Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last. What does this mean? It
means the entire series of causation from the first originating
movement to the final and completed result. We may take this on
any scale from the creation of a cosmos to the creation of a
lady's robe. Everything has its origin in an idea, a thought; and
it has its completion in the manifestation of that thought in
form. Many intermediate stages are necessary, but the Alpha and
Omega of the series are the thought and the thing. This shows us
that in essence the thing already existed in the thought. Omega
is already potential in Alpha, just as in the Pythagorean system
all numbers are said to proceed from unity and to be resolvable
back again into it. Now it is this general principle of the
already existence of the thing in the thought that we have to lay
hold of, and as we find it true in an architect's design of the
house that is to be, so we find it true in the great work of the
Architect of the Universe. When we see this we have realized a
general principle, which we find at work everywhere. That is the
meaning of a general principle: it can be applied to any sort of
subject; and the use of studying general principles is to give
them particular application to anything we may have to deal with.
Now what we have to deal with most of all is ourselves, and so we
come to the consideration of Alpha and Omega in the human being.
In the vision of St. John, the speaker of the words, "I am Alpha
and Omega, the First and the Last," is described as "Like unto a
son of man"--that is, however transcendent the appearance in the
vision, it is essentially human, and thus suggests to us the
presence of the universal principle at the human level. But the
figure in the apocalyptic vision is not that of man as we
ordinarily know him. It is that of Omega as it subsists enshrined
in Alpha: it is the ideal of humanity as it subsists in the
Divine Mind which was manifested in objective form to the eyes of
the seer, and therefore presented the Alpha and Omega of that
idea in all the majesty of Divine glory.
But if we grasp the truth that the thing is already existent in
the thought, do we not see that this transcendent Omega must be
already existent in the Divine ideal of every one of us? If on
the plane of the absolute time is not, then does it not follow
that this glorified humanity is a present fact in the Divine
Mind? And if this is so, then this fact is eternally true
regarding every human being. But if it is true that the thing
exists in the thought, it is equally true that the thought finds
form in the thing; and since things exist under the relative
conditions of time and space, they are necessarily subject to a
law of Growth, so that while the subsistence of the thing in the
thought is perfect ab initio, the expression of the thought in
the thing is a matter of gradual development. This is a point
which we must never lose sight of in our studies; and we must
never lose sight of the perfection of the thing in the thought
because we do not yet see the perfection of the thought in the
thing. Therefore we must remember that man, as we know him now,
has by no means reached the ultimate of his evolution. We are
only yet in the making, but we have now reached a point where we
can facilitate the evolutionary process by conscious co-operation
with the Creative Spirit. Our share in this work commences with
the recognition of the Divine ideal of man, and thus finding the
pattern by which we are to be guided. For since the person to be
created after this pattern is ourself, it follows that, by
whatever processes the Divine ideal transforms itself into
concrete reality, the place where those processes are to work
must be within ourselves; in other words, the creative action of
the Spirit takes place through the laws of our own mentality. If
it is a true maxim that the thing must take form in the thought
before the thought can take form in the thing, then it is plain
that the Divine Ideal can only be externalized in our objective
life in proportion as it is first formed in our thought; and it
takes form in our thought only to the extent to which we
apprehend its existence in the Divine Mind. By the nature of the
relation between the individual mind and the Universal Mind it is
strictly a case of reflection; and in proportion as the mirror of
our own mind blurs or clearly reflects the image of the Divine
ideal, so will it give rise to a correspondingly feeble or
vigorous reproduction of it in our external life.
This being the rationale of the matter, why should we limit our
conception of the Divine ideal of ourselves? Why should we say,
"I am too mean a creature ever to reflect so glorious an image"--
or "God never intended such a limitless ideal to be reproduced in
human beings." In saying such things we expose our ignorance of
the whole Law of the Creative Process. We shut our eyes to the
fact that the Omega of completion already subsists in the Alpha
of conception, and that the Alpha of conception would be nothing
but a lying illusion if it was not capable of expression in the
Omega of completion. The creative process in us is that we become
the individual reflection of what we realize God to be relatively
to ourselves, and therefore if we realize the Divine Spirit as
the INFINITE potential of all that can constitute a perfected
human being, this conception must, by the Law of the Creative
Process, gradually build up a corresponding image in our mind,
which in turn will act upon our external conditions.
This, by the laws of mind, is the nature of the process and it
shows us what St. Paul means when he speaks of Christ being
formed in us (Gal. iv. 19) and what in another place he calls
being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us
(Col. iii. 10). It is a thoroughly logical sequence of cause and
effect, and what we require is to see more clearly the Law of
this sequence and use it intelligently--that is why St. Paul says
it is being "renewed in knowledge": it is a New Knowledge, the
recognition of principles which we had not previously
apprehended. Now the fact which, in our past experience, we have
not grasped is that the human mind forms a new point of departure
for the work of the Creative Spirit; and in proportion as we see
this more and more clearly, the more we shall find ourselves
entering into a new order of life in which we become less and
less subject to the old limitations. This is not a reward
arbitrarily bestowed upon us for holding dogmatically to certain
mere verbal statements, but it is the natural result of
understanding the supreme law of our own being. On its own plane
it is as purely scientific as the law of chemical reaction; only
here we are not dealing with the interaction of secondary causes
but with the Self-originating action of Spirit. Hence a new force
has to be taken into account which does not occur in physical
science, the power of Feeling. Thought creates form, but it is
feeling that gives vitality to thought. Thought without feeling
may be constructive as in some great engineering work, but it can
never be creative as in the work of the artist or musician; and
that which originates within itself a new order of causation is,
so far as all pre-existing forms are concerned, a creation ex
nihilo, and is therefore Thought expressive of Feeling. It is
this indissoluble union of Thought and Feeling that distinguishes
creative thought from merely analytical thought and places it in
a different category; and therefore if we are to afford a new
starting-point for carrying on the work of creation it must be by
assimilating the feeling of the Originating Spirit as part and
parcel of its thought--it is that entering into the Mind of the
Spirit of which I spoke in the first address.
Now the images in the Mind of the Spirit must necessarily be
GENERIC. The reason for this is that by its very nature the
Principle of Life must be prolific, that is, tending to
Multiplicity, and therefore the original Thought-image must be
fundamental to whole races, and not exclusive to particular
individuals. Consequently the images in the Mind of the Spirit
must be absolute types of the true essentials of the perfect
development of the race, just what Plato meant by architypal
ideas. This is the perfect subsistence of the thing in the
thought. Therefore it is that our evolution as centres of
CREATIVE activity, the exponents of new laws, and through them of
new conditions, depends on our realizing in the Divine Mind the
architype of mental perfection, at once as thought and feeling.
But when we find all this in the Divine Mind, do we not meet with
an infinite and glorious Personality? There is nothing lacking of
all that we can understand by Personality, excepting outward
form; and since the very essence of telepathy is that it
dispenses with the physical presence, we find ourselves in a
position of interior communion with a Personality at once Divine
and Human. This is that Personality of the Spirit which St. John
saw in the apocalyptic vision, and which by the very conditions
of the case is the Alpha and Omega of Humanity.
But, as I have said, it is simply GENERIC in itself, and it
becomes active and specific only by a purely personal relation to
the individual. But once more we must realize that nothing can
take place except according to Law, and therefore this specific
relation is nothing arbitrary, but arises out of the generic Law
applied under specific conditions. And since what makes a law
generic is precisely the fact that it does not supply the
specific conditions, it follows that the conditions for the
specializing of the Law must be provided by the individual. Then
it is that his recognition of the originating creative movement,
as arising from combined Thought and Feeling, becomes a practical
working asset. He realizes that there is a Heart and Mind of the
Spirit reciprocal to his own heart and mind, that he is not
dealing with a filmy abstraction, nor yet with a mere
mathematical sequence, but with something that is pulsating with
a Life as warm and vivid and full of interest as his own--nay,
more so, for it is the Infinite of all that he himself is. And
his recognition goes even further than this, for since this
specialization can only take place through the individual
himself, it logically follows that the Life, which he thus
specializes, become HIS OWN life. Quoad the individual it does
not know itself apart from him. But this self-recognition through
the individual cannot in any way change the inherent nature of
the Creative Spirit, and therefore to the extent to which the
individual perceives its identification with himself, he places
himself under its guidance, and so he becomes one of those who
are "led by the Spirit." Thus he begins to find the Alpha and
Omega of the Divine ideal reproduced in himself--in a very small
degree at present, but containing the principle of perpetual
growth into an infinite expansion of which we can as yet form no
conception.
St. John sums up the whole of this position in his memorable
words:--"Beloved now are we the Sons of God, and it doth not yet
appear what we SHALL be; but we know that when He shall appear
(i.e., become clear to us) we shall be like Him; for (i.e., the
reason of all this) we shall see Him as He is" (I. John iii. 2).