of successive lives and deaths, thus bringing the individual out of the
circle of generation, which is the circle of Karma. I may, perhaps, have
the opportunity of considering this subject on some future occasion.
Footnote 8: See my "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning."
Footnote 9: See "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning" by the present author.