TRANSFERRING THE BURDEN
The more we grow into a clear perception of what is really meant by
"Squaring the Circle," the freer we shall find ourselves from the burden
of anxiety. We shall rise to a larger generalization of the Law of Cause
and Effect. We shall learn in all things to reach out to First Cause as
operating through the channels of secondary causation,--"causa causas"
as producing, and therefore controlling "causa causata"--and so we cease
to worry about secondary causes. On the plane of the lower personality
we see certain facts, and argue that they are bound to produce certain
results, which would be quite true if we really saw _all_ the facts; or,
again, allowing that in any particular case we actually did see all the
facts as they now exist, we can either deny the operation of First
Cause, or recognize its infinite capacity for creating new facts.
Therefore, whatever may be the nature of our anxiety, we should
endeavour to dispel it by the consideration that there may be already
existing other facts we do not know of, which will produce a different
result from the one we fear, and that in any case there is a power which
can produce new facts in answer to our appeal to it.
But I can imagine some one saying to us, "You bumptious little midget,
do you think First Cause is going to trouble Itself about you and your
petty concerns? Do you not know that First Cause works by universal Law,
and makes no exceptions?" Well, I would not have written this book if I
did not suppose that First Cause works by universal Law, and it is just
because It does so that I believe It _will_ work for me and my concerns.
The Law makes no exceptions, but it can be specialized through the power
of the Word. Then our sceptic says, "What, do you think _your_ word can
do that?" To which I reply, "It is not my word because I am not using it
in my lower personality, as John Smith or Mary Jones, but in that higher
personality which recognizes only one all-embracing Personality and
itself as included in that."
Which comes first, the Law or the Word?
The distribution of the solar systems in space, the localization of the
Spirit in specific areas of cosmic activity, proclaims the starting of
all manifestation through the "Word." Then the operation of Law follows
with mathematical precision, just as when we write 2 × 2 we cannot avoid
getting 4 as the result--only there is no reason why we should not write
2 × 3 and so get 6 instead of 4. Let it be borne in mind that the Law
flows from the Word, and not _vice versa_, and you have got the clue to
the enigma of Life.
How far we shall be able to make practical use of this clue depends, of
course, on our acceptance of its principle.
The Directing Power of the Word is _inherent_ in the Word, and we cannot
alter it. _It is the Law_ OF _the Law_, and so, like any other law, it
cannot be broken, but its action can be inverted. We cannot deprive the
Word of its efficacy, but our denial of it as the Word of Expansion is
equivalent to an affirmation of it as the Word of Contraction, and so
the Law acts towards us as a Limitation. But the fault is not in the
Law, but in the way we use the Word. Now if the reader grasps this, he
will see that the less we trouble ourselves about what appear to us to
be the visible and calculable causes of things, the freer we must become
from the burden of anxiety; and as we advance step by step to a clearer
recognition of the true order of Cause and Effect, so all intermediate
causes will fade from our view. Only the two extremes of the sequence of
Cause and Effect will remain in sight. First Cause, moving as the Word,
starting a sequence, and the desired result terminating it, as the Word
taking Form in Fact. The intermediate links in the chain will be there,
but they will be seen as effects, not causes. The wider the
generalization we thus make, the less we shall need to trouble about
particulars, knowing that they will form themselves by the natural
action of the Law; and the widest generalization is therefore, to state
not what we want to _have_, but what we want to _be_. The only reason we
ever want to _have_ anything, is because we think it will help us to be
something--something more than we are now; so that the "having" is only
a link in the chain of secondary causes, and may therefore be left out
of consideration, for it will come of itself through the natural
workings of the Law, set in operation by the Word as First Cause. This
principle is set forth in the statement of the Divine Name given to
Moses (Ex. iii, 13-14). The Name is simply "I AM"--it is Being, not
having--the having follows as a natural consequence of the Being; and if
it be true that we are made in the likeness and image of God, that is to
say on the same Principle, then what is the Law of the Divine nature
must be the Law of ours also--and as we awake to this we become
"partakers of the Divine Nature" (2 Pet. i, 4).
What we really want, therefore, is to _be_ something--something more
than we are now; and this is quite right. It is our consciousness of the
continually generative impulse of the Eternal Living Spirit, which is
the _fons et origo_ (fountain and source) of all differentiated life
working within us for ever more and more perfect individual expression
of all that is in Itself. If the reader remembers what I said at the
beginning of this book about the Verb Substantive of Being, he will see
that each of us is in truth a "Word (verbum) of God." Let not the
orthodox reader be shocked at this--I am only saying what the Bible
does. Look up the following passages: "I will write upon him the name
of my God and my own new name" (Rev. xiii, 12). "I saw, and behold a
lamb standing on the Mount Zion (note, the word Zion means the principle
of Life), and with him a hundred and forty and four thousand, having his
name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads" (Rev. xiv,
1). "His name shall be on their foreheads" (Rev. xxii, 4). Read
particularly the whole passage Rev. xix, 11-16, where we are expressly
told that the name in question is "the Word of God"; and that this name
is the one put upon those who follow their Leader, is shown by the same
description being given of the followers as of the Leader. They all ride
upon "white horses," and the "horse" is the symbol of the intellect.
Also in the case of the Leader, the peculiarity of his Name is that "no
one knows it but himself," and in Rev. ii, 17, exactly the same thing is
said of the "New Name" to be given "to him that overcometh." Again, in
Isaiah lxii, 2, "Thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of
the Lord shall name"; and again in Num. vi, 27, "They shall put my name
upon the children of Israel."
Then as the meaning of that Name "the Word of God." In Ps. cxix, 160:
"Thy word is true from the beginning," and Jesus said: "Thy Word is
Truth" (John xvii, 17).
This also corresponds with the description in Rev. xix, 11-16 where
another name for "the Word of God" is "Faithful and True"; and the same
metaphor of the Truth "_riding into action_" is contained in Ps. xlv, 3,
4. "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy
majesty; and in thy majesty ride prosperously because of Truth." The
same symbol of "riding" also occurs in Ps. lxviii: "Extol him that
rideth upon the heavens," "Sing praises to him that rideth upon the
heaven of heavens which were of old (i.e., _ab initio_); lo, he doth
send out his Voice and that a mighty Voice"--and the word "Voice" is the
Hebrew Word [Hebrew: "K[=o]l"], meaning "Sound" or "Word"--so that here
again we have the idea of "The Word" riding into action. Once
more--"Thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy Name" (Ps. cxxxviii,
2), thus repeating the idea of the Word as the Name.
In other passages we have the idea of the Word as a Weapon. "The Sword
of the Spirit which is the Word of God" (Eph. vi, 17), which answers to
the description in Revelations of the Sword proceeding out of the mouth
of the Word; and we have the same metaphor of the Word riding into
action in Habakkuk iii, 8 and 9. "Thou didst ride upon thine horses and
thy chariots of salvation. Thy bow was made quite naked ... even thy
Word"; and similarly those that oppose the Word are "killed with the
sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his
mouth."
In other passages we have the Word put before us as a Defence. "His
Truth shall be thy shield and buckler" (Ps. xci, 4); and again "The Name
of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is
safe" (Prov. xviii, 10); and we have already seen that this Name is "The
Word of God"; and similarly in Ps. cxxiv, 8: "Our help is in the name of
the Lord, who made heaven and earth."
Lastly, we get "the Word" as the final deliverance from all ill; "Into
thy hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth"
(Ps. xxxi, 5).
And the reason of all this is because "His Truth endureth to all
generations" (Ps. c, 5); it is everlasting, Changeless Principle. "By
the Word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by
the breath of his mouth" (Ps. xxxiii, 6), as is also said of the Word in
the opening of St. John's Gospel and First Epistle.
Now a careful comparison of these and similar passages will make it
clear that the sequence presented to us is as follows: The "Word" is the
passing of the Verb Substantive of Being into Action. It is always the
same in Principle, on whatever scale, and therefore applies to ourselves
also, so that each one of us is a "Word of God." We are this by the very
essence of our being, and that is why the first thing we are told about
Man is, that he is made in the image and likeness of God. But how far
any of us will become a really effective "Word," depends upon our
acceptance of the New Name which is ready to be bestowed upon each one.
"To as many as _receive_ him, to them gives he power to become Sons of
God, even to them that believe on his Name" (John 1-12). We get the New
Name by realizing the Truth, which Truth is that we ourselves are
included in THE NAME, and that name is called "The Word of God."
The meaning of which becomes clear if we remember that the spiritual
name of anything is its "Noumenon" or essential being, which is
manifested through its "Phenomenon" or outward reproduction in Form; so
that the true order is first our "Name" or essential Being, then our
"Word" or active manifestation of this essential Being, then the "Truth"
or the unchangeable Law of Being passing into Manifestation--and these
three are ONE. Then when we see that this is true of ourselves, not
because of some arbitrary favouritism making us exceptions to the human
race, but because it is the working on the plane of Human Individuality
of the same Power and the same Law by which the world has come into
existence, we can see that we have here a Principle which we can trust
to work as infallibly as the principle of Mathematics; and that
therefore the desire to become something more than we now are is nothing
else than the Eternal Spirit of Life seeking ever fuller expression.
The correction which our mode of thinking needs therefore is to start
with Being, not with Having, and we may then trust the Having to come
along in its right order; and if we can get into this new manner of
thinking, what a world of worry it will save us! If we realize that the
Law flows from the Word, and not vice versa, then the Law of attraction
must work in this manner, and will bring to us all those conditions
through which we shall be able to express the more expanded Being
towards which we are directing our Word; and as a consequence, we shall
have no need to trouble about forcing particular conditions into
existence--they will grow spontaneously out of the seed we have planted.
All we have to do now, or at any time, is to take the conditions that
are ready to hand and use them on the lines of the sort of "being"
towards which we are directing our Thought--use them just as far as they
go at the time, without trying to press them further--and we shall find
by experience that out of the present conditions thus used to-day, more
favourable conditions will grow in a perfectly natural manner to-morrow,
and so on, day by day, until, when later on we look back, we shall be
surprised to find ourselves expressing all, and more than all, the sort
of "_being_" we had thought of. Then, from this new standpoint of our
being, we shall continue to go on in the same way, and so on _ad
infinitum_, so that our life will become one endless progress, ever
widening as we go on. And this will be found a very quiet and peaceful
way, free from worry and anxiety, and wonderfully effective. It may lead
you to some position of authority or celebrity; but as such things
belong to the category of "Having" and not of "Being" they were not what
you aimed at, and are only by-products of what you have become in
yourself. They are conditions, and like all other conditions should be
made use of for the development of still more expanded "being"; that is
to say, you will go on working on the more extended scale which such a
position makes possible to you. But the one thing you would not try to
do with it would be to "boss the show." The moment you do this you are
no longer using the Word of the larger Personality, and have descended
to your old level of the smaller personality, just John Smith or Mary
Jones, ignorant of yourselves as being anything greater. It is true your
Word still directs the operation of the Law towards yourself--it always
does this--but your word has become inverted, and so calls into
operation the Law of Contraction instead of the Law of Expansion. A
higher position means a wider field for usefulness--that is all; and to
the extent to which you fit yourself for it, it will come to you. So, if
you content yourself with always speaking in your Thought the Creative
Word of "Being" from day to day, you will find it the Way of Peace and
the Secret of a Happy Life--by no means monotonous, for all sorts of
unexpected interests will be continually opening out to you, giving you
scope for all the activities of which your present degree of "being"
renders you capable. You will always find plenty to do, and find
pleasure in doing it, so you need never be afraid of feeling dull.
But perhaps you will say:
"How am I to know that I am not speaking my own Word instead of that of
the Creative Spirit?"
Well, the word of the smaller personality is always based on the idea of
possessing, and the Word of the Spirit is always based on the idea of
Becoming--that is the criterion. And also, if we base our speaking of
the Word on the Promises of Spirit, we may be sure that we are on the
right track.
We may be sure of it, because when we come to analyze these promises we
shall find that they are all statements of the Creative Law of Being,
and the nature of this Law is obvious from the facts of the Visible
Creation.
These things are not true because they are written in the Bible, but the
Bible is true because these things are written in it. The more we
examine the Bible Promises, the more they will impress themselves upon
us as being Promises according to Law; and since the Law can never be
broken, we can feel quite secure of it, subject to the one condition
that we do not stop the Law from working to the fulfilment of the
Promise, by our own inverted use of the Word. But if we take the _Word
of the Promise_ and make it our own Word, then we know that we are
speaking the right Word, which will so specialize the action of the Law,
as to produce the fulfilment of the Promise. Apart from the Word there
is no Foundation. In all other systems we have either Law without Will,
or Will without Law.
Then we know that we are not speaking of ourselves, but are speaking the
Word of the Power that sent us into the World. The Law alone cannot
fulfil the Promises. It is in itself Cosmic and Impersonal, and, as
every scientific discovery amply demonstrates, it needs the co-operation
of the Personal Factor to bring out its latent possibilities; so that
the Word is as necessary as the Law for the fulfilment of the Promises;
but if the Word which we speak is that of the Creating Spirit, we may
reckon it as being just as certain in its operation as the Law, and the
two together form an infallible Power.
But there is one thing we must not forget, and this is the Law of
Growth. If the Law which we plant is the seed, then we must allow time
for it to grow; we must leave it alone and go about our business as
usual, and the seed we have sown will spring and grow up of itself, we
know not how, a truth which we have been told by the Master himself
(Mark iv, 26, 29).
We must not be like children who plant a seed one day, and dig it up the
next to see whether it is growing. Our part is to plant the seed, not to
make it grow,--the Creative Law of Life will do that. It is for this
reason that the Bible gives us such injunctions as "Study to be quiet"
(1 Thess. iv, 11). "He that believeth shall not make haste" (Is.
xxviii, 16). "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength"
(Is. xxx, 15). To make ourselves anxious as to whether the Word we have
planted will fructify is just to dig it up again, and then of course it
will not grow.
The fundamental maxim, then, which we must always keep in mind is that
"Every creation carries its own Mathematics along with it," and that
therefore "The Law flows from the Word, and not _vice versa_;" and
consequently "_The Word is the Foundation of every creative series_,"
whether that series be great or small, cosmic or individual,
constructive or destructive. Every series commences with Intention; and
remember the exact meaning of the Word. It is from the two Latin words
"in," towards, and "tendere," to stretch, and it therefore means a
"reaching out in a certain direction." This "reaching out in a certain
direction" is the Conception of ourself as arrived at the destination
towards which our Thought tends, and is therefore _the conceiving of an
idea_, and our formulated idea is stated, if only mentally, in
Words--and the termination of the series is the realization of the idea
in actual fact. Therefore it is equally true of every series, whether it
be the creation of a lady's blouse or the creation of a world, that "in
the Beginning is the Word"--the Word is _the Point of Origination_.
Then, since the Word is the Point of Origination, what is our conception
of the best thing we can originate with it? There is a great variety of
opinion as to what is desirable; and it is only natural and right that
it should be so, for otherwise we should be without any individuality,
which means that we should have no real life in us--in fact such a world
is unthinkable; it would be a world that had ceased to move, it would be
a dead world. So it is the varied conception of "the Good" that makes
the world go on. Uniformity means reducing things to one dead level. But
on the other hand there must be Unity--unity of action resulting from
unity of purpose, otherwise the world logically terminates in
internecine strife. If then the world is to go on, it can only be by
means of Unity expressing itself in Variety, and therefore the question
is: What is the _unifying Desire_ which underlies all the varieties of
expression? It is a very simple one--it is just to ENJOY LIVING. Our
ideas of an enjoyable life may be very various, but that is what we all
really want; so what we want to get at is: What is the basis of an
enjoyable life?
I have no hesitation in saying that the secret of enjoying life is _to
take an interest in it_. The opposite of Livingness is Deadness, that
is, inertia and stagnation. Dying of "ennui" is a very real thing
indeed, and if we would not die of this malady we must have an interest
in life that will always keep going on.
Now for anything to interest us we must enter into the spirit of it. If
we do not enter into the spirit of a game it does not interest us; if we
do not enter into the spirit of a book, it does not interest us, we are
bored to death with it; and so on with everything. So from our own
experience we may lay down the maxim that "To enjoy anything we must
enter into the spirit of it," and if this be so, then, to enjoy the
"Living Quality of Life" we must enter into the Spirit of Life itself. I
say the "Living Quality of Life" so as to dissociate it from all ideas
of particular conditions; because what we are trying to get at is the
fundamental principle of Life which creates conditions, and not the
reflex of sensations, whether physical or mental, which any particular
set of conditions may induce in us for the time being. In this way we
come back to the initial proposition with which we started--that the
origin of everything is only to be found in a Universal Ever-Living
Spirit, and that our own life proceeds from this Spirit in accordance
with the maxim "Omne vivum ex vivo." Thus we are logically brought to
the conclusion that the ultimate Desire of all Humanity is to
consciously enter into the Spirit of Life as it is _in itself_,
antecedently to all conditions. This is the widest of all
generalizations, and so opens the door to the highest of all
specializations; for it is a scientific fact that the more widely we can
generalize the principle of any Law, the more highly we can specialize
its working. It is only as our conception of it is limited that any Law
limits us.
A principle _per se_ is always undifferentiated, and capable of any sort
of differentiation into particular modes of expression that are not in
opposition to the principle itself; and it is true of the Principle of
Life as of all others. There is therefore no limit to its expression
except that which inverts it,--that is to say, anything which tends
towards Death; and, accordingly, what we have to avoid is the negative
mode of Thought, which starts an inverted action of the Law, logically
resulting in destructiveness instead of constructiveness. But the
mistake we make from not seeing the basic principle of the whole thing,
is that of looking to the conditions to form the Life, instead of
looking to the Life to form the conditions; and therefore what we
require is a _Standard of Measurement_ for our Thought, by which we
shall be able to form _The Perfect Word_ which will set in motion the
Law of Cause and Effect in such a manner as to fulfil that _Basic Desire
of Life_ which is common to all Humanity. The Perfect Word must
therefore fulfil two Conditions--it must have the essential Quality of
the Undifferentiated Eternal Life, and it must have the essential
Quality of "Genus Homo." It must say with Horace "Homo sum; nihil humani
mihi alienum puto" (I am Man; I regard nothing human as alien to
myself). When we think it out carefully, there is no escaping the
conclusion that this must be the essential Quality of the Perfect Word
we are in search of. It is the final logical inference from all that we
have learnt regarding the interaction between Law and Personality, that
the Perfect Word must combine in itself the Quality of each--it must be
at once both Human and Divine.
Of course all my readers know where the description of such a Word is to
be found; but what I want them to realize is the way in which we have
now reached a similar description of the Perfect Word. We have not
accepted it unquestioningly as the teaching of a scholastic theology,
but have arrived at it by a course of careful reasoning from the facts
of physical Nature and from our experience of our own mental powers.
This way of getting at it makes it really our own. We know what we mean
by it, and it is no longer a mere traditional form of words. It is the
same with everything else; nothing becomes our own by being just told
about it.
For instance, if I show an artist a picture, and he tells me that a boat
in it is half a mile away from the spectators, I may accept this on his
authority, because I suppose he knows all about it. But if next day a
friend shows me a picture of a bit of coast with a fishing-boat in the
distance, and asks me how far off that boat is, I am utterly stumped
because I do not know how the artist was able to judge the distance.
But if I understand the principle, I give my friend a very fair
approximation of the distance of the boat. I work it out like this. I
say:--the immediate foreground of the picture shows an amount of detail
which could not be seen more than twenty yards away, and the average
size of such details in nature shows that the bottom edge of the picture
must measure about ten yards across. Then from experience I know that
the average length of craft of the particular rigging in the picture is,
say, about eighty feet, and I then measure that this length goes sixteen
and a half times across the picture on the level where the boat is
situated, and so I know that a line across the picture at this level
measures 80 x 16-1/2 = 1320 ft. = 440 yards. Then I make the
calculation: 10 yds.: 440 yds.:: 20 yds.: the distance required to be
ascertained 440 x 20 / 10 = 880 yds. 1760 yds. = 1 mile and 1760 / 2 =
880 yds. Therefore I know that the boat in the picture is represented as
being about half a mile from the spectator. I really know the distance
and do not merely guess it, and I know _how_ I know it. I know it simply
from the geometrical principle that with a given angle at the apex of a
triangle the length of a perpendicular dropped from the apex to the base
of the triangle will always bear the same ratio to the length of the
base, whatever the size of the triangle may be. In this way I know the
distance of the boat in the picture by combining mathematics and my own
observation of facts--once again to co-operation of Law and Personality.
Now a familiar instance like this shows the difference between being
told a thing and really knowing it, and it is by an analogous method
that we have now arrived at the conclusion that the Perfect Word is a
combination of the Human and the Divine. We have definite reasons for
seeing this as the ultimate fact of human development--the power to give
expression to the Perfect Word--, and that this follows naturally from
the fact of our own existence and that of some originating source from
which we derive it.
But perhaps the reader will say: How can a Word take form as a Person?
Well, words which do not eventually take form as facts only evaporate
into thin air, and we cannot conceive the Divine Ideals of Man doing
this. Therefore the expression of the Perfect Word on the plane of
Humanity must take substance in the Form of Humanity. It is not the
manifestation of any limited personality with all his or her
idiosyncrasies, but the manifestation of the basic principle of Humanity
itself common to us all.
To quote Dryden's words--but in a very different sense to that intended
in "Absolom and Achitophel,"--such a one must be "Not one, but all
Mankind's epitome." The manifestation must be the Perfect Expression of
that fundamental Life which is the Root Desire in us all, and which is
therefore called "The Desire of all nations."
Here then we have reached (Haggai ii, 7) the foundation fact of Human
Personality. It is the Eternal "Will-to-live," as Schopenhauer calls it,
which works subconsciously in all creation; therefore it is the root
from which all creation springs. In the atom it becomes atomic energy,
in the plant it becomes vegetable life, in the animal it becomes animal
life, and in man it becomes personal life, and therefore, if a Perfect
Standard of the Eternal Life is to be set before us, it must be in terms
of Human Personality.
But some one will say: Why should we need such a Standard? The answer
is that since the working of the Law towards each of us is determined by
our mode of Thought, we require to be guarded against an inverted use of
the Word. "Ignorantia Legis nemini excusat" (ignorance of the Law does
not excuse you from its operation), is a scientific, as well as a
forensic maxim, for the Law of Cause and Effect can never be altered.
Our ignorance of the laws of electricity will not prevent us from being
electrocuted if we get into the circuit of some powerful voltage.
Therefore, because the Law is _Impersonal_ and knows no exceptions, and
will bring us either Life or Death according to the direction which we
give it by our Word, it is of the first importance for us to have a
Standard by which to measure the Word expressed through our own
Personality. This is why St. Paul speaks of our growing to "the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ," (Eph. iv, 13) and why we find
the symbol of "Measurement" so frequently employed in the Bible.
Therefore, if a great scale of measurement for our Word is to be
exhibited, it can only be by its presentation in human form.
Then if the purpose be to establish such a standard of measurement, the
scale must be expressed in units of the same denomination as that of our
own nature--you cannot divide miles by ampères--and it is because the
scale of our potential being is laid out in the same denomination as
that of the Spirit of Life itself that we can avail ourselves of the
standard of "the Word made Flesh."
When this is clearly seen it removes those intellectual difficulties
which so many feel with regard to the doctrine of the Atonement. If we
want to avail ourselves of the Bible Promises on the basis of the Bible
teaching, we cannot throw the teaching overboard. As I have said before,
if a doctrine is to be rightly interpreted, it must be interpreted as a
whole, and in one form or another the doctrine of the Atonement is the
pivot point of the whole Bible. To omit it is like trying to play
"Hamlet" with Hamlet left out, and you may put your Bible out on the
rubbish-heap. How, then, does the Atonement come in?
Here are the usual intellectual difficulties. To whom is the sacrifice
offered? To God or to the Devil? If it be to the Devil, then the Devil
is a greater power than God. If it be to God, then how can a God who
demands a sacrifice of blood be Love? And in either case how can guilt
be transferred from one person to the other?
Now as a matter of fact none of these questions arise. They are beside
the real point at issue, which is: How can we so combine the Personal
action of the Word with the Impersonal action of the Law, as to make the
Law become to us the Law of Life instead of the Law of Death (Rom. viii,
2)?
Let us recur to the principles which we have worked out. The Law flows
from the Word and not _vice versa_--it acts for good or ill according to
the Quality of the Word which calls it into action. Therefore to get the
Law of Life we must speak the Word of Life. Then, on the principle of
"Omne vivum ex vivo," the Word of Fundamental Basic Life, which is not
subject to conditions because it is antecedent to all conditions, can
only be spoken through consciousness of participating in the Eternal
Life which is the "fons et origo" of all particular being. Therefore, to
be able to speak this Word we must have a foundation of assurance that
we are in no way separated from the Eternal Life, and since this
foundation is required for all men, it must be broad enough to
accommodate all grades of perceptions.
Theologically the separation from the Eternal Life is said to be caused
by "Sin." But what do we mean by "Sin"?
We can only judge of what a thing _is_ by what it _does_; and so, if
"Sin" is that which prevents the inflowing of the Eternal Life, which we
know is the root of our individual being, then it must be the
transgression of the inherent Law of our own Being. The truth is that we
live simultaneously in two worlds, the visible and the invisible, just
as trees draw their life from the earth beneath and from the air and
light above, and the transgression consists in limiting ourselves only
to the lower world, and thereby cutting ourselves off from the essential
part of our own life, that which _really lives_.
We do not realize the true function of the three lower principles of our
nature, viz.: Vital Spirit, etheric body, and outward form; the function
of which is to give concentration to the current of spiritual life
flowing from the Eternal Spirit, and thus enable the undifferentiated
Life to differentiate itself into Individual Consciousness, which will
be able to specialize the action of the Law into higher manifestations
than it can produce without the co-operation of Personality.
On the analogy of Ohm's Law our error is making our "_R_" so rigid that
it ceases to be a conductor, and so no current is delivered and no work
done. This is the true nature of sin, and it is this opposition of our
_R_ to E.M.F. or Eternal Motive Force that has to be removed. We have to
realize the true function of our R, as the channel through which the
E.M.F. is enabled to carry on its work. When we awake to the fact that
our true place in the Order of the Universe is to be fellow-workers with
God in carrying on the work of Creation, then we see that hitherto we
have entirely missed the purpose of our calling, and have misused the
Divine image in which we were created; and therefore we want an
assurance that our past errors will not stand in the way of our future
advance into continually fuller participation in the Divine Creative
Work, which, in virtue of our true nature should be our rightful
inheritance.
That our future destiny is to actually take an individual part, however
small, in guiding the great work of Evolution, may not be evident to us
in the earlier stages of our awakening; but what is clear as a matter
of feeling, but not yet intellectually, is, that in some way or other we
have been cutting ourselves off from the Great Source of Light, and that
what we therefore want, is to be re-united to it. What is wanted, then,
is something which will give us a firm ground of assurance that we _are_
re-united to it, and that that something must be of such a nature as
never to lose anything of its efficiency at any stage of our
progress--it must cover the whole ground.
Now, if we think deeply upon this question, we shall gradually come to
see that this expansive quality is to be found in the doctrine of the
Atonement. It meets all the needs of our spiritual nature in a way that
no other theory does, and responds to every stage of our progress. There
is only one thing that will prevent it working, and that is, saying that
we have no need of it. That is why St. John said, that if we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John i, 8).
But the more we come into the light of Truth, and realize that sin is
everything that is not in accordance with the Law of our own essential
being as related to the Eternal Life, the more we shall see, not only
that we have transgressed the Law in the past, but also that even now
we are very far from completely fulfiling it; and the more light we get
the more clearly we shall see this to be the case. Therefore, whatever
may be the stage of our mental development, the assurance which we all
need for the basis of our new life is that of the removal of sin--the
sins of the past, and the daily errors of the present. We may form
various theories, each to our own satisfaction, as to _how_ this takes
place. For instance we may argue that, since "the Word" is the
undifferentiated potential of Humanity, every human soul is included in
the Self-offering of Christ, and that in Him we ourselves suffered on
the Cross. Or we may say that our confession that such an offering is
needed amounts to our participation in it. Or we may say with St. Paul
that, as in Adam all are sinners, so in Christ all are made free from
sin (1 Cor. xv, 22). That is, taking Adam and Christ as the
representatives of two orders of men. Or we may fall back on the
statement "Sacrifice and burnt offerings Thou wouldst not" (Ps. xl, 6),
and on Jesus' own explanation of his death, that He offered himself in
testimony to the Truth--that is, that the Eternal Life will no more
exercise a retrospective vengeance upon us for our past misunderstanding
of It, than would electricity or any other force. We may explain the
_modus operandi_ of the great offering in any of these ways, for the
Scripture presents it in all of them--but the great thing is to accept
it; for by the nature of our mental constitution, such an acceptance,
whether with or without an intellectual explanation, affords the
assurance which we stand in need of; and building upon the Foundation we
can safely rear the edifice of our future development.
Also it affords us a continual safeguard in all the further stages of
our evolution. As our psychic consciousness increases, we become more
and more responsive to psychic stimulus whether that stimulus proceed
from a good or evil influence; and therefore the recognition of our
Redemption in Christ surrounds us with a protecting barrier, through
which no evil spirit or malign influence can pass; so that, resting upon
this Truth, we need never be in fear of any such invasion, but shall at
all times be clothed with the whole armour of God (Eph. vi, 11).
From whatever point of view we regard it, we therefore find in the One
Offering once made for the sin of the whole world, a standpoint such as
is provided by no other teaching, whether religious or philosophical;
and we shall see on examination that it is not an arbitrary decree for
which we can give no account, but that it is based on the psychological
constitution of man--a provision so perfectly adapted to our
requirements at every stage of our evolution, that we can only attribute
it to the Divine Wisdom acting through One, who by Perfect Love, thus
willingly offered himself, in order to provide the Foundation of
complete assurance for all who recognize their need of it.
On this basis, then, of reunion with the Eternal Source of Life, all the
Promises of the Bible are found to be according to Law--that is,
according to the inherent Law of our Being; so that, in the laying of
this Foundation, we find the supreme manifestation of the interaction
between the Law and the Word, which, when its significance is
apprehended, opens out vistas of limitless possibilities to the
individual and to the race.
But the race, as a whole, is yet very far from apprehending this, and
for the most part has no perception of spiritual causation. Where some
dim perception of spiritual causation is beginning to emerge, it is very
frequently inverted, because people only apprehend it as giving them an
additional power of exercising compulsion over their fellow-men, and
thus depriving them of that individuality which it is the one purpose of
Evolution to develop. This is because people do not look beyond the
three lower principles of life, those principles which animals have in
common with man; and consequently the higher principle of mind, which
distinguishes man, is brought down to the lower level, so that the man
is distinguished from the beast only by the possession of intellectual
faculties, which by their perversion make him not merely a beast, but a
devil of a beast. Therefore the recognition of psychic powers, when not
safeguarded by the higher principles of Truth, plunges man even deeper
into darkness than does a simple materialism; and so the two go hand in
hand on the downward path. There is abundant evidence that this is
increasingly the case at the present day; and therefore it is that the
Bible Promises culminate in the Promise of the return of Him who offered
himself in order to lay the foundation of Peace. As I have said before,
we must either take the Bible as a whole, or reject it entirely. We
cannot pick and choose what pleases us, and refuse what does not. No
legal document could be treated in this way; and in like manner the
Bible is one great whole, or else it is just--"skittles."
Therefore, if that Divine "Word" was manifested to save the world from
destruction, by opening the way for the _individual_ through recognition
of his true relation to God, then it is only a reasonable carrying out
of the same thought that, when the bulk of mankind fail to realize the
beneficent use of these powers, and persist in using them invertedly,
the same Being should again appear to save the race from utter
self-destruction, but not by the same method, for that would be
impossible.
The individual method is that of individual self-recognition in the
light of Truth; but that cannot be _forced_ upon any one. The headlong
downward career of the race as a whole cannot therefore be stopped _vi
et armis_, and this can only be done by first letting it have a bitter
experience of what intellect, depraved to the service of the Beast in
Man, leads to, and then forcibly restraining those who persist in this
madness. Therefore a Second Coming of the Divine Man is a logical
sequence to the first, and equally logical, this Second Coming must be
as One who will rule the nations with irresistible power; so that men,
reflecting upon the evils of the past, and enquiring into their cause,
may be led to see that cause in the inverted action of the Law of their
own being, and may therefore learn so to renew their thoughts in
accordance with the Divine Thought as to bring them into the glorious
liberty of the Sons of God.
This, then, is the Promise we have to look forward to at the present
day, and though it might not be wise to speculate as to the precise time
and manner of its fulfilment, there can be no doubt as to the nature of
the general principles involved; and I trust the reader has at least
learned from this book that principles unfold themselves with unfailing
accuracy, though it depends on our Word, or mental attitude, in what way
their unfoldment will affect us personally.
For such reasons as these, it appears to me, that the current objections
to the doctrine of Atonement are entirely beside the mark. They miss the
whole point of the thing. Punishment for Sin? Of course there is
punishment for sin so long as it is persisted in. It is the natural
working of the Law of Cause and Effect. Forgiveness of sin? Of course
there is forgiveness of sin as soon as, through knowledge, we make a
right use of the Law of our own Being. It could not be otherwise. It is
the natural working of the Law of Cause and Effect.
"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will
I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more"
(Heb. x, 16); and similarly in Jer. xxxi, 32, from which the writer of
the Epistles to the Hebrews quotes this. "Now the Lord is the Spirit" (2
Cor. iii, 17, R.V.), i.e., the Originating Spirit of life, and therefore
"my laws" means the inherent Law of the Originating Principle of Being,
so that here we have a plain statement that the realization of the True
Law of our Being _ipso facto_ results in the cancelling of all our past
errors. When once we see the principle of it the whole sequence becomes
perfectly plain.
There is nothing arbitrary in all this. It results naturally from a New
mode of Thought producing a New order of Consciousness; and it is
written that "if any man be in Christ he is a new creature" or, as it
says in the margin, "a new creation" (2 Cor. v, 17), and on the
principle that "every Creation carries its own mathematics with it,"
every such man has passed from the Law of Death into the Law of Life.
The full fruition may not yet be visible--we must allow for the Law of
Growth--but the Principle is in him and has become the central,
generating point of his consciousness, and is therefore bound, sooner or
later, to develop into perfect manifestation by the Law of its own
nature. If the Principle be accepted it will work all the same, whether
we accept it by simple trust in the written Word, or whether we analyze
the grounds of our trust; just as an electric bell will ring when you
press the button, whether you are an electrical engineer or not. But
there will be this difference, that if you _are_ an electrical engineer
you will see the principle implied in the ringing of the bell, and you
will find in it the promise of infinite possibilities which it is open
to you to develope; and in like manner, the more clearly you see the
relation which necessarily exists between yourself and the
All-Originating Living Spirit, the more clear it will become to you,
that this relation opens up an endless vista of boundless potentialities
which can never be exhausted. This is the true nature of the Bible
Promises; they were not made by some external Deity about whose ideas we
can never have any certainty, but by the Indwelling God, who is at once
the Life, the Law, and the Substance of all things, and therefore they
are Promises according to Law, containing in themselves the principle of
their own fulfilment.
But, as I trust the reader is now convinced, the Law can fulfil the
Promise which is latent in it only by the co-operation of the Word; that
is, the Personal Factor which provides the necessary conditions for the
Law to work under; and therefore, if the Promise is to be fulfilled, we
must meet the All-originating Life, the "Premium mobile," not only on
the Plane of Law, but on the Plane of Personality also. This becomes
evident if we consider that this Originating Life must be _entirely
undifferentiated_ in Itself; for otherwise it could not be the origin of
all differentiated modes of Life and Energy. As long as we find
differentiation, on however wide a scale, we have not arrived at First
Cause. There will still be something further back, out of which the
differentiations have proceeded; and it is this "Something" which is at
the back of "Everything" that we are in search of. Therefore the
Originating Spirit must be _absolutely undifferentiated_, and
consequently the Personal Factor in ourselves must be the
differentiation into individuality of a Quality eternally subsisting in
the All-Originating Undifferentiated Spirit.
Then, since our individual differentiation of this Quality must depend
on the mode of our recognition of it, it follows that a Standard of
Measurement is needed, and the Standard is presented to us in the form
of the Personality around whom the whole Bible centres, and who, as the
Standard of the Divine Infinitude differentiating Himself into units of
individual personality, can only be described as at once The Son of God
and The Son of Man. If we see that the Eternal Life, by reason of its
non-differentiation in itself, must needs become to each of us _exactly
what we take it to be_, then it follows that in order to realize it on
our own plane of Personality we must see it _through the medium of
Personality_, and it is therefore not a theological figment, but the
Supreme Psychological Truth that no man can come to "the Father"--that
is, to the Parent Spirit--except through the Son (John xiv, 6).
When we see the reason at the back of it, the Bible becomes a New Book
to us, and we learn that the interpretation of it is not to be found in
learned commentaries, but in ourselves. Then we find that it is indeed
The Book of Promises, not vague and uncertain, but logical and
scientific, teaching us how to combine the instrumentality of the Law
with the freedom of the Word; so that through the Perfect Word,
manifested as the Perfect Man, we reach the Perfect Law, and find that
THE PERFECT LAW IS THE LAW OF LIBERTY.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For various reasons I am not giving the actual names of places and
persons in this story.
[2] "Out of Egypt" by Miss Crouse. Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A.
[3] R.W. Allen.
[4] See Chapters on "Body, Soul, and Spirit" in my "Edinburgh Lectures
on Mental Science."
[5] See "Edinburgh Lectures."
[6] "New Knowledge."