SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OR REGENERATION
R.C.DOUGLASS
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Class _ Book-.
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT,
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
OR
REGENERATION
"■ SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
OR
REGENERATION
The Law and Process of the Unfoldment of the Christ in Consciousness
BY
R. C. DOUGLASS
Profounder, profounder
Man's spirit must dive ; His aye-rolling orbit
At no goal will arrive ; The heavens that now draw him
With sweetness untold, Once found, — for new heavens
He spurneth the old.
Emerson
Correct the portrait by the living face, Man's God by God's God.
Browning
BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD
1903
the library congress
OF
Two Copies Received
MAR 6 1903
Copvrignt Entry
CLASS (\_ XXc. No
COPY B.
J)(o'7>3
Copyright, 1903, by R. C. Douglass.
Published, February, 1903.
All rights reserved.
Spiritual Evolution or Regeneration.
BOSTON
PREFACE
THESE Private Lessons in Practical Christian Metaphysics are offered to the public in response to many requests from our students, some of whom came into the Spiritual Consciousness through them. They are offered in the same spirit of assurance in which they have always been given in class work.
Their didactic form comes from this first use of them as the necessity of class teaching. And we have allowed this form to remain, because we conceive it quite possible, that this may prove the more effective way to impart the basic principles of Truth to any reader, who will consider himself a student while reading them. We have made certain portions of the Bible the basis of our reasoning; because those portions contain the essential and fundamental principles of the phil- osophy of the eternal order of all Evolution, whether Cosmical or Spiritual. This has involved an incidental Spiritual interpretation ; showing the
5
PREFACE
Scriptures to have be^n written solely for the purpose of teaching Truth ; that there is a scien- tific law running through them as accurate as the law of the more physical sciences ; and that the highest philosophy is couched under all its histories, prophecies, and figures.
If we have made clear something of the pro- found Spiritual philosophy of Christianity, suffi- ciently to lead some struggling souls — who perhaps had stumbled at the " letter of the Word," or at certain dogmatic teachings concerning it — into the Light, and into a deeper and broader Christian experience — into the realization of the Christ in Consciousness — until they have made the demonstration, that Righteousness in Con- sciousness is Health of both Soul and Body, — then we shall be satisfied that we have not labored in vain.
For some of the conceptions of the Genesis Allegory we are indebted to our first teacher in Christian Metaphysics, Rev. G. D. Robinson, who clearly saw the symbolic aspect of the Creation story, and showed us the perfection of the correspondence; and worked it out in a similar way.
6
PREFACE
We send this message forth on its mission, with more than a wish — with the prayer of faith, that some Spiritual Seed-thought may find a receptive matrix in the heart of each reader, where it shall do its regenerative work, and bring forth fruit in a Regenerated Life.
R. C. Douglass.
Boston, Mass., February, 1903.
CONTENTS
PART I.
Chapter Page
Introduction to the Genesis Symbology. i 3
I. The Awakening . 21
II. Denial — Discrimination ...... 47
III. Affirmation — Concentration .... 72
IV. The "Two Great Lights" 97
V. Thought and Expression 119
VI. The Man that God Made 144
PART II.
Introduction to the Christ Symbology. 171 VII. The Immaculate Conception and New
Birth 179
VIII. Unfoldment in Wisdom unto Manhood . 206
IX., Overcoming — "The Wilderness" . . 230
X. The Demonstrations of the Adept . . 250
XL "Gethsemane" — Self- Renunciation . . 275
XII. "The Crucifixion"- — Elimination of the
Self 298
XIII. " Resurrection " — " The Sabbath " —
The Christ-Consciousness . . . . 321
Conclusion 344
9
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
REGENERATION
PART I
FOLLOWING THE "SIX DAYS" OF THE GENESIS SYMBOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
PART I
THE GENESIS SYMBOLOGY
The object of these pages is not Theological controversy, nor the exploiting of the " higher criticism," since the author lays no claim to theo- logical training. Nevertheless, all study of Truth in the nature of the case involves controversy, and touches elbows with Theology. In the nature of man's being, as a Spiritual Son of a Spiritual Father, any man may be taught of God, inde- pendent of the schools, who will discipline him- self properly in meditation. Because by thus " entering into his closet," he may come en rapport with Omniscience, and be instructed like the prophets of old.
The one thing all the world is seeking is Truth. This is the " Pearl of Great Price," which we are
13
INTRODUCTION
exhorted to "seek" — tc "search for as for hid treasures ; " and which when found satisfies the hunger of the soul. Truth is eternal, unchange- able, Spiritual Principle, ■ — like the " seamless robe," symmetrical and unrendable, rather than a debatable, uncertain, intellectual conception. Lu- cretia Mott said : "Truth for authority, not author- ity for Truth." Because Truth is eternal Principle, the great Teacher of Truth said : " I Am Truth." By identifying himself with the Christ, the Princi- ple of Truth, He " spake as one having authority." Truth, therefore, is Divine and of priceless value. Pilate's query is the question of the ages, never solved, as long as men search only through intel- lect, objectively. As our life is first developed along lines of objectivity, we naturally first seek for Truth intellectually, as though it were an objective something, which the mind can handle and analyze. It is because of this established habit of objective living and thinking that we con- tinue this blind search in the darkness.
But Spiritual Truth is not found that way; because primarily it is not a thing of Intellect. For since all Truth is Spiritual, it can only be " Spiritually discerned." Then after having once
14
INTRODUCTION
conceived the Spiritual Idea, we may proceed to clothe it in intellectual formula ; that by means of the symbolism of words we may convey to another our conception.
This is the way all the Prophets wrote, the way all Truth is found. The reason the "Word of the Lord" spoken by Prophets had so great power is because they received it direct from the great Fountain of Infinite Wisdom ; which enabled them to speak from the standpoint of Truth, — with authority.
Christ is called " The Word " - — the Logos, pro- ceeding from the Father. This was the concep- tion of the Greeks five hundred years before Christ. This was the conception of St. John and Philo, and according to the Kabbalists, who were profound metaphysicians, this was the conception of the Hebrews. For Josephus in his treatise on " Hades " addressed to the Greeks, said : " What you Greeks call Logos, we Jews call Christ." The Hebrew, Chokmah (Wisdom), is their term for this Wisdom-Word or principle, which is the second Sephira, and which, like the Logos , pro- ceeds from the Father (Ketker, the first Sephira). Thus Chokmah is the Son ; and yet he is called
.15
INTRODUCTION
" the active and evident Father ; " to whom the Mother is united — Binah (the Understanding), the third Sephira. From the union of the mascu- line Chokmah and the feminine Binah proceed all Creations. This is why Christ is called " The Everlasting Father " in Is. 9 : 6. The other names ascribed to Chokmah are Yah, Yahveh (I Am).
It is evident that all these terms refer to a great Spiritual Principle within us, establishing the fact that Christ is the great Principle of Divinity in Man. And so the Father is forever honoring and working through the Son. For the Son is the Eternal Word {Logos), by which the worlds were made; "and without the Word was not anything made that was made."
Thus Christ is the Impersonal Word — the In- finite Word — the Logos — the Truth — the Divine Idea proceeding from Infinite Mind ; which goes forth clothed with authority and power to express itself, on all planes of expression.
This Son of God in every man is the " Essential Christ" — the universal Savior. The personal Jesus ever recognized and identified himself with this Essential Christ, and constantly lived and
16
INTRODUCTION
spoke from this Central principle ; until he earned the distinguished compound name, " Jesus- Christ; " which represents Humanity Regenerated — Humanity and Divinity united, making the Divine-Human.
Thus Christ is "The Word of God; " which is "The sword of the Spirit," — "sharper than any two-edged sword," — " dividing asunder Soul and Spirit." Let us see what is the force of these terms.
As God is a Trinity, — Father, Mother, Son — so Man is a trinity, — Spirit, Soul, and Body. In both cases the three are one. Of the Human trinity the " Spirit " is the Divine part of man ; the " Soul " is the Human Consciousness, needing salvation by instruction in Wisdom ; and the " Body " is the outward expression of the Soul, which is as far from perfection as is the Soul, — and the Salvation of which is wrought through the Soul's redemption.
With this analysis of man's nature we may understand how the " Sword of the Spirit " can " divide asunder Soul and Spirit."
Man has lived so fully in the mere animal con- sciousness that he cannot distinguish between
17
INTRODUCTION
" soul" and " spirit." But the revelation of man's Spiritual nature is made by the Spirit only — by the " piercing even to the dividing asunder " — showing the distinction between the sin-stained " Soul" and the incorruptible "Spirit," between the Human and the Divine elements of his nature, in other words.
Man cannot possibly aspire to a higher unfold- ment, until the Logos-Sword has " divided asunder Soul and Spirit," enabling him to distinguish be- tween the True and the False, that he may identify himself with the Christ-Spirit, — Divinity within, and thus unfold his highest potentialities. Every- thing depends on a wise choice. With this revel- ation of the Spirit, he may intelligently " choose that better part," and identify himself with the Divine part of his nature, and thus ultimately be- come Divine in Consciousness.
Truth is something for the individual, and is dis- coverable by prayerful meditation. Another may direct your feet in the way of its discovery ; but you must by desire and receptivity find it for yourself. Books and teachers are aids ; but only aids. They are as often hindrances ; because they are on the external plane — objective. There is a
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INTRODUCTION
Wisdom higher than the wisdom of the world — a Wisdom not contained in books, nor taught by man, to be found only within.
Some twenty-five years ago Joseph Cook said : "The Heathen, who have never heard of the Historical Christ, may know the Essential Christ, and so find Salvation." We have called such great philosophers as Socrates and Plato " heathen," because they did not know the " Historical Christ ; " for which they were not responsible. But who shall say they did not know the "Essential Christ " ? Certainly they were devout searchers for Truth. And Christ is Truth. A larger charity and truer Christianity will recognize the Christian in every genuine lover of Truth for its own sake, though he may not know the " Histori- cal Christ, " nor accept the conventional formulae of what is called theology. The broader Christianity will recognize the Christ in the exact philosophic statement of Truth.
Plato did not live in vain ; nor was he here by accident. He left for the world a rich legacy of Truth in intellectual form ; which the broader and fuller Christianity must in the coming time utilize in a broader and fuller Theology.
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INTRODUCTION
The time is come when Religion must be scien- tific, and Science must be religious. The time has come when Theology must be philosophic, and Philosophy must be theologic. For whatever is true belongs to Christ; because Christ is Truth.
In this work we have endeavored to search out the Spiritual meaning of that ancient mystic Story of Creation in the first Chapter of Genesis ; which, while seeming to be statements of fact, in the objective world, is in the real intent and pur- pose of the allegory a sort of compendium of the high esoteric teaching and metaphysical philoso- phy known to the ancients, — in the hope of being able to show thereby the deeper and more vital principles of the " Essential Christ " in the indi- vidual Consciousness. We have emphasized the Spiritual Idea, because we conceive this to be the essential thing of the Scriptures, to which its histories are subservient, and for which its alle- gories are given.
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
THE " FIRST DAY : —THE AWAKENING
"And God said, 'Let there be Light': and there was Light." — Gen. 1:3.
" Man is Man's ABC. There is none that can Read God aright, until he first spell MAN." — Quarles.
POPE said : " The proper study of mankind is Man."
If this be our " proper study," it is of highest importance to the correct understanding of Man that our viewpoint be correct, in order that we may see him truly — as he is, in truth. If our viewpoint be human and earthly, we shall see him human and "of the earth earthy," manifest- ing all the baser qualities of humanity. But if our point of view can be changed from the earthly conception to the heavenly, - — then with divinely
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
perfect vision we shall see, as it were, through the eyes of Divinity, beholding him as God sees him, His own perfect Son, " made in His Image, after His Likeness." This is the True Man, truly seen. Therefore in the highest sense being God-derived, and not earth-born, he is not, in truth y what he appears to be from the earth viewpoint. Heaven- born, he is naturally a worshipping being. This has been his record in all history; which is at least suggestive of his high origin. But by reason of the dark obscurity of his earthly history it is not surprising that in all the historical ages gross superstitions have characterized all forms of relig- ion. Even at the present day superstition is a large element in religion. No form or system is entirely free from it. So much of the effete past clings to us. There is nothing so persistent as superstition. Naturally we see not our own super- stitions; but we want others to lay aside theirs and conform to ours. Therefore, from our point of view, they are "heathen." From their point of view we are heathen. We think them supersti- tious. Are we entirely free from it? These things are our inheritance from the rude ages and ruder races of the long, dark past.
22
THE "FIRST DAY"
We are now in the Twentieth Century, which is to evolve a purer, though not less Christian, system of religious thought, free from the swad- dling clothes of superstition, — a system that shall be in keeping with the higher intelligence of this progressive age. The superior intelligence of the present day demands that we bring our religious ideas into the Areopagus of sound reason, and prove our theorems by the keenest tests of reason and philosophy. Applying the test of philosophy and reason Swedenborg called religion " an exact science." So great is the demand and tendency of the times in this direction that we have in " Christian Science," " Divine Science," " Mental Science," etc., so many efforts to prove the princi- ples underlying the teachings of Jesus to be true because scientific, and scientific because demon- strable.
In this treatise on the practical Metaphysics of the Scriptures we shall endeavor to reason logi- cally, philosophically, and scientifically concerning God, Man, and the Universe, to show that Chris- tianity is both scientific and demonstrable, and therefore worthy the consideration of the brightest minds.
23
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
All true sciences are demonstrable. Theology, the greatest of sciences, ought to be as demon- strable as chemistry or geometry ; and will be when the scientific thought is given full play, when its doctrines are deductions drawn from un- assailable premises of Absolute Truth. But if the superstitious element, which tradition has handed down, is a large factor in its formulated state- ments, it will not only fail of demonstration, but its doctrinal statements will degenerate into dogma, instead of being scientific theorems.
Well do thinking men question a theology that offers no higher authority for its statements than bald dogmatic assertion. Men of reason require demonstration, justly repudiating the undemon- strable as a false claimant. No wonder thinking men have fled from dogmatism to agnosticisms.
The old, so-called, science of Astronomy, which rested on sense evidence alone, assuming the earth to be flat, with all the sidereal host revolving around it, could not be demonstrated, on account of its false premises. Therefore it had to yield to a better system, founded on eternal principles of truth, a system which could be demonstrated, before it could justly be called a science.
24
THE "FIRST DAY"
Just so the old medieval system of dogmatic theology, founded on the letter of external evi- dences and traditional superstitions, must in this day of scientific thought yield to a better the- ology, resting on a scientific and demonstrable basis.
Why should not Spiritual as well as material things be scientific? Indeed, since the Spiritual underlies the material, the Spiritual sciences should claim our attention first, as fundamental to the material.
For there is always an exact correspondence between the material and the Spiritual. Where- fore, if one factor in the correspondence be scien- tific, the other must be.
The great teacher of Galilee was a profound philosopher. Wherefore, all his statements rested on a scientific basis ; without which they could not have stood the test of the ages. A system of ethics without a scientific basis would be quite unthinkable to the scientific mind. Every great system has had its philosophy ; and the more pro- found that philosophy, the more enduring its power.
Perhaps the greatest reason that Christianity is so 25
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
enduring and appeals so strongly to the human heart is its profound Spiritual philosophy. But dogmatism, which ignores philosophy, has shorn it of this greatest element of power.
If a philosophic and scientific Christianity, in- stead of dogmatic Church-ianity, can be taught the people, we shall have a religious system most enduring, because founded on the strongest ele- ments of human nature, the religious and the scientific combined.
The materialistic thought of Western civiliza- tion has materialized and occidentalizcd Christi- anity, so that it has lost the beautiful Spiritual philosophy, originally its basis, which it inherited from the most ancient civilization of which we have any accurate knowledge, that of its ancestors, the Aryans, whose schools of Spiritual philosophy have with wonderful persistency continued all the way down to the Christian era, appearing in modi- fied form in Egypt, Chaldea, and Greece, and in the schools of the prophets among the Hebrews.
Rabold points out a long line of these Divinity Schools, where devout students assembled to study the philosophy of God and man thousands of years before our era. The first thing required of these
26
THE "FIRST DAY"
students was to lay aside all prejudices, that, un- trammelled by preconceived opinions, they might be open and receptive to Truth.
The starting point of their reasoning was the postulation of God as " First Cause." Thus they reasoned from Cause to Effect, recognizing Mind as the great Creative Causation. In this way they learned to develop the creative power of their own minds, and became Mystics or miracle-work- ers; and their success in thus handling the higher Spiritual forces successfully depended on their living clean, Spiritual lives, above the plane of the ordinary human. The feats of magic performed to-day by the Brahman mystics and self-denying Gnanis are so wonderful that their narration would scarcely be believed. Yet they seem well authenticated. By the development of the higher Spiritual powers the genuine mystic was able to overcome the lower natural laws, as the overcom- ing of gravitation by levitation, enabling him to walk on the water, etc- In course of time others outside the Secret Brotherhood began to imitate ; and thus the fakir and the charlatan appeared, causing the genuine to be discredited.
The Hebrew Prophets were students of the 27
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
" Ancient Mysteries," and therefore understood the secret of Spiritual power.
Elijah was a true mystic, and so well understood the creative power of thought that he was able to sustain himself and the poor widow of Zare- phath a whole year on " a handful of meal and a cruse of oil."
Doubtless all the Prophets were mystics, who learned and taught this " Secret Wisdom " in the " Schools of the Prophets."
Jesus of Nazareth was a prince among mystics ; and by using the Spiritual powers inherent in himself he was able to overcome physical laws by understanding and employing the higher Spiritual laws.
By the creative power of thought he was able to multiply the " five loaves and two small fishes " sufficiently to feed " five thousand men, beside women and children," if this story is to be taken literally. There is no miracle wrought without law ; and he who knows the law, and lives up to its requirements, may do the works.
What is to-day called " mysticism," " occultism," etc., is a modified relic of a very ancient and pure Spiritual religious teaching — a religious system
28
THE "FIRST DAY"
of prehistoric origin found in its purest form among the Himalayan Hindus, and which is the parent of all succeeding systems, including the Hebrew system. For we read that "Abraham came out from Ur of the Chaldees," where this mystic religion was still taught; and he stamped the spirit of the " secret mysteries " upon the succeeding Jewish system. Next came Moses, " learned in all the wisdom of Egypt ; " and the "wisdom of Egypt" was the "ancient mysteries" or " Wisdom Religion " of their ancient Aryan ancestors, modified or intellectualized by the pecul- iarity of Egyptian thought. He was, then, a real mystic ; and the principle of his ethical system was oriental mysticism, full of symbols and sym- bolic rites, to portray to the mind certain Spiritual experiences of the heart.
Freemasonry is now believed to have had a much greater antiquity and nobler origin than its devotees even dared to suspect; being a relic of this ancient system, which its allegories veil and its symbols conceal, — retaining but the hollow shell of ceremony as earmarks to indicate its high origin and great antiquity. This is clearly shown
29
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
by J. D. Buck in his wonderful work, " Mystic Masonry."
Those familiar with the Kabbala of the ancient Hebrews see that all the Prophets were the high- est order of mystics, that they had in the " Schools of the Prophets " the secrets of the highest Wis- dom of antiquity.
Thus all the earliest schools were religious schools, in which the " Heavenly Mysteries," the highest wisdom, was taught. Then the mystic was the wise man, the Prophet of the Lord. Now, as then, the Spiritual is mystical, occult (hidden), to unregenerate intellect. In the nature of the case the Spiritual is hidden from men not on the Spiritual plane.
Since Jesus was a prince among mystics, in order to understand the secret wisdom of his high teaching it will be necessary to be, as it were, " in- itiated into the mysteries " of the kingdom of Heaven; understanding which, the things long hidden become revealed.
The practical purpose of this course of lessons in Christian Metaphysics is the training of the mind in Spiritual thought ; so that we may be- come " Initiates " into these mysteries. " To you
30
THE "FIRST DAY"
it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," said Jesus.
The whole Bible is a book of " Concealed Mys- teries," written by mystics in the language of mystics, — in symbol, metaphor, allegory, and allegoric history. Therefore he who would dis- cover its hidden arcana must possess the key to its Spiritual interpretation. For Spiritual Truth is inexpressible, except in a symbolic way.
Of course we understand the story of Creation as given in Genesis is one of the most ancient of allegories, and not original with Moses.
That wonderful allegory has a vastly broader meaning than the materialist conceives. It opens with the fundamental assumption :
" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
In searching for the hidden or Spiritual mean- ing of the Scriptures the first thing necessary to do is to eliminate Time and Space from our thought ; that the Spiritual sense may be realized as Now and Here. Time and Space are things of the world of sense. God and all things Spiritual must be considered apart from Time and Space.
3i
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
Eternity is the unfathomable r.nd immeasurable Now.
" Now is the accepted time, and behold ! Now is the day of Salvation."
The fuller expression of this Genesis statement may therefore be :
In the Eternal NOW God is forever Creating.
The real vital and living value of the WORD is in its Now-ness and Here-ness, — within — without Where or When. The Spiritual or essential prin- ciple is never in the historical.
" It is nigh thee, and in thy heart and in thy mouth, the Word of Truth."
This Genesis story is an allegorical portrayal of the Cosmic order, primarily designed to show the process for the unfoldment of the Spiritual Con- sciousness in the individual. In other words, it is the story of Regeneration, — the great theme of all Scriptures.
But considering it as a statement in logical reasoning, this was Moses' first or basic proposi- tion, his " Datum " of reasoning, — his first postu- late, — his beginning — not God's ; for God never.
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THE "FIRST DAY"
began, either to be or to create. There could no more be a beginning of Creation than of God. But considering it as referring both to the cosmi- cal and Spiritual processes, which follow the same law, it is not a declaration of what God once did a few thousand years ago, and only once. It is rather what he is forever doing, world without end. For what was once true of God is forever true.
"lam the Lord : I change not."
And so this shall be our Datum, our " begin- ning," our first proposition or assumption in de- ductive reasoning concerning God, the Universe and Man. We first assume or postulate God. Afterward we will endeavor to prove God.
We start, then, with God postulated as the Absolute or underived First CAUSE ; and from this axiomatic datum we are to make our deduc- tions of Truth. If our premises are true, the con- clusion must be true ; and we shall be always within the sphere of Truth.
There was never a time when Infinite Mind was not; when it was less than infinite ; when it began to think or express itself.
That is, — since Thought is creative, there was 33
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
never a time when God began to create. For without Thought Mind would not be Mind. Thus Creation is a necessity of Mind, and must have always been.
A beginning of Creation is as unthinkable as a beginning of God.
In this discussion it is not our purpose to follow the Cosmical process in the material world ; but rather to follow the same process in the Spiritual world. For the Spiritual world within is the exact correspondent of the world without. The unfold- ment of the Spiritual Consciousness is cosmical and not arbitrary, orderly and not fortuitous, exactly as with the world without.
We have a world within, a Spiritual world to be created or unfolded. In the process of Regenera- tion the individual starts with his " world without form and void." Everything is at first chaotic to the mind, as it begins to think : there is " dark- ness upon the face of the deep," — the darkness of ignorance, — until dispelled by the Light of Truth through sound reasoning. This orderly process continues through alternate " evenings " and " mornings," until the unfolding soul finds its fruition in the " Sabbath," the nightless Day of
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THE "FIRST DAY"
Spiritual Realization ; which is the Kingdom of Heaven come — Salvation realized — Regenera- tion accomplished.
There can be no Spiritual unfoldment without the Divine Spirit. There can be no Spiritual Con- ception without the " Brooding Spirit."
" The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest overshadow thee,"
before thy heart can conceive the Spiritual Christ, that the Christ may be born in thee, — before there can be any unfoldment of Divinity in Con- sciousness. There is no Spiritual Light amid the native darkness of " mortal mind," until " the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters " of the mind.
" Let there be Light," is the inevitable result,
— the Christ is conceived, — and Christ is Light,
— "the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." After the New Conception there follows the New Birth.
This is The Awakening, — the dawn of a brighter hope, — the beginning of a New Life, — the First Step in Regeneration, — the " First Day" of the New Creation. We must remember that
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
what is true of the world without is true of the world within, by correspondence.
The New Birth makes you an " Initiate " into the order of the " Brotherhood of the Sons of God." By the true " Immaculate Conception " the Christ is born to consciousness. You have entered the " Path " of Regeneration. Hence- forth all your steps and experiences must be in and under the illuminating Light of Christ, the Living Truth.
In this " First Day" of our " Initiation" let us see what new revelations this New Light will reveal. For we are now in the " School of the Prophets," studying Divine Philosophy.
In beginning our reasoning according to Divine Wisdom, the most fundamental statement we can make is our First Postulate, namely : GOB IS. Then, answering the natural inquiry, What is God, we affirm God is BEING. But how can we know what Being is? The only way is to begin with yourself, by first recognizing your own existence ; which is not difficult; because no one can deny his own existence. You cannot possibly think of yourself as non-existent. Through recognizing your existence you may recognize your Being, from
36
THE "FIRST DAY"
which you exist. As you contemplate Being — your own Being — your thought will expand, until you begin to get a conception of Infinite Being, — BEING Eternal, Omnipresent, and Omniscient. In this conception of the Infinite we may understand that in the limitless abyss there is no place nor point in space where Being is not.
A distinction must be made, however, between Being and Existence ; which is the distinction be- tween the Unmanifest and the Manifest.
Ex-istence implies something back of itself, from which it ex-ists. Therefore it is not strictly proper to say that God exists. For this were to suppose something back of Him, from which he exists. God is Eternal Being Uncreate. Only that ex-ists, as the Manifest, which stands out from (ex, out from) the Unmanifest, — that which appeal's by reason of that which is. God is Esse (to be) — BEING. Man is Ex-istere (to stand out from) — Creation. • God, Eternal, Primordial BE- ING, IS. Man, whose Being is in God, ex-ists from God.
Now, because Man's Being is God, he may in consciousness recognize God as the Being of his being.
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
BEING or Esse is the original, underived Es- sence or Divine Substance. Existere is that which is derived from Esse, on which its existence de- pends. Existere cannot be without Esse. But Esse depends on nothing. It IS. Yet there is a sense in which Esse depends on Existere. For as Mind cannot be Mind without Thought, so God cannot be God without Man, who is the Thought of Infinite Mind. Mind implies Thought; Father implies Son ; God implies Man. Each is the other's necessity. Then while Esse is the neces- sity of Existere, Existere becomes the necessity of Esse. This is essentially Swedenborg's reasoning in his " Divine Love and Wisdom."
Thus it appears that while God is Man's neces- sity, Man is God's necessity. Since this has been always true, it follows that Man has always existed. For what is once true of God has always been true. God was never alone in his universe. Father and Son are both eternal.
Now, corroborative of our basic statement, " Being Is," there is in every man's consciousness the unimpeachable witness declaring, I Am. Here every man may find God for himself, and here only can he know him. For "I Am " is "Jeho-
38
THE "FIRST DAY"
vali," the "Lord;1 and the "Lord God" of the Hebrews.
" I Am," then, is a statement of Being; and God is BEING. Therefore in the utterance of " I Am " you speak the Hebrew name — the greatest Name of God ; and in that utterance you may at once recognize your own Being and the Divine BEING, — and discover the inseparable unity of the two, and joyfully exclaim, " I and the Father are One." Your own Being and the Divine Being coalesce. The Microcosm and the Macrocosm blend. God is inseparable from Man. God in Man is " The Lord " — " Jehovah " — The Christ.
We may never know what God is in himself, what Being is in its essence. Yet it is every man's duty and privilege to form the highest possible conception of him ; and by means of his largest possible definition be able to convey to others that high conception. In the nature of the case The Infinite is indefinable ; because definition is itself limitation. The Illimitable cannot be limited. The best the finite being can do is to express its highest conception by its largest definition. Yet God's Name is forever unutterable in intellectual
39
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
terms. Any definition conveys but imperfectly the individual's conception.
Definition of God : (My Conception.)
f Being, ("Life, f Principle, GOD is<; Mind, J Truth, j Substance, [^ Spirit, ^ Love, [ Will, —
— Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent ; — a Trinity of Trinities in Unity; the All-embracing INFINITE ONE; — The BEING of all beings, the LIFE of all lives, the SUBSTANCE of all substances; the Universal, Unchangeable GOOD;
— the ALL-FA THER-MOTHER-SON. — For MAN is a SON of GOD, with all that this implies.
Reading across the Trinities, we see that Life is the Principle of Being; Truth is the Substance of Mind ; and Love is the Will of the Spirit.
The terms " Spirit," " Substance," " Principle," " Truth," in their last analysis, are one and the same thing; and therefore in their highest use have a kindred signification — all referring to the same Divine, Primordial Essence.
40
THE "FIRST DAY"
Aristotle taught the Spiritual nature of Sub- stance. He said that " A Spiritual Substance is the cause of the Universe." Therefore we may with exact propriety say : Of the invisible Sub- stance of Spirit all visible things were made or brought into visible expression. We no longer think that an absent God created the Universe out of nothing, nor out of pre-existent Matter. But rather, that the One Imminent, Omnipresent In- telligence evolved the Kosmos out of his own Infinite Spiritual Substance. So that all things — even Matter itself — are God in manifest expres- sion. As Paul said : " The things that are seen were not made of things which do appear." That is, Visible things were evolved out of the Invisible.
Modern physicists recognize a universal Sub- stance, which they call Ether, invisible, intangible, and so very energetic as to be practically omnipo- tent. This exceedingly subtle Substance is a fit- ting symbol of what we call God. Yet it is not God. It is still too material ; for Ether is regarded as Matter in its most attenuated form.
The Brahman philosophers say that there are five ethers, one interior, as it were, to another, — each finer and more potent than that exterior to
4i
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
itself; and that the Inmost of all is pure Divine Spirit, the Original Essence, from which all the more exterior ethers are evolved, until Matter, the outermost expression, appears. And thus the In- visible becomes manifest in forms, — the Unmani- fest becomes Manifest, — God becomes revealed to himself, — which is the object of Creation.
Hence the Divine One says : " I Am God ; be- side Me there is None Else " — naught else — He is All.
We have thought that Matter is solid substance; but it is not the real Substance. Only this most interior Essence is the Real, Primal SUBSTANCE. Spirit is the only Substance, — the Substance of all substances. Strictly speaking, to admit another Substance called Matter were to deny God's One- ness and All-ness, — making him but One of Two, or less than Infinite — hence Finite.
When we understand that matter is but a " mode of Spirit," then nothing but Spirit will remain in consciousness ; and we shall be getting away from the illusions of the phenomenal, and finding the Real in the Invisible. We are awaken- ing to the Spiritual Consciousness.
The other factors of the Divine Name, " Mind," 42
THE "FIRST DAY"
" Life," " Love," and " Will " will receive further discussion in a later chapter.
The Command, " Thou shalt not make unto thyself a graven image " — to worship — must in- clude a mental image as well as a physical one.
For we must not picture to ourselves a God in human form, with human limitations and frailties. Such a " graven image " of the mind is too narrow and restricting for soul growth. The more truly we can realize God as Spirit, the more nearly we can comprenend Infinity by such a conception of God, the more we are expanding in consciousness. We are elevated or debased according to our con- ception of God. Hence the sin of having a low conception of God. This is idolatry.
David said of such heathen gods : " They that make them are like unto them." That is to say, men are according to their idea of God ; and their Gods are like themselves. Therefore a loving man has a God of Love. So the " beloved dis- ciple" John said: " God is Love; he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him." A revengeful man has a " God of vengeance," and an intolerant man has an intolerant God. And so John Calvin, revengeful and intolerant, ordered his
43
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
theological opponent, Servetus, burned at the stake. We need have no surprise that John Calvin gave the world a corresponding theology. And thus the doctrine of eternal torments originated in the wicked heart of men — never in the heart of In- finite Love, whose " sun shines upon the evil and the good, and who sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust " alike. John's conception is higher than Calvin's. The highest is none too good for us ; since the highest conception carries us the highest, and contains the highest worship. " God is Good, and his Mercy endureth forever."
We must not limit the Infinite in any way, not even to one sex. He is both masculine and femi- nine, that Man may be his perfect expression. When we read, " In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth," we find a name for God which is both masculine and feminine. For the singular form, Eloh, is feminine, and the plural, Elohim, is masculine. Besides, the plural form is used significantly with a singular verb. And resultant from that biological duality there is the Son, completing the Trinity — Father, MOTHER, and Son.
All creating on every plane is accomplished by 44
THE "FIRST DAY"
the union of these biological principles ; which in the Divine nature are called the Will and the Understanding, or their equivalents, Love and Wisdom.
From the Divine Being in the heaven of heavens all the way down through every manifestation of life to the microscopic cell, the biological principle obtains as the key to the continuity of life. It is God everywhere working.
Material philosophers have been working from a wrong basis to find God. Starting with the false assumption that matter is real, they fail to find God, the essence of all Reality. Hence they con- clude that He is the " Unknowable." And every one who is tinctured with the material idea has a personal, semi-material, anthropomorphic God.
Their premises being material, their conclusions must be materialistic to some degree. The induc- tive reasoner, starting with matter postulated as real, will never be able to find God, who is Spirit.
But if we reverse this order of reasoning, adopt- ing the deductive method, we shall be able to account for all things visible and invisible in the universe. First we must ascend into the lofty mount of Spiritual thought; where like Moses we
45
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
" meet God face to face," as it were, in contem- plating and communing with our Ideal. This Spiritual Ideal, which the Spirit reveals only " in the mount," is God, who cannot be found u by- searching," but only by the Spirit's revealing. Then, starting with our IDEAL, the command is : " See thou fashion all things after the pattern shown in the mount." For the " pattern " of our Spiritual Temple must be " shown in the mount " — " In the mount of God it shall be seen." It must be revealed from above, before we can begin our system of deductive reasoning. Then will all things have a Divine significance and value, which will be Spiritual to our consciousness. Then we shall know ourselves to be Spiritual beings, living in a Spiritual world, under a Spiritual God, who evolved all things out of his Spiritual Substance, because all things have a Spiritual basis and reality.
If hitherto our ideals have been too low to afford us complete satisfaction, we must form higher ideals, dwelling long in their contemplation, until " Beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from Glory to Glory."
46
II
THE "SECOND DAY" : — DENIAL — DISCRIMINATION
"And God said, ' Let there be a Firmament in the midst of the Waters, and let it divide the Waters from the Waters.' " — Gen. i:6.
THE " Second Day" of this symbology is the Second Step in Regeneration or Spiritual Evolu- tion. It is said that every great unfoldment has its " six periods," and that the " seventh " is the perfected attainment. Then what is true of the Cosmical evolution must be true of Spiritual evo- lution. It is the same law operating on two planes. The process is Cosmical in both cases, dealing with matter in the one case and mind in the other. The Allegory always has a double meaning, because it deals with Law operating on two planes, showing the correspondential relation of the two. The one can no more be denied than the other. Both are equally true, according to Swedenborg's great Law of Correspondences.
47
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
If this great Allegory refers primarily to the order of the evolution of the Kosmos, and second- arily to the evolution of the Spiritual Conscious- ness," then its " six days " must in either case be " periods " rather than "days." For we read: " One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," Then, accord- ing to the symbology of numbers (1,000 being a cube of io, and " 10" denoting in symbolic lan- guage, fullness or All), the number 1,000 must stand for an unmeasured, indefinite period, suffi- cient to accomplish its end, as the formula io X io X io would indicate.
It will be borne in mind, that while Time is a necessary factor in things of the natural world, it does not obtain on the Spiritual plane.
So while " io " and its multiples symbolizes an unmeasured period, sufficient for the natural evo- lution,— on the Spiritual plane, where Time does not obtain, it stands for a full and completed ex- perience, sufficient for the Spiritual unfoldment, without regard to time.
Unfoldment is the order of Life ; progression is the Law of the universe. Everything is tending
48
THE "SECOND TAY"
toward perfection. All Creation is moving toward its Divine source.
In this allegory it will be noted that it is always " the evening and the morning " that constitute the " day," never the converse; because that would be advancing downward. There is always an " evening " of darkness to be dispelled by the ad- vancing Light of " the morning," at every step of our progress, — the darkness of ignorance over- come by the Light of Truth. Every new day attained has its comparative darkness, the over- coming of which brings a greater light to the mind. And thus we are progressing toward our final " Seventh day " of Spiritual Illumination.
We will not lose sight of our definition of God ; since all Spiritual reasonings depend on our con- ception of God. Yet The INFINITE cannot be limited or circumscribed by definition ; because it is the function of definition to define or make definite.
If The Infinite could be defined, there would then be no Infinite. Definition makes definite or finite. All that definition accomplishes is the formulation of our conception of The Infinite; and every human conception is necessarily finite,
49
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
Definition of God — our Conception : (Being, (Life, (Principle, God is < Mind, / Truth, <J Substance, I Spirit, ( Love,( Will — , — Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent; a Trinity of Trinities in Unity ; the All-embracing, Infinite ONE; the Being of all beings, the Life of all lives, the Substance of all substances ; the Universal, Unchangeable GOOD ; — the All-Father-Mother- Son. For Man is a Son of God, with all that this implies.
Being, then, Sons of God in our Real Being, we must be of the same Spiritual Substance and have the same attributes as our Divine Father. " Like Father, like Son," is a universal truism, — true on the animal plane — on all planes— because true on the Spiritual.
Of Jesus Christ Paul said: " In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; " — that is, in bodily expression. What is true of the repre- sentative man is potentially true of every man ; — only every man has not yet unfolded his poten- tialities.
To unfold the potentialities of the Christ in Con- sciousness, and consequently in bodily expression,
50
THE "SECOND DAY"
is the great object and end of Regeneration. As we have said, Whatever God, the Father, is, that Man, the Son, must be potentially ; and those qual- ities and attributes he is to unfold and bring into bodily expression. Great as this task may seem, and really is, it is the high privilege of man to un- fold all the potentialities of the Godhead.
Therefore, since God is Life, Man must mani- fest life ; and this he does to the degree of his understanding of Life. Seeing it uncertain and perishable, his experiences are uncertain, and he perishes accordingly; seeing it harmonious, Om- nipotent, God-Principled, his experiences will be harmonious, life will be a joy, and he will be in the way of demonstrating his highest potentialities.
Since God is Truth, his offspring should mani- fest Truth in true conditions ; and this he does to the degree of his understanding of what Truth is. Since God is Power, his offspring should manifest power, and does to the degree of his understand- ing of what power is, its source and nature. The secret of being able to realize Life, Truth, and Power consists in knowing God and man's relation to him.
If man fully knew that he is a Son of God, and 5i
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
what this means, he would awake and arise in his might, a victor over " the world, the flesh, and the devil." Immediately on that realization he would begin to manifest his Divine powers, and enter upon a great Spiritual evolution.
We are taking our Second Step out of the dark- ness of the animal-human consciousness with its inherent race beliefs, in search of the Light of Truth, — truth, which, because of its unchanging right-ness, will heal us of the wounds which error has inflicted. And in this Second Degree of our " initiation " we must freely use the eraser of Denial. For if there have been errors in our past lifework, it is quite necessary now that we erase them, that we may be able to build our Spiritual Temple free from the rubbish of the old thought. Rejection of error, and denial of its reality and power, is essential to its elimination. To this end we must establish a " Firmament in the midst of the Waters, to divide the Waters from the Waters."
The separation of " Waters from waters " in the metaphysical sense is discrimination between classes of thoughts — the true from the false, etc. For in this symbology the " Great Deep " is the
52
THE "SECOND DAY"
whole human mind; and the "Waters" are the free flowing thoughts.
In all Scripture interpretation all " waters " re- fer to things of the mind, either Spiritual or natu- ral, according to whether the waters mentioned are of Israel or outside of Israel.
In order to make any attainment in any depart- ment in life it is necessary to have a high purpose and a firm resolve. Then in discriminating between " waters and waters " we must use great firmness and wisdom. We are to reject from the mind all that cannot be measured by the perfect plumb-line of Truth, all that does not accord with our State- ment of Being. We must in the true Christian life learn to " walk by the plumb." " I will set a plumb-line in the midst of my people, Israel." — Amos 7 : 8. If we are to make Spiritual progress, we must, when once we have discovered an error, cut it off at all hazards ; otherwise the error re- tained will trail our Spirituality in the dust, and defeat us. By vigorous denial and repudiation we erase our errors. Then we may proceed with the solution of our problem. The mind must be emptied of its errors and falsities before it can be receptive to Truth. Only falsities can be destroyed,
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
however: Realities are eternal and indestructible. Falsities are worse than useless : we must be rid of them. But to us things are real or unreal according to our consciousness of them.
By means of the imaging faculty of the mind falsities may be pictured as realities through our belief in them as such ; and we suffer accordingly. Therefore what our higher intelligence finds to be unreal it is a matter of sound wisdom to cast out and erase from the tablets of consciousness.
Again, the mind is the " Garden of Eden; " and the task given to every man is " to dress and keep it." Our past experiences in the old conscious- ness (the animal-human) have filled it full of the weeds of error and falsity ; which must be rooted up before we can plant the fruitful seed of Truth. For " every plant which my Father hath not planted shall be rooted up," said the great meta- physical teacher.
In our effort to evolve from the animal-human
i to the Divine-human in consciousness, we shall
find many erroneous beliefs which are common
to that race consciousness, and which must, as far
as possible, be eliminated from conscious thought;
because in the higher consciousness, to which we
54
THE "SECOND DAY"
are aspiring, only Truth will be of use to us. In our mind-garden we have full power and dominion, and may mold and shape conditions to suit our- selves. We need simply to draw on the Infinite Intelligence within in all Spiritual work.
There is no Spiritual progress without the Light from above. And so " The Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters " of mind, as the sine qua non of this evolution.
Two Great Fundamental Errors are the source of all error and sin.
The First Great Error we have to cope with is, That there is another Reality and Power besides the Good, called Evil.
If, as we have declared, God is Good, and Good is All, then certainly there can be nothing but Good in the universe — in the sense of Reality. We do not deny, that in the human consciousness there are manifestations of evil on every hand. But those manifestations are due to the human be- lief in them as reality. Once get rid of the idea that it has reality, and it is immediately relegated to the misty realm of falsity ; — and what is falsity but a shadowy no-thing? This is the vaporous stuff that Lies are made of— No-thing claiming
55
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
to be Some-thing. Evil, then, is " A liar and the father of lies," as He said who solved this prob- lem truly.
A Lie never had reality; its nothingness is clearly seen the moment Truth is spoken, It be- comes invisible, and vanishes like a bubble, when once its emptiness is shown. There would be no Spiritual darkness, if Evil were eliminated from con- sciousness. The darkness of Egypt — " darkness that may be felt " — comes from the consciousness of Evil. " The Children of Israel have Light in their dwellings ; " because they are in the Spirit- ual Consciousness, where there is no evil. If, as we have said, God is the soul and substance of all Reality, he cannot be the soul and substance of a Lie, which has no soul or substance. To concede Substance and Reality to Evil, gives it standing and power — making it a God, with power over us commensurate with our concession. We can- not afford to have two Gods, one Good with power to bless, and the other Evil with power to curse us. As sure as we have we shall be in danger of getting our gods confused (since both are in mind) ; accusing our Good God of sending forth his wrath to curse his children.
56
THE "SECOND DAY"
We must be consistent concerning our idea of God. God is GOOD; and GOOD only is Reality Omnipresent and Omnipotent. There is no place or power for evil, except by our concession and recognition.
Evil is an illusion of the mortal consciousness, a sort of phantasm of this undeveloped earthly life. But there is a sense in which evil may be called undeveloped Good. For if bitter consequences follow our mistake, the consequence — the legiti- mate fruit of the error — comes to show us the mistake, that we may learn its lesson, and thereby be led in Wisdom's way. So if we learn the lesson of every experience, each experience will have served a good purpose, and will have been Good, and not Evil.
By using all experiences wisely, while unfolding the higher Consciousness, and by discriminating between Truth and Falsity, Reality and Unreality, all the phantasmagoria of mortal sense will disap- pear, in the ushering in of a New Day, where these illusions do not obtain. Oh, that men might awake and arise to the realization that God reigns — even Now, — that " The earth is the Lord's and the full- ness thereof" !
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
When you have carried the denial and renunci- ation of evil so far that you lose the consciousness of it, you will not see it in your brother ; you will have no fear of it ; you will not see sin, nor desire to sin ; you will be consciously Holy. The only hindrance to conscious holiness now is the belief in evil. When you are in what we may call the Good-Consciousness, only Good will come into your life, since only Good is in Consciousness.
The Second Great Error of the race is, That there are Two opposing Substances. Spirit and Matter.
In our definition of God we have used the word " Substance," affirming that Spirit is the only Substance, and that Matter in its last analysis is Spirit; so that fundamentally Spirit is all, or God is All.
The Reality of Matter does not consist in its phenomenal aspect but in the underlying Spiritual substratum or Substantial Essence, on which the phenomenal depends for its " appearance." The Visible is the projection outwardly of the Divine Invisible, which only is Real. When we say that matter is unreal or " there is no matter," we always have reference to the phenomenal aspect of matter,
58
THE "SECOND DAY"
and not to its Invisible Substratum. For the In- visible is the Real.
We shall now be understood, when we say, " There is no matter : All is Spirit."
The intelligent use of these denials will aid us in the comprehension of our own True Being; en- abling us to see ourselves as Spiritual, instead of material ; that we are even now Spiritual Beings living Spiritual lives in a Spiritual world ; that Holiness is everywhere, because God is every- where, and because everything seen is the expres- sion of God. " There is None beside Me."
It is the human, even the animal-human con- sciousness — the Divine-Human not being yet unfolded, — that sees all things crudely material and imperfect, — man a fallen creature, sinful and depraved, — God in human form, with human faults, loving and hating alternately like itself. In this crude, primitive state our world is " without form and void, with darkness upon the face of the deep."
But out of this material consciousness we are to advance by the " Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters " of thought, from which plant- ing of the Divine Seed-germ of Spiritual Life from
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
the " Brooding Spirit," we shall awake and arise, unfolding the .Spiritual Consciousness day by day, until we shall ultimately attain to the Spiritual Consciousness, — the estate of the Divine-Human, which is the end of Regeneration.
In order the better to unfold the Spiritual Consciousness we must get rid of the Material Consciousness ; and this can be done only by the denial of that which is the basis of it. If there is a Spiritual aspect of matter and of our bodies, we must dwell on this Spiritual aspect of things, in order to cultivate the Spiritual. For as long as we make emphatic the material idea we are hold- ing ourselves to the material and the material consciousness.
Materiality and Evil regarded as real are two anchors by which we are bound to earth and earth conditions. By cutting these old cables we may gain release from material conditions, and find rest in the high altitudes of Spiritual understanding. When the basic errors, hindrances to conscious Spirituality and holiness, are removed, then will the " most great peace " ensue, wherein " every man shall sit under his own vine and fig-tree with none to molest or make afraid."
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THE "SECOND DAY"
Our old Jerusalem (possession in peace) must be so fully destroyed that " there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down," before we can come into our New Jerusa- lem— the Spiritual Consciousness.
The old Jerusalem was crude, primitive, materi- alistic. It was our then " possession in peace," our secure abode. It was all right in its day. We had to come that way. But that does not signify that we are to always stay there and become crys- tallized in material thought, ossified and fossilized thereby. If the soul does not grow it must crys- tallize, so that the higher faculties cease to unfold. Alas, what a vast army of the sons of earth pre- fer to hug to their bosom the material idea, shut- ting themselves up in their cocoons of material thought until they return to dust again ! Such a soul, leaving its " clay tenement," still retains its material consciousness. Death does not change the consciousness. What experiences it will pass through, what possible re-births, what effort it will make or not make, who can tell? How long it will take it in its new situation (or whether it will desire to change) to evolve the Spiritual Con- sciousness, who can tell? Happy is he who,
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
while in the full possession of his faculties, shall " choose that better part" and apply himself to the unfoldment of his Spiritual nature and become worthy of eternal joys !
If we would advance in unfoldment we have got work to do. It appeals to our own better judgment as a matter of Wisdom, that we leave old, unsatisfying conditions, and strive for things higher — " leaving the things that are behind (the material idea), we press forward to the mark for the prize of our high calling of God in Christ Jesus," — unto the full attainment of our Divinity, in Consciousness.
From Divinity we came forth ; Divinity was first z/2-folded ; so that it becomes our problem to un- fold in consciousness the within potentiality of Divinity. Why should we hesitate a single mo- ment to enter the path that leads to Life — the conscious attainment of a Divine estate?
In this Second Degree of our unfoldment of this Divine Estate we have established a "Firmament" of discriminating Reason to separate "waters from waters" — thoughts from thoughts. And in this firmamental separation we place among the " waters under the firmament " the crude mate-
62
THE "SECOND DAY"
rialistic ideas and all thoughts of sin, bondage, and limitation ; and among the " waters above the firmament " the pure, elevating, Spiritual thoughts and beautiful ideals, which carry us away from the gloomy records of past distresses and material limitations into the very atmosphere of heaven.
Discriminating Reason, enlightened by the " Spirit of God moving upon the face of the Waters" of the mind, has enabled us to renounce and separate from the mind the Two great Funda- mental Errors, which, if retained, will weigh us down so seriously as to ultimately cheat us out of the Spiritual Consciousness — the " Kingdom of Heaven."
The First Great Error is Evil's Reality;
The Second Great Error is Matter's Reality.
From the standpoint of the Animal-Human these seem very real ; but from the standpoint of the Divine-Human they are unreal.
These errors, which have been in our heavens, we now cast to the earth. " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."
With this "satan," "the accuser of my brethren, cast down," there will be no hindrance to our rapid advancement in Spiritual unfoldment.
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
These two fundamental beliefs of a primitive consciousness will in our final triumph over the carnal nature be found to be the " Two Thieves" which must be crucified with that old conscious- ness. For these " thieves " or " robbers " of the mind would, if allowed to remain, steal away our Spiritual realization, and thus defeat us in our effort to reach the Resurrection-Consciousness.
Only by the renunciation of the material idea can we realize that this is a Spiritual world instead of a material one; that all things are now Spir- itual, and always have been. Only by the renun- ciation of the " Good-and-Evil" idea can we realize that this is God's World, and not the Devil's ; that all things are even now " Very Good," as at first pronounced. When this change of Consciousness is attained, Health will be natural, Holiness will be natural, Spirituality will be natural, the God- Consciousness will be natural.
This radical denial of things of the old con- sciousness, which are so real to it, this severe iconoclasm, may at first bring a sense of distress almost. But our old Jerusalem cannot be de- stroyed without a struggle; still for our Christ- unfoldment it has to go.
64
THE "SECOND DAY"
Every old dispensation (consciousness), having served its day, must be overthrown, before the ushering in of a New Dispensation (or Conscious- ness), which involves struggle. There must be great tribulations " before that great and terrible day of the Lord come." For our old racial be- liefs are exceedingly tenacious ; they are a part of us; built into us, as a part of our conscious- ness, and can no more be eliminated without a struggle, than a limb can be hewn from the body without pain. Then we will not be disturbed by the radical work of this Degree, preparatory to the revealing of the Heavenly Man.
To the conscious mind freed from its life-long and race-long errors there will come a wonderful revealing of Spiritual Realities, our awakened finer perceptions shall behold a New World of transcendent beauty. The old heavens shall pass away and a transformed world of heavenly mold will appear to our transformed thought. Regen- eration is the only reform. The very foundations of the old life must be torn up ; the old conscious- ness must be supplanted by a higher conscious- ness. For as long as the old remains, the crim- inal will be criminal still. Prisons will never
65
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
reform him. But only let the grovelling sensualist come into this higher consciousness, — that he is a Spiritual Being with Spiritual faculties and powers, and he will hasten to renounce his false pleasures and turn from them with loathing; his false appetites will disappear, and the animal will no longer be in dominion.
In like manner pain will disappear as soon as you give up the idea of Evil and Matter as real. This may be readily verified in simple acute pain like toothache.
In my travels in the West I casually met in a store a stranger groaning with a severe tooth- ache, and the following dialogue ensued :
Q. What's the matter with you?
A. I've got the worst toothache I ever had.
Q. Do you enjoy it?
A. I should say not; I've had it two days.
Said I : You must like it pretty well to keep it two days ; fifteen minutes is long enough for me to keep a toothache.
Said he : What do you put into a tooth to stop toothache so quick?
A. I put nothing into it.
Q. What do you do for it? 66
THE "SECOND DAY"
A. I order it off the premises.
Said he : You couldn't order it off my premises.
Said I : No, you like it too well ; you are fast friends, you hold right to it and are not going to let it go ; you believe in it as Reality, have kept it two days, and are still holding to it.
Said he : Do you mean to say that I can get rid of toothache at will ?
A. Certainly, when you know how.
Q. Tell me how.
A. That's different; I've studied this for years and have scarcely learned how; I can't tell you in a minute ; my train goes in twenty minutes.
Said he : You interest me. If there is a way to be rid of toothache at will I'd like you to give me a pointer.
I determined then to stop his toothache, and said : I will, if you will answer three questions correctly. To this he consented.
Q. Is the physical body before me the Real Man?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you understand your Real Self to be a Spiritual Being?
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you believe for one moment that this Spiritual Being, your True Self, the Son of God, ever had or could have a toothache?
A. No, sir (very firmly).
Said I very deliberately and firmly : Then you have no toothache and you know it.
I saw by his glance (which I held for ten sec- onds) that he fully saw my meaning, and that he got a view of the Spiritual Self; and in that con- ception the material idea was eliminated.
Well, said he, I haven't any; it is gone, and all soreness is gone, too.
Said I : Your one glimpse of the Spiritual Man has healed you, and this is the natural remedy for all human ills.
It was not my thought which healed him; it was his own. He had practically denied matter and affirmed Spirit, as I " showed him how," which was all I promised to do, and all I did.
This little incident shows the basis of all Spir- itual healing to be the abandonment of these two racial errors, and the realization of the Spiritual and the Good universal as the only Real.
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But a day is to dawn upon the world, as it may to any individual, when all these illusions shall cease, when " Satan shall be bound a thousand years, and shall deceive the Nations no more." This last clause shows that the " nations " are under an illusion — are " deceived."
In the Spiritual interpretation the " nations" are within ; the whole world is within ; the illu- sion is within, and the binding of the illusionist is to be accomplished within. By whom? By yourself, the only demonstrator of Divine princi- ples. The individual is always the actor clothed with omnipotent powers, when he knows who he is. You are King in your kingdom, the ruler of your world, the destroyer of every satanic illusion that has deceived you, if only you will recognize your power and assert your authority.
And it is through overcoming that you shall be able to come into the realization of your power and dominion.
" He that overcometh shall inherit all things."
" He that overcometh shall sit with Me in My throne, even as I overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne." — - Rev. 3:21.
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Hitherto we have lived in the consciousness of Good-and-Evil, both believed to be Real; and we have suffered accordingly. Shall we always re- main there, and be swallowed up in its vortex of woe?
There is a way of escape, which we are endeav- oring to point out. Only by overcoming is power developed ; and " underneath are the Everlasting Arms."
The whole power of evil comes from its long ascribed reality, through functioning in the sin- consciousness. But once destroy this giant Lie with the " five smooth stones " of Truth (the five Spiritual senses), and there will be nothing to fear, — no evil, no sin, no sickness, no death. The Giant Illusion, Evil, will be as impotent as the dead Goliath, which in figure he represents.
See yourself a Divinely perfect Spiritual Being, a very Son of God, with Spiritual senses only, — be a Son of God ! — and you will wield the same Spiritual weapons that David did. You will be David, and will scatter the Philistian hosts within (evil thoughts), having slain their champion — Belief in Evil.
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With the elimination of Evil and Matter, as realities, from conscious thought, the long, dark night full of terrors will have passed, and a brighter Day will dawn.
" The Evening and the Morning were the Second Day."
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THE "THIRD DAY " : — AFFIRMATION — CONCEN- TRATION
" And God said, ' Let the Waters under the Heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land ap- pear.1'— Gen. 1:9.
Among the ancient Brahmans Religion was the greatest and most profound of sciences ; and the student of the " Ancient Mysteries," as he entered upon the task of mastering them, was called an " Initiate." Before any " Initiate " could be passed to his " Second Degree," he must have thoroughly mastered the First, and have appropriated all its truths and principles. There was no superficial work, no skimming over by mere memorizing. All had to be understood, digested, appropriated, assimilated, and made a part of the individual con- sciousness, before the aspiring Neophyte was considered worthy of advancement to his Second Degree. Only in this way can Religion exert its
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proper function, — that of transforming the con- sciousness— unfolding the Divinest in man. Only by such a radical transformation is there any Re- generation. This these ancient Wise Men well understood. What was true of man then is always true of him.
This order of Mystics was called " The Ancient Brotherhood." They were very exclusive in the nature of the case; because only in this way could the purity of the Order be maintained and the highest Spiritual evolution in consciousness be ac- complished. Their modern Oriental adherents claim that from this ancient Brotherhood there exists in the Spiritual world what they call " The White Brotherhood," who have this planet in charge, and are planning for its regeneration during this Century.
If the two first Steps of our Initiation into the Brotherhood of the Sons of God have been well taken, and ail its truths appropriated, we are pre- pared to advance another step in the Way of Re- generation. It is not sufficient to accept the intellectual formula of Truth. It is quite a differ- ent thing to Spiritually apprehend Spiritual Truth, which we must assimilate and make our own.
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Only by this thorough appropriation and assimila- tion is it of any real value to us. But when thus appropriated it will exert a wonderful transforming power over us.
The " natural man " — in the Animal-Human- Consciousness — does not know Truth — ■ does not know Spiritual things at all. He functions only in the Intellectual and Sensuous Realms. His king- dom is of this world. His Spiritual perceptions have not yet been awakened. He has not yet been " born of the Spirit." In this consciousness at best we see but dimly, as it were through materialistic specta- cles. The material consciousness is so darkened that we scarcely see. Paul said : " Now we see through a glass darkly." Isaiah said : " This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes have they closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should be converted and I should heal them." Here the Prophet refers to the Spiritual senses. " He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." In the nature of the case it is not expected that we should open up fully developed Spiritual senses all at once. For our higher faculties must first be awakened before we can use them. As the
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child must learn to walk, so our first steps must be taken in meekness and childlike simplicity. In fact, we cannot know the secret mysteries of Spirit- ual things, only as fast as, and to the degree that we unfold our own Spirituality. For this high order of Wisdom comes not through intellect ; but " Spiritual things are Spiritually discerned;" and that just to the degree of our Spiritual unfoldment. The unfathomable depths of Infinite Wisdom un- fold to us with our unfoldment. Unless we Spirit- ually apprehend the Spiritual Truth, which the intellectual formula is given to express, we are not making progress in our evolution. Each step well taken will prepare the way for the next higher, until the great consummation, the illumi- nated Seventh, is realized.
A statement of Truth may not at first be ac- cepted by the intellect ; it may even have a dis- turbing effect in the mind. But never mind, you have only to sow the seed ; you cannot make it grow. Clean-cut statements of Truth will some- how cling to the mind with a singular tenacity, even though not fully received by intellect; till in the fulness of time the fruiting will appear, — - " first the blade; then the ear; after that the full
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corn in the ear." Therefore, continue to " sow be- side all waters" (all mentalities) ; and the growth and fruit will often be seen where least expected. Have no fear for the success of your word of Truth ; don't worry about it ; the sowing is your part. You have not got to stand for the defence of Truth. It is its own defence; it will take care of itself; it only needs to be spoken ; its power is omnipotent.
If only you have the spirit of meekness and obedience, Infinite Wisdom will give you its own " sure Word of prophecy." You will not be a " barren tree;" since the Infinite Fountain is within. Wisdom does not enter the mind from without. As Browning says:
" Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er we may believe. There is an inmost centre within us all, Where Truth abides in fulness ;
and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way, Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light, Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly The demonstration of a truth, its birth ; And you trace back the influence to its spring 76
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And source within us, where broods a radiance vast, To be elicited ray by ray, as chance shall favor."
When the waters of thought are " gathered to- gether " they form a compound of Character, which is the " Dry Land " that always " appears." The " waters under our Firmament " are the thoughts we make practical in life ; and these are what de- termine Character.
In the Second Lesson we were shown the true and righteous discrimination we should make among our thoughts. In this lesson we are to note the results of proper and improper discrimi- nation in its effect on Character. For thoughts, when " gathered together," become "Dry Land" — fixed or established character.
We establish a good or bad character accord- ing to whether we use our powers of discrimina- tion wisely or unwisely — according to the quality or character of thoughts we " gather together." For it is a universal law, that as we sow, so shall we reap ; that as we " gather," so shall we establish character. The " dry land " is sure to " appear."
With a perverse Will we may choose to function in sensuality and carnality never so secretly, and fancy that, because we maintain the outward ap-
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pearance of uprightness and gentility, we are known as perfect gentlemen. But be not deceived. Char- acter cannot be concealed ; because it is what we are. " The dry land appears," whether we realize it or not. Character is the synthetic compound of our thoughts. What we think determines what we are. And though the waters of thought appear to pass silently beyond the recognition of others, still they become concreted in our consciousness and body, and leave the " mark of the beast in our foreheads." " We are known and read of all." " The dry land" is sure to " appear." "That which is whispered in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetop." Character can- not be concealed.
Discrimination was the theme of the last chapter. Affirmation of Truth will be the subject of this, that we may plant the fruitful seed of Truth in our well-prepared garden.
Truth, as we have said, is omnipresent; yet it has little effect on us, until we handle it with the conscious mind, and accept and make it our own. It is always within, waiting our recognition, that we may be unfolded and uplifted by its quickening power. Through our acceptance and realization
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of it, it will externalize itself in true conditions of concrete bodily expression, affording health and happiness.
But the effect of Truth on us will depend on our conception of it, on the clearness and vividness of our realization of it as an eternal principle, clothed with Divine power ; or whether we Spiritually ap- prehend it or only intellectually. But what is the distinction between the two conceptions?
Jeremiah said : " A man's word is his only Burden."
Jesus, who spoke from the Christ within, said : " My Words are Spirit, and they are Life."
Here the two concepts, " man's word," and Christ's Word, are contrasted. The one is man's concept of Truth ; the other is the Christ Idea, or Truth itself. Man's word is opinion, — -a thing of Intellect; not the genuine article. For the human concept is, as we have said, a mis-conception; which brings its long train of " burdens," like any- thing counterfeit. But the Christ Conception, which is Truth Absolute, is never a matter of opinion or controversy.
Man speaks his word from the human standpoint (really a false standpoint) ; Jesus speaks from the
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Christ standpoint — Truth's own standpoint. Such Words are fraught with Power, since Truth is God.
The power of the Spoken Word is enough to raise the dead ; when spoken with the realization of its Divine Omnipotence, — that Christ is the very Word of that word. Can there be " burdens " to such Words? On the contrary, " My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
To bear the yoke of Christ is to escape " bur- dens." To bear the yoke of Christ is to bear no yoke. He is called the great " Burden bearer." " My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." In the service of Truth there is freedom — not " bur- dens." The Sons of God are free.
It is the human concept which brings burdens — the false concept of things.
All the burdens of earth, all sorrows, discords, sufferings, and calamities are the natural result of our own misconceptions of Truth — our Words.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox says of the importance of the right use of words :
' ' Words are great forces in the realm of life ; Be careful of their use. Who talks of Hate, Of Poverty, of Sickness, but sets rife Those very elements to mar his fate. 80
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"When Love, Health, Happiness and Plenty hear Their names repeated day by day, They wing their way like answering fairies near ; Then nestle down within our homes to stay.
' « Who talks of Evil conjures into shape That formless thing, and gives it life and scope. This is the law. Then let no word escape, That does not breathe of everlasting hope."
We are searching for the unalloyed TRUTH, — the Christ-WORD, — something above opinion, whose undeviating right-ness we may safely anchor to, and feel that we are firmly planted on the eternal Rock, against which the turbulent waves of human opinion may dash, and only be them- selves broken.
We are tired of words, tired of burdens, tired of opinions, — though men call them Truth. We want the authority of Truth itself. Nothing short of this will satisfy our insatiable hunger and lift the burdens under which we groan.
How does one's thought become a burden and affect his health ?
Through the imaging faculty — the imagination — the mind has the power to make pictures. This is the only way the mind has of making a thought
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continuous, so as to produce a result which will always be according to the character of the pic- tures made.
For the mind is a delicately constructed camera in which all our thoughts are pictured, before they can be brought into expression. First the picture on the sensitive plate ; then the development or expression of it in outward conditions of body or environment.
Said Ezekiel, " Son of man, hast thou seen what the Elders of Israel do in the dark, every one in his chambers of imagery?"
The misuse of this imaging faculty is what the prophet is speaking of. By this faculty we make pictures in the " dark chambers " of the mind con- tinually; which in due time are expressed in con- ditions of body. This wonderful faculty was intended for our advancement in Spiritual unfold- ment by its proper use in picturing our highest ideals, in order that better and still better condi- tions should be realized in experience. By the use of this faculty we may debase or even destroy our bodies, or we may purify and rejuvenate them, according to the character of the pictures we
make.
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The cause of the late Charles Dickens' death was a mental picture made several years before, which was repeated with depressing effect, every time the revolving year brought to his mind the memory of the railroad wreck with all its horrors. The recurring date gave occasion for calling up the terrible picture, each time with greater vivid- ness and depression, as the physical body became weaker, — that picture seeming real to his deli- cately sensitive nerves, so that his friends said he was wandering in mind, — until the frail body sank beneath the heavy " burden " which human thought had imposed, on a 9th of June, the anniversary of the railroad wreck.
Affirmations of Truth fill the mind's gallery with beautiful pictures, awakening joy, harmony, and health. By the affirmation of Truth we present these pictures to the mind, and emblazon them on its walls. Our ideals are our greatest, most useful and helpful pictures. Our highest ideal is our conception of God ; which is always the most im- portant and potent of our image creations, and the one most essential to a sound mind and a healthy body.
Our First Affirmation, then, must be the state- 83
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ment of our conception of God, so far as it is pos- sible to formulate it — as the expression of our highest ideal. But the word-expression is not the real picture, the picture which expresses itself out- wardly in the body. The real picture is the Ideal in the mind's gallery, which never can be fully expressed in intellectual words. This is the pic- ture which means everything to the individual; which controls his life and affects his body.
Could men but realize that all discord and dis- tress, all sin and suffering, failures and calamities, are directly due to a false conception of God, they would begin to search for the true God. But who can give us the perfect picture? No one; it is not in another's power to communicate his ideal. Your ideal is exclusively your own, and you can- not give it to another. The best you can do is to roughly sketch it in intellectual terms, and in that imperfect state present it to the mind of another. Yet this sketch of a high ideal is only an imitation of the real picture ; which cannot, therefore, im- press the mind of the second party with the same force as the original idea impressed the original thinker, who was its creator and exclusive owner. But the intellectual word-picture may aid another
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in forming his ideal, which is exclusively his own. This word-picture is the best you can give. For only Divinity can reveal Divinity in the true Ideal, and only to the Divine Self can the Divine reveal himself. Only by such original pictures may we know God, " whom to know aright, is Life eternal."
Since eternal Life depends on knowing God aright — on having a true concept of God — then " let the waters " of thought " be gathered together in one place " — in concentration on this one ideal — and " let the dry land appear." Thus may we perfect our Ideal.
When we had in our First Chapter formed our Ideal picture, we expressed that picture in our definition of God. This was our word-picture of our Ideal-picture, which we now offer to another :
f Being, f Life, f Principle,
God is <[ Mind, <J Truth, <j Substance,
[ Spirit, [ Love, [ Will, — Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent; a Trinity of Trinities, in Unity ; the All-embracing, Infinite One; the Being of all beings, the Life of all lives, the Substance of all substances ; the Universal, Unchangeable Good ; the All-Father-Mother-Son.
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For Man is a Son of God, with all that this implies.
This is our First Affirmation — our greatest picture.
Our Second Affirmation will be : Whatever God is, that I am.
For as I am His Child, I must be like Him — of the same Substance.
Our Third Affirmation will be : Since I am a Son of God I am Holy, like Him, — not a sinner.
Our Fourth Affirmation will be : God' s Will is my Will. This by reason of my Son-ship and likeness to Him. Realizing this, I cannot trans- gress his Will.
These Four Affirmations resolve themselves into one great picture, which fill the whole mind with an illumination, when seen in all their perfection. This is using the imaging faculty for its highest use, which carries us to the realization of our highest.
Let us examine these Affirmations separately.
First : God is.
Analyzing our definition of God, that the First Affirmation may the more clearly reveal him, we first note that every affirmation of Truth implies
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the denial of its logical Opposite or Contradictory. For we have seen that a contradictory of Truth is not a Reality. It is only its logical opposite— a mere figmental necessity of reason. For Reason is the process of Comparison. Hence Phrenology names that faculty " Comparison." Opposites are the necessity of reason. These Reason handles for the purpose of solving problems, determining the reality and rejecting the unreality ; for this is its problem.
To determine Truth is the high function of Reason. And this necessarily implies the rejection of the false ; because the reasoner is in search of Truth only. Therefore when we consider " Good/' " Life," " Truth," " Substance," etc., reason pro- ceeds to contrast these with their figmental oppo- sites, for the purpose of finding the thing of worth. And having thereby determined the eternal, inde- structible realities, places them where all realities belong, in the realm of Divinity; — accepting Good, and rejecting Evil ; accepting Life, and re- jecting Death ; accepting Truth, and rejecting Falsity; accepting Substance, and rejecting Ap- pearance.
Not only is the finding of Truth the function of 87
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Reason, but the denial or rejection of its Contra- dictory is equally its function. Rejection of un- realities are the Corollaries of her Affirmations. For the Corollary is as inevitable as the Conclu- sion.
The honest searcher for Truth will through reason find it; and finding, will accept it. The finding of Truth uncovers and exposes the falsity of error, which the honest searcher now rejects.
Thus our reasoning exposes the false claims of evil, death, etc., and relegates them to the dark- some realm of unreality, nothingness, illusion. "The accuser of my brethren is cast down." Error is always the "accuser" of Truth; evil is always the "accuser" of Good.
This is the " Satan that deceiveth the nations ; " and which must be ultimately destroyed by the irresistible power of true reasoning. The triumph of Truth over error is the triumph of Christ over Satan.
The speaking of Truth is always God speaking. If you would heal your neighbor in body, mind, or environment, speak Truth to him.
When, returning from the Captivity, Zerubabel, both King and Priest, undertook to rebuild the
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temple, this was his watchword among his work- men: " Speak ye every man Truth to his neighbor."
You are King in your kingdom. You are Zerubabel, both High Priest and King. If you have been in Babylonian Captivity, your body- temple has gotten out of repair. Your task is to rebuild it pure and holy, making it a fit temple for the Holy One. Only by speaking Truth can God's Temple be rebuilt. You must speak Truth concerning it; you must speak Truth to your neighbor.
From the high standpoint of Truth you cannot say, "I Am sick," or "You are sick;" " I Am weak," or " You are weak ;" because the Son of God is never sick or weak. You cannot heal your neigh- bor by seeing him sick. See God in him ; — see the Son of God — his true Self.
Thus you " speak Truth " to him ; and " the Truth shall make him free."
If he is suffering in invalidism he is in his Baby- lonian Captivity, bound with the brazen fetters of error, which only Truth has power to break. To this end your spoken word of Truth is Omnipotent, when you realize that Truth spoken is God speak-
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ing. The individual should always be able to say, " It is not I that speak, but the Father who dwelleth in me." Let God speak his Word through your lips.
If my pneumonia or congestion is the outpict- uring of my fear or inordinate passion, or if my constipation is the result of my selfishness, how absurd to seek relief in drugs ! Would you dose a man for fear? Would you give cathartics for selfishness? The simple remedy is, the conscious- ness of Truth. Therefore " Speak ye every man Truth to his neighbor."
Second : I Am what God is,
Since I am what God is, the Substance of my Being is God-substance.
Therefore I am perfect. I am the perfect Idea, created in, and sent forth from Divine Mind. There is Divine perfection in my essential Being. This is what I am. How can I be or manifest otherwise than what I am? Can the Idea change from the high standard of Divine perfection? Then as an emanation of Divine Mind, the offspring of Divine Being, I am perfect, because God, my Father, is perfect. Then how comes it that I seem to be manifesting otherwise than perfection?
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It is because I am an individual, an Idea, of Infi- nite Mind individuated. As an individual I have free choice and free will. Otherwise I am not an individual. And thus it naturally transpires that in the free use of my individual powers I make mistakes, the consequences of which I must stand.
Nevertheless I am an individuation of the Infi- nite, and must therefore possess in potentiality every Divine attribute in perfection. Then it is the peculiar privilege of every individual to un- fold in- consciousness the fulness of that potenti- ality; until perfection in consciousness is attained, — until the estate of God is reached.
This is the climax of all unfoldment, the end and object of creation. For God is continually rejoicing in beholding in his creation the unfold- ment of himself in the consciousness of his myriads of individuations.
The object of Creation was, that God might reveal himself to himself by a universal unfold- ment in all these individuations.
As we have said, mistakes are inevitable in the nature of objective reason and investigation. Yet they are inevitable only because man has sepa-
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rated himself in consciousness from the inexhaus- tible fountain of Infinite Wisdom. And all this seems natural in the nature of individual existence.
After all, this separation from the Divine in con- sciousness is only an illusion ; for " in Him we live and move and have our Being," whether or not we are conscious of it. The fact remains. And our problem seems to be, to gain the con- sciousness of what we are.
When we have learned well the lesson of listening to the Voice of Wisdom within, we shall cease to make mistakes, and shall be " led into all truth." We shall unfold our Divinity, as we listen to and obey this heavenly monitor.
Now, since in my True Being I am the Image and Likeness of the Divine Idea, just so in my manifest expression I am the image and likeness of my own idea. The Divine Idea, in the Divine Consciousness, was brought forth in its Image and Likeness, as the Divine Man of the First Chapter of Genesis ; and the human idea, in the Adam- Consciousness, was brought forth after its image and likeness, as the Adam Man of the Second Chapter, obedient to the same universal law of expression. The one is expression on the Spirit-
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ual plane ; the other is expression on the natural plane, by the same law.
Therefore God is not responsible for my imper- fect bodily expression. It is after my own like- ness. I am the expression of my own idea of myself. I am just as Spiritual or just as material as I think myself to be. " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." — - Prov. 23:3.
Third : I Am Holy, because a Son of God.
Whatever we predicate of God we may predicate of every Son of God, according to the foregoing reasoning. Of Divine origin we should reflect all Divine qualities and attributes — Holiness, Wis- dom, Love, Life, Strength, etc. For as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so the True man reflects the Divine Light of Wisdom, and the false man (Carnal Mind) reflects the inferior light of human thought.
When we are still in thought, they say, we are reflecting. Reflecting what? Reflecting thoughts which come to the mind in that stillness. For the atmosphere is full of thoughts. Yet you are not at the mercy of these drift thoughts, if we may call them so. You have power to shut your door against all undesirable thoughts and admit only
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the class you choose. Like Daniel you may close your door to the street and continually have your " windows open towards Jerusalem." You may close your door to every debasing thought which would tend to wreck your life, and be open and receptive to the Royal heritage of the Sons of God. This is the " door " which you " shut and no man openeth," or you open and no man shut- teth.
Knowing your power to choose and act, you may compel Carnal Mind to be still — to stand aside as it were, and let the Heavenly Man have full sway. Then will you be a Divine reflector of Divine Principles.
Fourth: God's Willis my Will.
Of course you make this Affirmation when real- izing your True Self. And here you can say, " God works through me to will and to do what- ever I ought to do." It is impossible to conceive the vast power of the will, when we realize the Divine Will working with our will.
God's Will is forever operating, whether we think so or not. As Matthew Arnold said : " There is a power not ourselves that forever
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makes for righteousness ; " — and whether we are in obedience or not.
When you have conquered self so fully that you can say: "Not my will, but Thy Will," and at the same time have the realizing sense of the Om- nipotent W7ILL working in you, — then are you in a position to begin to know your Omnipotent Powers. For the greatest power and freedom for the individual do not consist in carrying out his own sweet will, but in making the Divine his own sweet Will.
To unfold your Divine Consciousness and Power is the goal of all your struggles. To this end these Affirmations may be helpful.
First: You must know God — in Consciousness. This necessitates a true conception of him. This is your greatest picture in your gallery for fre- quent meditation on and communion with.
Second : You must know yourself a Son of God, perfect and complete.
Third : You must know your own Holiness as a Son of God.
Fourth : Your will must be swallowed up in the Divine Will.
Having " gathered together the waters " of the 95
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mind in this " one place " — the place ot Divinity — so as to form the highest possible conception of God by means of this beautiful imagery, " the Dry Land appears," — the most substantial basis of a great character is formed.
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IV
THE " FOURTH DAY " : — THE " TWO GREAT LIGHTS "
" And God made Two Great Lights, the Greater Light to rule the Day and the Lesser Light to rule the Night."-— Gen. i : 16.
WHETHER advancing in the Divine Way of evolu- tion from the Human to the Divine Consciousness, or plodding along in the old path of the old Con- sciousness, — there are " Two Great Lights " by one or the other of which every man is guided, — the one having power to reveal God and unfold the God-Consciousness in man, the other affording light of a different and inferior order, quite insuffi- cient and incompetent to reveal or point the way to God. To the Children of the Regeneration both these lights are in evidence and daily use, but to those on the plane of Generation without Regeneration only the " Lesser Light " is known. They are in Spiritual darkness.
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The Sun is the symbol of the " Greater Light," which " rules the Day " of Spiritual Understand- ing. The " Greater Light " is Spiritual Wisdom. The Moon is the symbol of the " Lesser Light," which " rules the Night " of unregenerate Carnal Mind. The " Lesser Light " is Intellect.
" The Two Great Lights " by which we are guided are Spiritual Wisdom and Intellectual Wisdom, or for the sake of a distinction we may designate them as WISDOM and KNOWLEDGE.
There is a greater light than Intellect ; for this is a mere reflection. The " Greater Light " is Christ, the " Light of the world." And the Christ we may identify with Truth or Wisdom. John said of the coming One : " That was the True Light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." This Light Paul called, " The Wis- dom of God."
Spiritual Wisdom, then, is the " Light of the World," the Christ, which finds its reflection in Intellect.
Unregenerate man knows and acknowledges no other light than Intellect. Yet he knows not his ignorance. For intellect is " wise in its own conceit."
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The wide difference between original and re- flected light is due to the imperfect reflector. In- tellect neither reflects the full intensity nor the full quality of the True Light.
If the moon in the heavens were a perfect re- flector, the sun's and the moon's rays would be exactly alike, both in intensity and quality. So by correspondence, if Man were a perfect reflector, he would reflect through intellect Heavenly Wis- dom; and then there would be no difference be- tween Divine and Human Wisdom. Man cannot be a perfect reflector until he arrives at the Divine Consciousness, where he has continuous illumina- tion. Then he dwells in the Light, and is the Light. This is the Theosophist's " Nirvana."
But reflected light is always modified by the re- flector, on whatever plane, whether natural or Spiritual.
The Masculine and Feminine principle is uni- versal throughout nature on every plane. It is the principle, " whereby everything hangeth in the equilibrium of balance," as the Caballists say.
From the Divine Being in the heaven of heavens all the way down to the humblest monad in the Kosmgs, through every manifestation of life, this
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biological principle obtains, as the basis of all ex- istence, as the guarantee for the perpetuity of all things, as the basis for the continued Being of both God and man.
Therefore, as the sun shines upon the earth with its masculine and feminine rays of Heat and Light, making the earth teem with living forms through the generating power of these equili- brated creative rays, — just so the " Greater Light," — the Divine " Sun of Righteousness" ■ — shines upon the human consciousness with its masculine and feminine rays of Love and Wisdom, with a corresponding generating power; which on the Spiritual plane we call by the higher name, Regen- eration. This is what Isaiah means, when he says : " Upon you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings."
Christ is the omnipresent " Sun of Righteous- ness," and thus the " Light of the world." Not only are the double rays of the Sun, heat and light, a wedded pair, but the double rays of the " Sun of Righteousness," " Love and Wisdom," are also a wedded pair. Neither can they in either case be divorced, without forfeiting the law of Life, the generating principle. These biological
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rays of the Sun falling upon the moon become vitally changed by the moon absorbing the Heat rays, so that it can reflect to us only the Light rays. Consequently we have the words " lunacy " and " moon-struck," to indicate the death-dealing effect of Light divorced from Heat. In like manner, and by the exact Law of Correspondences, mortal man being an imperfect reflector, the Light of Intellect has lost its quickening Life-begetting element of Love, and is therefore in the " moon- struck" consciousness of mortality. The Con- sciousness of Life can be gained only by the restoration of the full True Light of the " Sun of Righteousness," equipped with its biological rays and regenerating power.
GOD is the Great Original Light — " The Sun of Righteousness," Omnipotent with generating and regenerating power (for this creative power is always God-power, wherever you find it) ; and Christ is the Illuminating Ray — the Divine " Efful- gence " — the " Only Begotten," proceeding from the Father. " I Am the Light of the world," — the Shining Light — " The Effulgence of the Father's Glory" (Heb. 1:3). That is: God is the Sun of Righteousness ; and Christ is the
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Shining Light, proceeding from — sent forth from — the Father. And this Christ or Divine " Efful- gence" is "The Wisdom of God." " Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God." This interior Wisdom, which illuminates the mind, is the wonderful Effulgence of the " Greater Light."
Consequently the True Man is conscious of the Light, and walks in the Light. But the unawak- ened, the unregenerate, continue in the dream life of material conceptions. Being children of the Night instead of the Day, they are incapable of perceiving the Greater Light of Spiritual Wisdom, notwithstanding its omnipresence ; because it is Light of a different kind, on a different plane, and must therefore require a higher order of percep- tives to cognize it.
But in the sense consciousness they know noth- ing better than the Lesser Light. Hence mortal man does not know Truth. His conceptions are misconceptions. He deals in things of the Night.
Through the benighting effect of the Sin-Con- sciousness many men see very dimly, even on the plane of intellect. Their light is the moon in her quarter. And the "dark of the moon" is none
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too severe a term to represent the deep darkness of some beclouded intellects.
But in order that Intellect may be fully illumi- nated with its " full-moon " glory, and realize its transcendent powers, there must be a New Birth, an awakening to a New Consciousness. There must be a New Creation. Then through the regenerating power of the Christ within there will be a regenerated intellect, an illuminated mind.
Spiritual Perception sees clearly in the efful- gence of Divine Wisdom, — like the " X-Ray," penetrating deeper than the external appearance, which only sense perception beholds, into the very substance of things, — finding beneath the phenomenal the eternal Spiritual Reality.
" When He the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall guide you into all Truth." That is, when the Greater Light of the Christ Illumination shines upon your soul, — when your Spiritual sight is opened, — then all the illusions of the "moon- struck " Sin-Consciousness will be swallowed up in the Spiritual Light of the Christ-Consciousness, as the moon disappears in the sun's greater light. This is Salvation, — sense lost in Spirit — Illusion swallowed up in Reality. This is your " First
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Resurrection," where corruption and death disap- pear from your consciousness ; because " this cor- ruptible shall put on incorruption," and " death shall be swallowed up in life."
For the end and purpose of this Spiritual evo- lution is the transformation of the consciousness, through material conceptions yielding to Spiritual Understanding; until the higher plane of the Spiritual Consciousness is reached, and the body consequently undergoes a corresponding trans- formation.
We shall receive much or little from reading our Bible, according to whether we see it in the Greater or the Lesser Light. For in the one case the mind will receive a wonderful Spiritual insight, and the soul will be fed with the manna of heaven, and in the other case it will receive only the intel- lectual ideas involved.
The " letter of the Word " is strictly intellectual ; and it is so human to see only intellectually ! Yet there is a wonderful mine of Spiritual wealth hid- den beneath the letter, if only men would study to understand. Few see beyond " the letter that killeth."
All the bitter controversies which divide Christ- 104
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endom into sects, arise from the different con- structions put on the letter, to carry out intellect's plan or conception, — quite overlooking the Spirit- ual idea, for the sake of which the symbolic letter was written.
When we learn to see in the radiance of the Greater Light, we shall read an entirely different story. We shall behold Spiritual things, which afford us food and transforming Light. We shall see that the stories, incidents, characters, and histories of the Bible are symbolic of correspond- ential experiences in the many-sided kaleidoscope of human life. In that wonderful light Time and Space are eliminated ; so that everything is Now and Here ; and the Word is a living Word — in the "Living Present" — always active and alive.
" If any man walk in the Day he stumbleth not, because the (Greater) Light is in him " (John ii :g). But they who walk in the Night (of the Lesser Light) stumble at the contradictions of the letter, which are irreconcilable from the letter's standpoint.
Theologians will never succeed in harmonizing their differences, until they open their eyes to the Spiritual meaning of the Word, when they will
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see that Truth is One and indivisible, symmetrical and unrendable, — the " seamless robe" of Christ. Spiritual sight will not only transform our The- ology, but will transform our world ; because be- ing ourselves transformed, we shall see through new eyes. A man of purely material thought sees all things crudely material ; one in the con- sciousness of sin sees the sinner everywhere ; while the Spiritually awakened man — in the Spiritual Consciousness — sees divinely, as through God's eyes, the Divine in everything. He has a " New Heaven and a New Earth."
People without Spiritual vision always read scripture literally, expecting the world to be de- stroyed by and by, and a new world created out of the wreck of the old ; but they who see Spirit- ually see the Spiritual everywhere, having trans- formed their world through the transformation of their minds, — thus fulfilling the scripture.
Emerson said : " It animates me to create my own world through the purification of my soul." Paul expresses the same idea thus : " Be ye trans- formed by the renewing of your mind " (Rom. 12 :2).
We always see from our own standpoint — 1 06
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through our own thought-spectacles. The man of material thought sees materially; and the man of Spiritual thought sees Spiritually. We see according to what we are ; and we are according to our seeing. And so Carlyle said : " What thou seest, that thou beest."
Thus the world you see is exactly according to the pattern of your own thought. Therefore if it displeases you, you may go to work and change it. When you have transformed yourself, your world will be transformed. Therefore it is not the outer world that is to be destroyed. The old world to be burned up and destroyed is the miser- able world of your old miserable conceptions. The entire work of destruction and conflagration is to be accomplished within by the " Consuming Fire " of God in the soul. The purifying fire will so transform you that you will see a " New Heaven and a New Earth." For what you see in others is only what is in yourself; else you could not see it in others. This is what Jesus meant when he said, " Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (Lu. 6:41.) The color of your own thought-spectacles colors everything
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you look upon. You are always looking through the mist of your own thought. And thus Jesus said : " With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged" (Mat. 7: 1). Then the adverse judgment you render of another condemns you of the same thing; because you cannot see what is not in yourself. Then if you would see your brother reformed, your first duty is to reform yourself. This is the great amalgam that will bring out the Gold of Goodness in yonr brother. This is the secret of all true reform. Repression and prisons do not reform ; they only make emphatic the evil. Make emphatic the Good in your brother by rec- ognizing it there, if you would bring out the Good that is in him. " Thou hypocrite ! first cast the beam out of thine own eye ; then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote from thy brother's eye " (Lu. 6:42).
This is the scientific way; but it reveals the un- welcome fact that the fault is in yourself. The critic may always be criticised. " The fault is in the finder." " The pure in heart see God " — not evil. When you recognize the Son of God both in yourself and your brother you will see only per- fection ; you will see as God sees. In fact, your
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seeing will be God's seeing. Then if you think your brother needs reforming, study to see him a Son of God ; refuse to see the appearance of sin in him ; steadfastly and persistently declare his perfection, until the false appearance disappears from his life and he manifests according to your reformed thought. Perverted humanity is ever solicitous for and condemnatory of the other, sel- dom seeing his own faults.
The thoughts you send out into the world will surely be heard from again ; and they will return to you with their legitimate fruit.
Your thought of cruel hostility to your neigh- bor will some time come down upon your own head in neuralgiac or other torturing experience, according to natural law. If you send out the seed thought of theft by coveting your neighbor's beautiful goods, jewels, apparel, house, equipage, or good looks, even — you need not think it a strange or unjust experience if a veritable thief breaks into your house and steals your purse. Covetousness was the thief-thought you sent out and it brought you the thief. You are simply reaping what you have been sowing — drawing to yourself your own.
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Jesus said : " He that is angry with his brother is a murderer" (Mat. 5:21, 22). If, then, you have had bitter anger and cruel hatred against your brother you need not think it a matter of strange injustice or cruel fate if some dark night a veritable murderer should spring upon you from some dark alley. In your anger you sent out the murder-thought and it brought you the murderer. Not only do " curses like chickens come home to roost," but every thought brings its legitimate returns. Therefore when you curse your neighbor you but curse yourself. Your curse can never reach him if he stands firmly and securely in Truth, conscious of his protection. It must by natural law rebound to you. " His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate" (Ps. 7: 16). " With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again" (Mat. 7:2). Then I may well ex- pect that my stingy thought may bring me short weight from the grocer. I am always getting what belongs to me. Shall I infer that law is not good because it brings me evil for my evil? It will just as faithfully bring me good for my good. Law is impartial and always just. If I throw a
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THE "FOURTH DAY"
muddy ball into the air it soon returns to soil my hands and clothes ; but if I throw a clean ball the same clean ball returns to me. I am always re- ceiving my own. My pure thoughts return to bless me and my evil thoughts return to curse me. I am receiving just what I give and therefore have no ground of complaint.
If, then, I am suffering from painful conditions I must look for the cause within myself; and knowing the cause I may find the remedy. This is the mission of pain. Therefore it is good — -not evil. The cause and cure are both to be found within. By purifying my thought I shall purify my body ; by correcting my thought I shall cor- rect the bodily expression ; and this is my healing. For my body always represents me faithfully.
Regeneration reconstructs the body by first reconstructing the soul. For body is the soul's expression. Then if by a lifetime of erroneous thinking my body has developed inharmonious conditions, its regeneration and purification must require time also. Neither the correction and restoration of mind or body can be accomplished in a day. Both require time. That is to say:
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
Regeneration is a process — an unfoldment — not an instantaneous experience. Yet the Spirit's time and man's time are vastly different. For we read that, " One day with the Lord is as a thou- sand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet. 3:8). In other words, with God there is no time. Therefore regeneration would require no time, if we had not the human mind to deal with, which is slow to grasp things of Infinity.
It has been built up in time, and can unfold only as fast as it can comprehend and accept. Regen- eration is not merely the correction of present thoughts ; but the whole subconscious mind con- taining all the stored up thoughts of the past has got to be purified and redeemed ; which is a vast undertaking, from the human point of view. Nevertheless as we proceed we shall find that in this work of the Spirit we are handling forces which are very potent.
Words which stand as a symbol and expression of Truth, when spoken with the realization of their meaning and omnipotence, will be found to possess a certain positive, dynamic power to de- stroy undesirable conditions by the intensity of their vibrations ; so that we have not to wait the
THE "FOURTH DAY"
slower process of law on the human plane, for the undoing of the past, preparatory to rebuilding. God's time is Now. " For the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb. 4:12), when it is spoken in the Greater Light of Spiritual Understanding. The reason our words are often barren of results is, that we have spoken them only intellectually — in the Lesser Light; the soul has not spoken. But in the natural order of things — " first that which is natural ; afterward that which is Spiritual " — we first comprehend the natural meaning and pur- port, before we can receive the Spiritual revela- tion. We must bring our words into the inner chamber of the soul, and baptize them with the effulgence of the Greater Light, before they are clothed with omnipotent power.
Then we can send them forth with their dynamic power to accomplish results. Only with words thus prepared and empowered can you speak " as one having authority." They are words of Truth. Such words " shall not return to you void, but shall accomplish that which you please." They are the w7ords of Christ, understandingly spoken. " It is not I that speak, but the Father within."
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All power comes from the Father-fountain within, — the Wisdom-fountain.
Said an Indian Sage : " No man ever knew any- thing by seeking Wisdom without: he must know how to interrogate himself, and how to answer himself, before the outer universe will disclose to him its hidden arcana." This was the great lesson Moses had to learn at the " Burning Bush," as he communed with his Higher Self, whose name is " / Am " — Jehovah — Christ — The Lord ; — whose word is authority. There is a Higher Self, which knows all Wisdom and Truth. " Commune with your own heart, and be still."
" As I walked with myself, I talked with myself: Myself said this unto me : Make friends with thyself; Be true to thyself; Thyself thy good angel shall be."
The " Greater Light " is WISDOM ; the " Lesser Light" is Knowledge. The one is Divine; the other is human. One is of Eternity; the other of Time. Knowledge may be found without; but Wisdom can be found only within. For human wisdom (so called) man looks without, looks to
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teachers ; consults books, — external authority. What he finds is Knowledge — not Wisdom ; opin- ion— not Truth. Our religious teachers have looked without for Wisdom, studied church au- thorities,— the " traditions of the Fathers," like Pharisees of old. What they found and gave was Knowledge — not Wisdom; because they were guided by the Lesser Light. As far as they were able to listen to the Inner Voice they received the illumination of the Inner Light of Wisdom.
The Greater Light never conceals itself. God never hides his face. What the Bible says about God hiding his face on account of man's sin is metaphor, written to show the darkening effect of sin on the mind. But God is " the same yester- day, to-day, and forever," unchanging in his steady shining Light. Man does all the " hiding," "concealing," and " darkening."
By correspondence Wisdom is the Silver of the Kingdom of Heaven, and stands for Riches in general, — Spiritual Riches. Therefore, when we have the Spiritual illumination, we have the con- sciousness of Spiritual opulence.
Paul was speaking of this opulence in conscious- ness when he said :
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" All things are yours, for ye are Christ's. " This was Emerson's realization when he said :
"lam owner of the sphere, Of the Seven Stars and the Solar Year ; Of Caesar's hand and Plato's brain, Of Lord Christ's heart and Shakespeare's strain."
Of the false Riches of error, the requirement is, " Sell that thou hast."
Read the story of the " Rich Young Man " in Matt. 19, and learn a beautiful lesson in meta- physics. The young man asks :
" Good Master, what shall I do to inherit Eter- nal Life?"
Hear the metaphysical answer of the Great Metaphysician :
" Sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." This is purely a metaphysical lesson.
For we are not allowed to apply it to any one materially, because the command is, " Judge not, that ye be not judged." But as a metaphysical statement it applies to all. For there is Spiritual buying and selling, and we are engaged in both,
and must be.
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Solomon said, " Buy the Truth and sell it not."
Of course this is strictly metaphysics and noth- ing else. So with the parable.
Truth is the True Riches — the true Coin of the Realm.
Error is the false Riches of the realm of Illusion.
The price we pay for Truth is Experience — thought-experience.
Experience is the price paid for :>ur present state of mind or consciousness — for any state of consciousness. And we hold to or value our acquisitions, whether material, intellectual, or Spiritual, in proportion to the greatness of the price paid.
For our present consciousness of error and sin we have paid a great price — a whole life-time of false thought, buying false riches. This is why we cling to it so tenaciously, and refuse to part with it by repentance — refuse to "sell what we have," as we are required to do. We cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven until we have " sold out" this entire false consciousness, — and this is repentance. Thus we become " the poor in spirit," who are " Blessed," because only by becoming " poor" as to the false riches can we fully desire,
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or be receptive to, the True Riches. This experi- ence of poverty and the consequent new opulence places us in position to " give to the poor " — to give of the New Riches to those who have become " the Lord's poor" — " poor in spirit," whose is "the kingdom of heaven."
Have you found the " Greater Light " of Spirit- ual Truth, which is the Silver of the Kingdom — the " True Coin of the Realm " ? If not, " sell that thou hast" of the accumulations of falsity — then " Buy the Truth, and sell it not."
" I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayst be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayst be clothed, that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see." — Rev. 3 : 18
THE " FIFTH DAY. — THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION
" And God said, ' Let the Waters bring forth abundantly the moving Creature that hath Life, and Fowl that may fly above the Earth in the open firmament of heaven.' " — Gen.
This Chapter treats of the Creative Power of Thought.
According to this Allegory the origin, source, and beginning of all action and manifestation is the Divine THOUGHT with purpose, expressed by, " GOD SAID," — put in execution by the Divine Will, expressed by, " Let it be done."
Mind is the Creator of the Idea, and Will is the executive Power, which executes the Divine Pur- pose ; that the Divine Thought may be visibly ex- pressed. This is the universal order of mental action, as tersely pictured in this unique allegory.
Infinite Mind is thus the Great " First Cause " and Origin of all things. Whence it follows, that
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all causation is primarily mental. For back of all existences is the Eternal Logos ; and back of the Logos is Infinite Mind, the Great First Cause. Indeed, back of all forces of every description is the Divine Consciousness, infinite in thought power; co-existent and co-infinite with the Eternal Will. From this Wisdom-Will proceeds the Logos-Thought clothed with infinite possibilities, because backed up by the Infinite Personality, — Consciousness-WlLL.
Now, since Man is a Son of God, the Human Mind follows the Divine order, though finite in its conceptions and power, — yet having infinite possibilities before it, by reason of its Divine origin.
The unfoldment of the Human Mind and Con- sciousness is the great theme of this Genesis Sym- bology; in which the "Great Deep" represents Formless Mind (necessarily the human mind), and its " waters " represent Thoughts. Bearing this in mind, namely, that throughout the Word, Seas, waters, rivers, clouds, etc., all represent some phase or principle of mind, we shall have one point clear for arriving at the symbology under which Spiritual Truth is expressed.
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Form is an inherent attribute of thought. Thought, being definite, is a thing of form. It is a definite thing, created out of the Infinite Formless — or Unmanifest. For in the (suppositional) " beginning " there is no form ; everything is " without form and void ; " until from the Divine Consciousness the Eternal Will decrees, " Let there be Light." The consequent result follows : " There was Light."
The Infinite Will and Consciousness constitute the Divine Personality, or Individuality, in which all Attributes are contained.
God is personal in the sense of individual Con- sciousness and Will ; but impersonal in the sense of bodily form — unless forsooth all forms in the universe are his infinite personality.
Strictly speaking, the word " person " comes from persona, a mask, — primarily referring to the mask worn by actors, to make them represent what they were not. The " persona " hid the real man ; and the " mask " represented the false man. Therefore what we call the person is not the Real Man, but only the mask-man, or false man, whom the human, undeveloped man calls real; because
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there is " darkness on the face of the Deep," not yet overcome.
When we say that thought is a thing of form, we do not necessarily mean shape, but mode or state of being primarily ; which eventually becomes manifest in ultimate expression in shape.
Therefore Thought, sent forth by the Eternal Energy of the Wisdom-Will is formative and crea- tive. " Through faith we understand the Worlds were framed by the Word of God." — Heb. 11:3. In the Creative process the Divine Idea is the Spiritual Germ, the living " Monad " of Leibnitz and Plato, the creative " Logos " of Philo and St. John, — the biological Entity forever seeking its etheric protoplasm, where it may find expression in visible form after its own likeness. The biolog- ical nature and creative power is not only charac- teristic of God's thought, but of all thought. Because they are "living Creatures " of the mind, they have existence, and therefore continue to live. Biology is the universal Creative Way.
Thought derives its energy and creative vibra- tion from the conscious Will, which sends it forth. This vibrative Energy molds the Protoplasmic Ether-Substance ; and visible form is the conse-
THE "FIFTH DAY"
quent Creation. For Idea expresses itself in form, the material expression of which it derives from the etheric matrix in which it is conceived.
The True Self is Divine — a Son or " Spark of Divinity " — possessing infinite potentialities, which the individual is to bring forth into expression. For man is a threefold being ■ — Spirit, Soul, and Body ; and these three are one — a trinity in unity.
Body has form of material visible to the phys- ical sight ; Soul has form of finer material, invisible to the physical sight but visible to the psychic sight; Spirit is the Divine Entity, whose form is, not shape, but " state of being," invisible either to physical or psychic sight, and visible only to God and every Son of God. Only Spirit can cognize Spirit.
This is the Spiritual Man, the True Self, the Ego ; — the Man of Divine lineaments — the " Like- ness of God," — whom he pronounced " Very Good." This True Self is the " Son in the bosom of the Father," who is always in harmony with, and always "working together with God." What the aspiring human being must do, in order to unfold his potentialities, is to recognize and be-
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come conscious of this Higher Self. In this way- may the Soul unfold Divinity in Consciousness.
This is the way to form our high Ideals. This is the "mount" where the heavenly vision is given, where the " pattern " for all our creations is " shown." And here we hear the command : " See thou make all things according to the pattern shown in the mount."
Our work in Spiritual unfoldment is, to become consciously what we are potentially, — to express in externals what we are in our Inmost Being — the True Self.
Man is finite in consciousness, because he has not unfolded his infinite possibilities. As the " Great Deep " is an infinite expanse, so mind is a free expanse omnipresent : — not like the body limited to the dimensions of the physical form, — but really, though not consciously, omnipresent, and making the body the centre of its operations. Wherever your thought is, there in the boundless expanse you are functioning, whether in your chamber or in distant countries. You belong to the universe, and the universe belongs to you.
You are here to unfold the consciousness of your infinity. For what you are conscious of, that you
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become. We speak of " Infinite possibilities " for man. This implies that it is possible for you to become conscious of your omnipresence, omni- science, and omnipotence.
Prophets and Seers are men who have made somewhat of these attainments. They have con- sciously gone to distant countries and seen and reported what was actually taking place there, while sitting in their chambers. Swedenborg had many such experiences. He even went into the highest heavens, and held converse with the angels. St. Paul was " caught up into the Third Heaven, and heard unutterable things." So real was the experience that he said of it, " whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell; God knoweth."
Of this universal mind-expanse Emerson said : "There is One Mind common to all men; and each man is an inlet to the same and to all the same."
When we come to know the Higher Self — that we are indeed Sons of God — we shall begin to un- derstand that we " live and move and have our Being in God," who is Omnipresent Spirit; that living in the Omnipresence, we draw on the whole
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fountain for all our needs ; because Sons of Omni- presence we are " an inlet to the same and to all the same."
" Son thou art ever with Me, and All that I have is thine." Lu. 15 : 31. There is absolutely no limit to the possibilities of realization, except what we have prescribed for ourselves. God has not circumscribed his Son with limits. Walt Whit- man, seeing this, exclaimed : " From this hour I decree myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines, my own master, total and absolute."
" Let the Waters bring forth the moving Creature that hath Life."
This expresses the law of action for Creative Mind. Since all causation is primarily in mind, active, living, creative mind has power to generate active, living thoughts, Wherefore Thoughts are active, living entities, — not dead things, — "Crea- tures that have Life." Thoughts do not perish. Living Mind's creations are not still-born. Dead things are not born of the living.
Since, then, thoughts do not perish, but live in the ether about us, there must be a World-Con- sciousness, corresponding to the individual Con-
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sciousness, yet larger and all-comprehensive of human thought.
This is the world to be redeemed through indi- viduals coming into the Christ-Consciousness, that they may become Light-bearers to the World- Consciousness. " I Am the Light of the World" (World-Consciousness)." The "Christ must be lifted up " in this World-Consciousness for its re- demption, — lifted up by every individual who receives the Christ illumination.
This World-Consciousness is a World-Phono- graph, from which the rank and file of humanity draw their inspiration, and into which they are pouring their thoughts. And it is quite possible that a " sensitive " may from this World-phono- graph reproduce the speech of an Ingersoll, a Beecher, or a Brooks, marked with all the charac- teristics of those personages ; while they them- selves may be far beyond the reach and plane of those who think they are receiving a communica- tion from them. This is the psychic plane.
If Infinite Mind i.s the great Creative power and source of all power, what part does the human mind play? It is like the local dynamo, which receives its electric power from the Central Dy-
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namo, without which it is entirely powerless. Yet a wheel in the local factory cannot move without the local dynamo. Each is dependent on the other. To the creations of the factory it is as if the local dynamo were the only power. Yet its efficiency depends absolutely on its continuous and perfect connection with the great Central.
What is eternally created in Infinite Mind must be, as it were, recreated by the human mind, act- ing in free deliberation as though everything de- pended on itself. Yet when the human maintains its conscious connection with the Infinite, its ac- tion and power will be in perfect accord with the Infinite ; and its creations will be the more perfect and God-like; because only thus can the finite realize that " it is God that worketh in me to will and to do."
Man is the containment or compendium of the whole Creation. He is the Microcosm; and re- creates what God has Spiritually created ; thus making his world within as perfect as the Macro- cosm without.
For in him all has been zVz-folded — all Divine ideas, the whole creation — all potentialities. Oth- erwise he would have no power of development;
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he could unfold nothing. " Thou couldest have no power . . . except it were given thee from above," the source of all power. The local dynamo can do nothing, except it be given it from above, — except there be a power back of itself.
Man is the local dynamo, un-fold'mg what has already been /^-folded. He is always " working together with God." He is working; yet it is God working ; He is creating ideas ; yet all ideas have been eternally created, — they are eternal. ''There is nothing new under the sun." Then whatever appears in manifestation eternally was, or more properly, eternally is. Then we must conclude that creation has always been, and that Man has always been ; because God has always been.
God and his creation — Mind and Idea — are co-eternal. Each imolies the other, and is the necessity of the other. Therefore Creation, in- cluding Man, is God's necessity. Without thought Mind would not be mind. So without Man (Mind's Idea) God could not be.
It is equally true of finite mind that it must ex- press its idea. For thought ever seeks its expres-
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sion ; which may appear in (symbolic) words or in bodily conditions. In my microcosmic world all my thoughts are manifested or expressed in my body; so that my body represents me. I am expressed in my body. " In Thy Book (my body) all my members are written" — all my thoughts are expressed.
It is universally true that " without the word was not anything made ; " because Thought is the only creative power. Consequently in my little world my " word is made flesh" —my thought becomes concrete in flesh — is expressed in body, where every thought brings forth " after its kind."
" Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg- ment." Every word, whether good or bad, is faithfully recorded in the register of the body; and you are receiving exact justice in correspond- ing judgment, according to the law of cause and effect.
For " the judgment is (always) set, and the books are opened, and every man is judged out of the Book of (his) life." Every thought you send forth goes on its mission of blessing or curs- ing according to its quality, the good word to
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bless and the " idle word " to curse — whom but yourself ? Your neighbor it cannot harm, unless he open his door to the evil thought. Fear or passion will open any door to let every enemy in. But he who stands firmly in Truth has no fear or danger. " He is safe from the strife of tongues." " By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned." Righteousness (or Christ) is both judge and jury, and your words (thoughts) are witnesses against you in this court; and Impartial Law executes the righteous judgment of the court, Righteous Judgment has been going on all our lives; and we have been reaping the bitter fruit of our " idle words " until " the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint," and weary with the burdens we have imposed upon ourselves, we seek relief from sin and surcease from sorrow. So bitter is the fruit, we are tired and sick of sin. In hope of restoration, harmony, and peace, we turn from these illusions in search of Truth as the remedy for error's sad outpictur- kig. Yet notwithstanding the inevitableness of the law in the expression of thought in the body, — these sad effects may be entirely obliterated by the corrective power of Truth, which has in itself
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omnipotent power, by reason of its Divine Prin- ciple. Error in itself has no power; it does not even exist in the realm of Reality ; it is illusion. How then can it become manifest in the body?
That power of expression, instead of being in the error, is wholly due to the creative power of mind. If the individual mind is so perverted that it believes error to be truth, its creations will be of a corresponding order, so that its manifesta- tions will be perverted accordingly. Indeed, the entire consciousness is perverted, and has become a sin-consciousness. What surprise, that diseases appear in expression !
When you stand with the whole mind invigo- rated with the realization of Truth, you can send forth your Word of Truth with great dynamic power; which is due to a power intrinsic in Truth itself, yet dependent on the mind's realization of Truth's omnipotence. For the mind is that local dynamo, on which Truth itself depends for its power to become manifest in externals.
Therefore, your " Spoken Word " has very great power; — it is enough to raise the dead. Error is a coward in Truth's presence, and must flee be- fore it, because of its very falsity. Therefore, you
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may speak your word of Truth with the greatest assurance of its success. " So shall My Word be, that goeth forth out of My mouth ; it shall ac- complish that which I please, and prosper in the thing whereunto I send it" (Is. 55:11). This is true of your word ; because the speaker is the " I Am" — the "I," the Divine One within, who always speaks from the standpoint of Truth. Truth is God's Word, whoever utters it ; and its power will be commensurate with your realization of it as the Omnipotent " Word of the Lord."
Our difficulty has been, that we have not half known the immeasurable power of the Word of Truth, when backed up and sent forth by a mind strong in Faith and Realization. For man wields omnipotent power, when he knows it, — when Faith gives him the consciousness of it. With this great Faith, which is " the Substance of things " — Faith that knows — your word becomes a decree, " Thou shalt decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee "(Job 22:38).
The ancients understood the power of words. They said, " If you desire agreeable experiences, you have only to put a good word into the ether, and it will take care of itself, and bring you com-
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fort by and by with something agreeable coming to pass." So in silence they diligently sought the right word; which when found they spoke with the vehemence of faith.
Are your circumstances uncomfortable ? Is your environment intolerable? That is a good sign. Though it is what you have made it, its intoler- ableness indicates that you are outgrowing it, and are about to change it, which you have power to do. When you fully deserve a better environ- ment, your changed consciousness will express itself in a better one. Learn a lesson of the Dragon- fly. Up to a certain time he is content to crawl, an uncouth grub, on the bottom of the pond, in harmony with his watery environment. But after a time he tires of his limitations and intolerable bondage, and begins to aspire to higher things and a freer environment. In his aspiration he climbs a reed; and the sun splits open his en- vironing shell, and he leaps forth free — the gor- geously attired Dragon-fly, happy in his better environment.
" Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
What you fully and truly desire, you can have, i34
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if you know your power, and are not disturbed by fear and doubt, which are your greatest foes. No matter if the whole world seems against you, and the whole trend of human thought seems to oppose your law, — your triumph over the intolerable conditions will not come by regarding the laws of carnal mind, but by disregarding and annulling them. Then if you steadfastly adhere to the higher law of the Spirit, holding to the Principle of Omnipotent Truth, as Jacob wrestled with his adversary — in due time it will transpire, that " while they are yet speaking I will hear " — while steadfastly claiming your heart's desire with the persistency of a genuine faith, the transformation will come. You bring it to pass.
" For though wrong grind thee small,
And all depart ; Yet shall thy world grow polar to thee,
Slowly taught, And crystal out a New World
Like thy thought."
By training the mind to a habit of fixed and steadfast purpose, and with fidelity to principle, you have power to bring into manifestation in your life the beautiful and desirable things, which
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though not yet apparent to the senses are never- theless yours already in the invisible omnipres- ence, only awaiting your proper mental attitude and consciousness to find expression in tangible realization.
" Let the Waters bring forth the moving Creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firma- ment of heaven."
It will be noted that it is " the waters " that bring forth both " the moving creature " and the " fowl." This is the language of both the Author- ized and the Douay Versions, and it is doubtless the correct rendering, since this whole allegory refers to thoughts and creations of the mind. For Thought creates everything. Indeed, if the Dar- winian theory be correct (and it is only a theory), that the fowl is a differentiation of the fish, then this Genesis statement is all right, even in its lit- eral sense, and the revisers had no need to change it. It does not say that " the waters " brought forth only fishes, but all " moving creatures." In our mental world " the waters " of mind create everything, as the story graphically shows.
In studying the correspondences of this allegory 136
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we note that the " beast and creeping things " represent the passions, sensations, and feelings of the flesh ; and " fowl that fly above the earth " are things of the mind —thoughts that soar above the plane of sense, in the free expanse of the mind, — the greatest of which are high aspirations and ideals which may correspond to eagles, as they have power to fly higher than any other fowl. Aspirations and Ideals carry us into the Spiritual altitudes where we meet God face to face.
The value of high ideals is shown in the experi- ence of Moses as given in Exodus, 3d chapter, which is a picture of the individual in the silence of meditation. He was " forty years " in the wil- derness tending sheep ; there he " led them to the backside of the desert," where he found himself " in the mount of God." Here God revealed him- self by his great name, " I Am."
This is the experience of every man who enters the path of Regeneration. For if you will engage in true meditation in the " desert" of silence, and there care for and meditate on your pure, innocent Spiritual thoughts ("tend and feed your sheep") ; if you will go into the ultimate extent of silence ("the backside of the desert") with your flocks,
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and stay there through a perfected experience, in- dicated by the symbology of " forty years," — you will suddenly find yourself in a very exalted state ("the mount of God").
The symbology of numbers becomes easy of solution when we consider them without regard to time or space. Thus in the number " 40 " we have a multiple of 10 (4 x 10) ; 4, the number of the square, denotes perfection, and 10 denotes All; then 4x10 denotes a full and perfected experi- ence. Having remained in meditative silence through a full and perfected experience (4 X 10), the Christ reveals himself to you as your Higher Self, whose name is " I Am." In Hebrew this name is written, " JHVH" (pronounced, Yahveh or Jehovah). Translated it means, "I Am; " which is the name of my Inmost Self, — Divinity within — the Son of God — Immanuel. And this is " The Lord " of my world — the Christ ; who may be found within only, — " Lo ! I am with you always."
When Moses received his illumination (" Burn- ing Bush ") and the revelation of God as " I Am," at once he was clothed with a wonderful power, sufficient to defy the power of Egypt, and deliver
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a vast army of Israelitish slaves from severest bondage, and restore them to their " promised land."
Though history, this must be treated as alle- gory, in looking for its Spiritual meaning.
Accordingly from time immemorial our Spiritual Thoughts (Children of Israel) have been under the domination of Carnal Mind (Egyptian bondage). That bondage has been so galling that we " cry to God by reason of the taskmasters."
When through Spiritual perception (Moses) we discern God within ("I Am"), we shall awake and arise in our Divine might, — conscious of our Divinity, — and shake off these shackles, and find the freedom of the Sons of God. It is always the " Son of God " who makes us free. Only within can you find him — and his name is " I Am."
Our recognition of God must be through our Consciousness. For God is Consciousness, or rather, God-Consciousness. In order to fully know God Ave must become God-Conscious. Therefore the " Memorial Name" is " I Am."
Elijah's power, well-nigh omnipotent, in the an- nihilation of the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Astarte by
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one herculean effort, symbolically portrays my own power to destroy sensuality from my heart. For Baal and Astarte are the Sex Gods, whose prophets are legion.
That which receives your heart's best love and devotion is your God. When the heart's love is bestowed upon sex-sensuality, you are a worship- per of Baal and Astarte, and have departed from the true God.
Such a case is well-nigh hopeless, until Elijah arises in the mind. For Elijah i^Elijahu) means, My God is I Am. When, therefore, I awake to the consciousness that I Am is my God, then I am Elijah, and can manifest the power of Elijah to righteously determine who has the supreme rights and authority, these Gods of sense or the Divine ONE within. With this high consciousness at- tained by communion, I may demonstrate this power, and by one fell swoop clean out these Augean impurities, and rid my heart of sensuality through the realization that — shall I say it ? — ■ " I- Am-God " — " My God is I Am." O if we could only get rid of that old primitive, childish concep- tion of a personal God (in the human sense), and find the Omnipotent One always with us, in-
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separable from us, we would have little trouble in demonstrating holiness and health. Developing our omnipotence through knowing God, we be- come Elijah, and can thwart the base designs of "Jezebel, that wicked woman" — the Carnal Con- sciousness. I am always the King of Israel, ruling righteously or unrighteously, and always receiving the consequences.
In saying that God is within, we are not saying that the whole of God is within ; but that our con- ception is there — in consciousness. For back of my own "I Am "-Consciousness (the Son) is the great, Eternal, Universal " I Am-that-I Am "- Consciousness (the Father).
This conception of God within gives us a higher conception of our bodies, which thus become God's Holy Temple.
"Jesus spake of the Temple of his body."
Thus your body is God's body. Can you defile it with impure thoughts? Your hand is God's hand. Will you say God's hand is infirm? Your eyes are God's eyes. Will you say God's eyes are dim? Your ears are God's ears. Will you say God cannot hear?
"He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? " 141
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" He that formed the eye, shall he not see? "
Who formed the ear? Who formed the eye? Who but the Divine " I Am" within? Who hears? Who sees? Who but the same perfect One? Who can obstruct his hearing or seeing? — " Shall he not see ? " — " Shall he not hear ? "
Then the way to overcome imperfections of vision or of hearing is to recognize your own Divinity. Indeed, the way to overcome every imperfection is to recognize who you are.
Carefully examining the Name of God given in Ex. 3 : 14, we find two Hebrew words used, both parts of the verb Hajah (to be), viz.: For the Name, " I Am " ( Yahveh — Jehovah), the present tense is used, Jhvh — I Am. For the Name, " I Am-that-I Am," the future, Ahjh, is used, thus : " Ahjh ashr Ahjh!' The former is a simple statement of Existence, or Being — - " I Am." The latter means more on account of its future aspect — " I Am He who is and is to be," — not like the former, limited to the present, but reaching to the Infinite Future — I Am He who is, the Com- ing, Unfolding, Manifesting One — ■ Eternal Being.
The one represents the Individual Conscious-
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ness ; the other the Universal Consciousness. The one is the Son ; the other the Father.
The " I Am " is my own — " My God ;" the " I Am-that-I Am " is the Universal Father. All " I Am " 's exist in and by reason of the " I Am-that- I Am." Only through the Son (" I Am") can I know the Father ("I Am-that-I Am"). There- fore, " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also." The way to the Father is always through the Son, the Mediator. The great lesson to be learned by the " Burning Bush " and " Elijah " al- legories is man's actual omnipotence, when think- ing from the consciousness of " I Am."
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VI
THE "SIXTH DAY": — THE MAN THAT GOD MADE
" And Elohim said, « Let us make Man in Our Image, after Our Likeness ; and let them have dominion over the Fish of the sea, and over the Fowl of the air, and over the Cattle, and over all the Earth, and over every Creeping Thing that creepeth upon the Earth.' And God made Man in his own Image : in the Image of God created he him : Male and Female created he them." — Gen. 1:26, 27.
This Chapter treats of the Crowning Work of Creation, — God imaging himself in Man. In fact, everything in the universe images God in a certain degree ; but Man is the highest expression, His Crowning Work. In the two first Chapters Moses gives us a double symbolic picture to repre- sent Man in his dual nature.
Apparently there are two separate accounts alternating throughout the first eleven Chapters, the one representing the Spiritual or Real Man, and the other the Natural or Unreal. The two
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THE "SIXTH DAY"
are as unlike as the two natures are ; yet they be- long together, as the two natures do, and are quite inseparable. But we may separate them, for the purpose of contemplating either, as we may con- template either nature separately.
The key by which the two may be distinguished and separated is the word employed as the Name of God. In the First Account it is Alhim (Elohim) — "God;" in the Second it is Jhvh {Jehovah) — " Lord," or Jhvh Alhim {Jehovah Elohini) — " Lord God." Hence students call the former the " Elohistic " account, and the latter the " Jehovistic"
These are sometimes printed in different type on the same page, also in parallel columns, so that they may be readily separated.
The two are very unlike ; so that if we confine ourselves to one account by reading heavy-faced type only, we shall get an entirely different con- ception of God's Creation, than if we read only the light-faced type, and vice versa.
The " Elohistic" account is an Ideal Picture to represent a purely Spiritual Creation, — its Man a Son of God, whose Likeness he bears, and whose Image he is. No materiality, earthiness, inhar-
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SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
mony, sin, curse, or death are mentioned or even hinted at to mar this Ideal Picture. It is the per- fect handiwork of the Perfect Creator, whose ap- proval it receives.
The " Jehovistic " account is a picture of the Human conception of Man and Creation ; which also involves the Human conception of God, — containing all the blemishes, crudities, inharmonies, sin, and death.
The exact origin of these two accounts is un- known ; but that they antedate Moses is universally conceded. No doubt they are a part of the her- itage of the Hebrews from their ancient Aryan ancestors, — the former coming from Chaldea through tradition, and the latter from Egypt, — the one being the purer presentation of the orig- inal Aryan story, the other the same story colored and corrupted by the peculiarity of Egyptian thought.
The one represents Man as seen from the stand- point of Divinity; the other as seen from the standpoint of Humanity. The two allegoric stories picture to us the Divine Idea and the Human Idea in contrast and juxtaposition.
The Elohistic account occupies the first Chapter 146
THE "SIXTH DAY"
and four verses of the second ; where the Jehovistic begins, telling the same story in formula very materialistic, continuing to the fifth Chapter.
Here the Elohistic again resumes the narrative through the fifth Chapter. These alternations continue through eleven Chapters; after which they become so blended that they cannot be dis- tinguished only as occasionally a great Elohistic Prophet arises to arouse in the minds of the Jeho- vistic people the higher standards which they have forsaken.
As Moses did not discard either account we will try to learn the lesson both have for us.
Allegory, metaphor, parable, etc., are material- istic expressions given to picture to the receptive mind Spiritual Ideas. For this is the only way Spiritual Ideas can be expressed. Intellect can perceive the shadow of Spiritual Truth by means of such cabalistic formulae ; and then with a due receptivity may be led into the higher Spiritual Understanding.
Looking, then, behind the letter of the figure, we may see a Spiritual World of transcendent beauty and Divine perfection - — everything in it being Spiritual, including Man, its king and lord
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in full dominion. This is the teaching of the Elo- histic story.
For the Spiritual is God's Real Creation; and Spiritual Man is the Real Man. In the Ideal World there is no sin; and there is no sinning in the Ideal Man. Therefore sin does not appear in the Elohistic story. It only appears in the Jeho- vistic, which is a perversion, corruption, or coun- terfeit of the Divine Idea, as shown by the Elo- histic. The descent of the pure Soul from the Elohim into Matter for the purpose of developing a strong individuality and personality through experience, which necessarily involves mistakes (which themselves have lessons for us), seems to be what is pictured by the Jehovistic story. For the pure Soul from the Elohim has no character or worth of its own until it has worked it out by experience. These mistakes involve all that is called sin, and the Egyptian bondage, its necessary consequence — from which we are now seeking deliverance through the experiences of regenera- tion, that we may be restored in consciousness to our pristine estate.
The Jehovistic story is unregenerate man's mis- conception of himself, as seen from the standpoint
i48
THE " SIXTH DAY"
of the Carnal (Egypt) nature. This " dust-of-the- ground " man, this " good-and-evil " man, this sinning, dying man is not the Divine Idea or God's True Creation. It is rather the human misconcep- tion of that Idea. Wherefore these two concepts are as far apart as Truth and Falsity, Spirit and Matter, Reality and Unreality, with both of which man has to do. They represent the Divine and Human Ideas, each brought into expression by the same " Law of the Lord."
It appears that the writer of the Pentateuch has given us a double allegoric picture of man to show the apparent duality of his nature, — wherein appears the upright perfection of the Higher Self, and the frail, material, sinning "worm of dust" of the Lower Self — the man of misconceptions. The higher conception appeals to his higher nature, and the lower conception to his lower nature, because of the duality in consciousness which this dual story presents.
There is a perpetual paradox in our reasoning concerning man growing out of this duality in consciousness.
Of this duality in consciousness Emerson says : " Underneath the inharmonious and trivial partic-
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ulars there lies a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us — the heaven without rent or seam."
Having the right and power of free choice, our reason may lead us to follow our Ideal and to keep the Higher Self constantly in view ; so that we may advance toward Divinity by a conscious evolution — - or we may choose to follow our mis- conceptions, attaching ourselves to the earth where we hear the Law declaring : " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."
All the troubles of earth arise from this miscon- ception of things. As philosophers and scientific thinkers, we are seeking to form the true concept of ourselves, in the hope that by adhering to eternal principles of Truth we may find deliverance from the distresses which misconception has in- volved us in, and attain to the Divine Conscious- ness; where, consciously Sons of God, we shall be untouched and uncontaminated by sin, corrup- tion, or death.
The true Conception is Man as God sees him from the standpoint of Truth. The false Concep- tion is man as seen from the standpoint of the senses.
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THE " SIXTH DAY"
It is the prerogative of Truth to lift man out of the slums, into which misconception has cast him, with all the concomitants of sin, sickness, acci- dents, and death ; and through the transforming power of Spiritual Ideals lead him into an illumi- nated consciousness where only harmony and health are found.
When we contemplate the great book of Nature we are impressed with the idea of a wonderful order and plan. And yet the word " plan " seems hardly the proper word for Infinite Wisdom. We speak of God's " plan" or God's " scheme of salvation," as though the Infinite had to study and "scheme " and " plan" to accomplish a diffi- cult task. Omniscience having to " study " and " scheme " and "plan"! Only the finite needs to " plan," because not perfected in Wisdom. Therefore what is called " God's plan of Salva- tion" is simply men's plan, — their idea of God's way of doing things. We have so many conflict- ing plans, all called God's ! Omniscience is universal law. Does Law plan? Law is the har- monious working of Omniscience. It is not a thing made and adjusted to the universe. It is rather God in his universe living it. It is not a
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plan : It is God, manifesting himself as Wisdom, Love, and Truth, in harmonious activity.
When we read in Gen. 2:7: " And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground," it is equivalent to saying, The " Law of the Lord " brought into material expression man's material Idea of himself.
The Elohistic story shows the harmonious ex- pression of the perfect Idea; and the Jehovistic the inharmonious expression of the perverted Idea, by the faithful operation of the same right- eous " Law of the Lord/' It is the perfect Law of expression we are dealing with, which is just as faithful to bring into expression every Idea, whether true or false.
If your idea is perfect and true — the True Conception — its expression will be as perfect and true as is the Idea. But if your idea is im- perfect and false — a misconception — the expres- sion must be as far from perfection as is the Idea.
By the same impartial Law the " Good Tree brings forth Good fruit, and the Evil Tree Evil fruit." God is powerless to prevent the " evil fruit " on the " evil tree." For he is Principle and Law.
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Thus the " Law of the Lord " with exactness of operation and impartiality forms man's material Body out of his material conceptions (" dust of the ground "). Not that God did this once, ages ago, but that it is constantly being done every- where. It is the Law.
But after all, whether we call this a Spiritual or material world ; whether we call man a Spiritual or material Being, depends on our conception of things. For from the Elohistic standpoint what Carnal mind calls the material world is really the Spiritual world in visible expression, — misnamed material, through human misconception.
Human misconception is forever mistaking the " appearance " for the Reality. But Realities are always Spiritual and eternal; " appearances " are transitory and temporal.
By reason of his Divine origin Man is, according to this Elohistic story, in his intrinsic substance, a perfect Spiritual Being; and his great problem is, through the recognition of the Spiritual Self to bring into outward expression all the qualities of the Heavenly Man, — to bring into concrete ex- pression what is potentially true in his Inmost Being, until the two are one.
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The " problem of Life " is not fully solved until Regeneration is finished. And this is the demonstration of yourself to yourself — your Higher Self to your Lower Self; whereby the lower becomes " transformed into the image of the heavenly."
In the Sixth Day of Creation God completed the revelation of himself to himself in the produc- tion of his perfect Son — his imaged representa- tive. When, after all the Aeons of evolutionary unfoldment, the earth became ready for man, the crowning work and highest expression of God, — Man appeared. Then was God able to behold himself, as in a mirror, in his Creation. His per- fect Image appeared ; which he saw, and pro- nounced, " Very Good."
Everything in the universe is contained in man; therefore, when the Creation was " finished," Man had to appear, that the Father might behold himself in the Son.
Through correspondence I see, that I am creat- ing my world. This Genesis story is the story of my own unfoldment. My world is at first " without form and void ; " and would ever remain so, but for " the Spirit of God moving upon the face of
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THE " SIXTH DAY"
the waters." Through this Cosmic process my unfoldment continues, until at last I behold myself in my perfected Consciousness, — the Heavenly Man, the True Creation of God.
The end and object of my Regeneration is to bring into consciousness the full glory of my Son- of-God Self; that I may see in this perfect mirror fhat which exactly meets my approval, and which I therefore pronounce, " Very Good."
This is a demonstration of the highest Truth of Being. For if your highest Ideal is the Real, — that you are a Son of God, with every Divine attribute and perfection, — - then you ought to be able to realize — make real to consciousness — that Ideal; and so Be CONSCIOUSLY THE God- Ideal. What at first is a distant Ideal, becomes in time consciously Real — Real-ized.
This is a demonstration to yourself — not to an- other. Another has no part in it. All experiences in evolution are strictly your own.
The Gethsemanes and Crucifixions are great experiences for your own unfoldment. Peter, James, and John slept while the Master wrestled in Gethsemane.
Thus in the Microcosm the forming of the Son i55
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
of God in you is the Crowning work of your crea- tion, and that toward which all previous efforts have pointed.
In the correspondence of the natural with the Spiritual we see the beauty and profundity of Divine Wisdom, the marvellous Wisdom of the Divine Order. Besides, it enables us to recognize the Divine Self, which is always in touch with God; so that we may "ask," knowing that we " shall receive " freely of the Wisdom, Truth, Strength, and Virtue of God. The whole fountain of Wisdom is continually offering itself; God is continually bestowing himself. Every Good thing we can ask for, or think of, is eternally given. Man has but to receive.
The fact of the matter is, Infinite Goodness has expressed itself in man, making him Good ; In- finite Wisdom has made him Wise ; Infinite Life has made him Living; Infinite Love has made him Loving; and who shall limit the Infinite bestow- ing? God-like-ness is the meaning of " In-our- Image-after-our- Likeness."
The Man, whom Elohim, the Father, made and pronounced " Very Good," is the Man of God- like-ness ; who eternally abides in the bosom of the
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Father. If God once pronounced Man " Good," the Unchanging One must forever see him Good. The Uncorruptible Father forever sees the Son uncorruptible.
It is because the Spiritual Man is the Real, the Man of unchanging perfection, that makes him instinctively rebel at bondage, sickness, and death ; because these things are not his, and never be- longed to this man of Divine lineage. They have been foisted upon him by the misconceptions of the race, until he groans by reason of the cruel bondage. This instinctive rebellion at bondage and oppression is the Voice of the Divine Self asserting himself.
Shall we constantly keep the false man in view, and be reconciled to Pharaoh's oppression? Shall we " take the Name of God in vain " by saying, "It is God's Will," or by calling Carnal Mind's verdict, God's decree? It is Pharaoh's decree, not Elohim's. Let him exercise his authority upon Egyptians ; but we are not Egyptians, that we should submit to this cruel king, " Mortal Mind." We are of a Diviner race — Sons of God — Children of Israel — a Spiritual race.
Yet we have, like the historical Israel, been sold i57
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into slavery, — - as Paul says, " sold under sin," — we have sold ourselves. " Ye have sold yourselves for naught; but ye shall be redeemed without money and without price." (Is. 52: 3). But out of this carnal-mind bondage our cry for deliver- ance is heard in the innermost of the soul, where God is still speaking and still hears.
Through the long centuries, in ignorance of his Divine estate, and under the illusions of the mortal consciousness, man has been blindly groping his way, seeking in materiality for what he is conscious of having lost, — Perpetual Youth. He is con- stantly seeking in objectivity for what cannot be found there. The " elixir of life " and the " foun- tain of perpetual youth " men are ever seeking and never finding in the objective world. In every century some Ponce de Leon or Pasteur appears in this vain search. Yet there is a true " elixir of life " and a true " fountain of perpetual youth" all suffi- cient; otherwise men would not be searching for it.
Instinctively man knows that perfect life, health, and freedom belong to him. Therefore he believes in remedies instinctively for the recovery of his lost estate ; and he flies to matter for what does not exist there. He is thirsting for the " Water
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of Life; " but seeks it in " mineral springs," or in the concoctions of the apothecary. This Living Fountain is not to be found in matter; for it is matter (the material consciousness) that has de- frauded him of the fulness of the Consciousness of Life. He has sought wrongly, because he has sought objectively, — without, for what can be found only within. If only man would step and listen, — learn to hear and obey the Inner Voice of Wisdom, he would soon find the " elixir of life," and be able to drink of its perennial fountain. Christ is that all-sufficient Fountain. " The Water that I will give him shall be in him a well of Water springing up into Everlasting Life." Finding the Christ within, you drink of the Fountain of perpet- ual youth. But man — " fool man" — has lost the Spiritual Consciousness, having buried it be- neath the rubbish of materiality. As Young says :
11 Yet man, fool man ! here buries all his thoughts ; Inters Celestial hopes without one sigh ; Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, Here centres all his wishes ; winged by heaven To fly at Infinite, and reach it there, — Where seraphs gather Immortality on Life's fair Tree, Fast by the Throne of God.1' *59
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To have the realization of your Divine estate, — to know that it is even now your very own, will bring you better health and a higher conscious- ness. For that realization will be a Higher Con- sciousness. The glimpses you receive of your Higher Self are foreshadowings of the Higher Consciousness, soon to be revealed. John was in the Spiritual Consciousness, we may infer from his statements of realization. " Beloved, Now are we the Sons of God ; and it is not yet manifest what we shall be ; but we know that when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is."
According to this man in the Cosmic Con- sciousness, even " Now we are Sons of God," — though we may not fully realize all this means, nor manifest (because not realizing) all it implies. But the possibilities of " what we shall be" can hardly be imagined; because of the limitations of our faith. " But we know, that when He shall be manifested (to consciousness) we shall be like Him." That is : When we are in the Spiritual Consciousness we shall comprehend and under- stand all things Spiritual, and manifest accord- ingly.
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THE "SIXTH DAY"
The high standard is within; the perfect pat- tern is there.
It is the Divine Self — the Immaculate Christ. All longing for higher things, all soul hunger, is the True Self seeking recognition and outward expression.
If man were the " worm of the dust " they have called him ; if he were " totally depraved," as his well-intentioned calumniators have declared, he could have no aspiration for higher things ; the Spiritual would forever remain meaningless to him. There could be no evolution toward Di- vinity, unless Divinity had been first //evolved. But Divinity always within is constantly seeking recognition and outward expression. No man ever attained a high consciousness by a constant recognition of his low estate of sinfulness ; nor by putting off the day in thinking he will sometime become holy, can he arrive at conscious Holiness. The consciousness of Holiness, and its expression as wholeness can come only through the recog- nition of it as a present reality. For you are not sometime to become a Son of God; — you are Now a Son of God, as perfect as Christ.
Your Son-ship is not a thing to be unfolded, 161
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but a thing to be recognized. The only trouble in the matter is, you are not conscious of what you are, What is to be unfolded is not your Divinity, but your consciousness of it. Divinity was always there, but the consciousness of it is to be gained. The Divine Consciousness is the great object of all unfoldment.
Jesus is called Jesus Christ, because he ever lived and spoke from the Christ-Centre of con- sciousness. Divinity within being constantly rec- ognized, was constantly gaining a fuller expression ; until men, recognizing the expression, called him Jesus Christ.
You will never be able to express the higher powers of the soul until you look beyond the human Self you are so familiar with, and become better acquainted with the Higher Self, — until you recognize this Heavenly Man already there in his full Divinity.
Unfoldment is upward, from the lower to the higher. Therefore Paul said, " The First Man (recognized) is of the earth earthy: the Second Man (recognized) is the Lord from heaven." This is the Divine order for every man's pro- gression.
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The u First Man" has been long in manifesta- tion through constant recognition. Now our problem is, through a proper Spiritual recogni- tion, to bring into manifestation the Heavenly Man — the " Second Man" — in all his perfec- tion. This is a matter of demonstration.
Every problem requires demonstration.
You have lived so long in the Human Con- sciousness, that the True Self is unknown to you, until in the silence you discover him.
This is your Ideal, very beautiful, but at first far away. But by persistently dwelling on this Ideal you bring it near, until you make it real to consciousness. You realize your ideal.
As we have said, the man that God made is the Spiritual Man, only whom Elohim, his maker, knows, and pronounces, " Very Good."
"And God saw everything he had made, and behold ! it was very Good."
Only the perfect meets the Divine recognition and approval ; only the perfect has he made.
Not only is this God's verdict concerning His Creation, but it is also the verdict of the true Ego, the Son of God, who sees as God sees, from the standpoint of perfection.
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But the Human Ego, seeing from the standpoint of the senses, reverses for himself in consciousness the correct verdict of the Spiritual Ego, and re- ceives himself the self-inflicted penalty, the con- sequence of his perverted conception of Truth. For in reality Truth can never be perverted or shaded a hair from its high standard of perfection. The only thing that is changeable is our concep- tion of it. The effect of that false conception is what we call evil.
When we realize that in the realm of Being and Reality there is nothing but God and his Creation (which is his expression), then there is but a single step to the more comprehensive statement, " There is nothing but God." Thus Mrs. Wilcox puts it :
11 God and I in space alone, and nobody else in view : And where are the people, O Lord, I said, The earth below and the sky o'erhead ; And the dead whom once I knew?
" That were a dream, God smiled and said, A dream that seemed to be true. There are no people, living or dead, No earth below or sky o'erhead : There is only Myself and You. 164
THE "SIXTH DAY"
" Why do I feel no fear, I asked,
Meeting you here this way ; For I have sinned, I know full well ; And is there Heaven, and is there Hell,
And is this the Judgment Day?
" Nay, those were but dreams, the great God said,
Dreams that seemed to be. There is no such thing as Fear of Sin ; There is no You ; you never have been ;
There is nothing at all but Me."
Making use of Emma Curtis Hopkins' formula, with slight modification, we may say:
" The Divine One looking outward, as it were, forever beholds himself. There is nothing else for him to behold. He sees himself everywhere re- flected in the perfect mirror of nature. He sees himself in everything he beholds. The Divine One is all there is either to be or to be seen. So every way the Divine One turns he sees himself. He gives his own quality and characteristics to everything he sees. He is continually environed by himself. Conscious only of Goodness, he pro- nounces everything he sees, ' Very Good.' "
In like manner the True Ego, looking outward, 165
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only beholds himself. He sees himself every way he turns. Consciously Good himself, he sees only Goodness every way he looks. He gives his own quality and characteristics to everything he sees. With no " mote " in his eye he sees only perfec- tion every way he turns. He sees himself in a mirror, and is reflected, himself to himself, on every hand. He is continually environed by him- self. This is the Man that God made — his per- fect expression ; who sees as through the eyes of Divinity, and like God pronounces everything he sees, " Very Good."
Then we find that the False Self, the Human Ego, being but the perverted concept of the True Self or Ego, sees only himself every way he turns. He gives his own quality and characteristics to everything he beholds. He sees everybody and everything after his own pattern and pronounces judgment accordingly. With a beam in his eye he sees motes in his brother's eye continually. He sees everybody through his own thought- spectacles, which color everything he sees. Con- scious of sin himself, he sees the sinner every- where he looks. He is continually environed by himself.
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Like the Divine One the True Ego sees only what he approves and loves because of his own conscious Goodness. But the Human Ego sees much that displeases him because he is in a false consciousness — the consciousness of Good-and- Evil. Yet he has one sure remedy for his offend- ing world : When he has redeemed himself he will find his world redeemed ; since the world he sees is his own reflection.
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REGENERATION
PART II
FOLLOWING THE "SIX DAYS" OF THE CHRIST SYMBOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
TO
PART II
THE CHRIST SYMBOLOGY
THROUGHOUT the Scriptures there is One Great Theme running, — One Great Burden which its symbology bears, — One Great Transformation, which its allegories picture, and its histories both conceal and reveal. It is the Great Theme of the Prophets and Mystics of the Ages in all Religious Systems, — the greatest that can engage the hu- man mind ; because it contains the secret arcana, and reveals the way for man's unfoldment into his Divine estate in consciousness. That One Great theme is Regeneration.
That is the Great Evolution revealed in the story of Creation, as we have seen. That is the Evolution pictured by the deliverance of the " Children of Israel" from the bondage of Egypt,
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and their final arrival, after the purifying " Wilder- ness " experiences, into their "Promised Land." That is the Evolution pictured in the dark and mystical Book of " Job," as we shall see, when once we have learned to look beyond persons and things, and see our own experiences.
In these and many other cases human unfold- ment through experience is what is represented under the symbology of history and allegory.
It is soul unfoldment, — Spiritual Evolution, — the growth and passage from the material or Adam-Consciousness to the Spiritual or Christ- Consciousness. In either of these mystical alle- gories the ultimate goal is the same. The allegory of Creation ultimates in the " Sabbath of Rest," — the Attainment realized — Regeneration accom- plished, where all struggle ends, all labor ceases. The allegory of the " Children of Israel " ultimates in their safe arrival in their Ideal Home. The great epic of Job ultimates in the soul's perfect restoration through a true understanding of God, whereby we become transformed in soul, body, and estate, and receive full satisfaction in the elder brother's double portion.
We now turn to the New Testament to contem- 172
THE CHRIST SYMBOLOGY
plate the greatest symbology written in any age. Every character of the sacred page signifies far more than the mere historical life of that char- acter.
The greatest character of history is Jesus of Nazareth. As an individual his life was an ideal one, — or rather an Ideal carried into practice — realized. That man may have an ideal, which he may pursue, until he realizes his ideal, was demonstrated by him; that the way to unfold the highest potentialities of one's Being, the way to bring out Divine qualities and characteristics is by pursuing one's Ideal, until it is realized ; — thus demonstrating that the Ideal is the Real. The Ideal is the perfect Spiritual " Pattern shown in the mount," which we should seek to make our own in practical experience. Living the Ideal Life is the way to realize our Ideal.
Jesus was the Man of prophecy, the One Man foreseen and pointed to by all the Prophets and Seers of old, — the Pattern-Man, the Ideal-Man, whom they saw afar off, and who in the fulness of time was expressed in visible form, — the Ideal realized; — and he is still the Ideal Man — our Ideal, our Pattern ; whose life is the Ideal " Way"
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for the unfoldment of the highest potentialities of one's Being, for the demonstration of Divinity in Consciousness.
Therefore the meaning of his life is more than that of an historical personage. All the histories of the Word are more to us than histories. There is always an allegorical application of such histo- ries to human life : so that that history is not a thing of the dead past, but a living thing of the living present, a reality in the individual conscious- ness. Of all the allegoric (historical) characters of sacred history the greatest and crown jewel of them all is Jesus Christ. That he lived and walked the earth there is abundant evidence; though the accuracy of the allegoric application of his life to human experience in the process of regeneration is so marked as to lead some to think that he was not an historical personage ; but that the writers of the Gospels — whoever they were — wrote under Divine inspiration, using the form of history to represent the true course of Ideal Way for the unfoldment of the Christ in Consciousness; that "Jesus " represents the typical Man going through all the experiences of that unfoldment ; that those allegoric experiences, as in a human objective life,
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THE CHRIST SYMBOLOGY
represent the esoteric experiences of every man in the Way of regeneration, wherein he may be said to pass from the estate of the animal-human to that of the Divine-human, in consciousness. In such a view the "Christ" is the true Ego — the Son of God, which the " Jesus " — the human — is seeking to manifest in consciousness, that he may be conscious of his Divine estate or Christ-hood. This reveals " The Way" to the Christ life in its fulness.
All this may be strictly true without denying the historic Christ. But admitting its historicity and the allegory within it, that history at once assumes a wonderful importance, — there is a Divine plan in it; God is in it, working along with man in both the objective and subjective experiences ; which reveals a sacred value to both factors of a correspondence. And this must be true of all Bible histories and prophecies. God is in every stage of human evolution from the lowest to the highest.
Every great unfoldment proceeds according to the Cosmic order, having " six periods," " six steps," or " six days " in its evolution ; the seventh representing finished work — the Ideal realized.
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Hence in the Spiritual interpretation of Scripture the number seven always means completion — the attainment. For there is a Spiritual sense of numbers, as well as histories and allegories, to be understood. This being true, we may expect to find in the story of the life of Jesus something to show that its mystical writers followed the mystic order, — that this mystical life had its " six days " also.
The story of the " Transfiguration," in Mat. 17 and Mark 9, is a unique symbolic vision, pregnant with Spiritual meaning, like the visions of John in the Apocalypse ; and the same John was one of the three who had this vision, in which the Christ is the centra] figure, — fulfilling the law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah), — as the Christ is the essential Principle of both the Law and the Proph- ets,— in both factors of the correspondence.
Every item and incident of this vision has a mystical meaning.
"After six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them : and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light " (Mat. 17 : 1, 2).
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The first thing that catches our attention is the " Six Days " in the beginning of the narrative. The allegoric nature of the record of the life of Jesus is one of the chief reasons Bible students find so much difficulty in determining the chrono- logical order of events in that mystical life. If we spend our time hunting for the chronology, we shall miss the great lesson of the life. In fact, we must eliminate Time and Space from the account, so that the experience may be Now and Here, — " nigh thee and in thy heart."
With Time eliminated the chronology ceases to have any value. The Spiritual is Now and HERE always.
The " Six Days" of the Mosaic symbology are the " six periods" or " Six degrees of Initia- tion," for the Neophyte, before he arrives at the perfect state of Illumination, symbolized by the " Sabbath."
What that symbo.logy pictures to the mind is more graphically pictured by the higher symbol- ogy of the greater allegory of the life of the greatest man of history ; which has the same " Six Days " to represent the same " Six Steps " or " Six Degrees of Initiation " in the unfoldment of the
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
Christ in Consciousness ; " until we arrive at the fulness of Christ."
This is the interpretation of the first point in the great allegoric vision of the Transfiguration. For our present purpose this point is all we need to mention; though it might be profitable to trace the symbolism of the whole vision.
In the six Chapters following we shall endeavor to show the " Six Steps " in the Christ-Way of Regeneration, — " I Am the Way."
We hope to be able to make that wonderful Way so clear in its every " step," that others may be able to follow " The Way," finding the Master's " Steps," and walking in them.
Said Victor Hugo : " Religion is a translation of God proportioned to the amount of soul that is within you." Therefore the unfoldment of Religion in the Soul works the unfoldment of the soul by a larger " translation of God " to the human Con- sciousness.
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VII
THE FIRST STEP : — THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION AND BIRTH
" Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." — John 3:3.
THE great problem for every man's solution is "the Problem of Life ; " the great Object of search is Satisfaction ; the great Attainment to make is the Divine Consciousness, — which is the " Chief End of Man." Happy is he who wisely enters early upon this solution, who early begins this search, and studiously strives to gain this high attainment, — an attainment which in the Eternity of Eternities each one will sometime work out for himself. It is every one's own problem, which another cannot solve for him.
" Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2: 12).
It shall be the burden of the Six Chapters fol- lowing to make clear the Christ-Way for the
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solution of the Great Life Problem, for the finding of Satisfaction, and the attainment of the Divine Consciousness, according to the greater Light of the New Testament as it is revealed by the won- derful symbolic life of Jesus of Nazareth, by Six well-defined Steps, shown in that striking symbolic picture, called " The Transfiguration" (Mat. 17) ; whose " Six Days " are the Six Steps in the evo- lution of the Christ in Consciousness. For Jesus is the Representative Man of the Ages, the Great Type-Man for all time, our Living Parable and Allegory of Life, — our Way to the highest Con- sciousness — "I Am the Way."
The meaning and purpose of that Great Mysti- cal Life is, to show by the demonstration of expe- rience the Way for the unfoldment of the CHRIST in Consciousness.
Therefore " The Way " of his earthly life stands to us as an objective picture to indicate our Spir- itual Way to that Great Unfoldment, the highest experience for men, — Spiritual Illumination,-— a transformed Consciousness, — the Resurrected Life, — the Christ-Consciousness; — and by the necessity of natural law, a transformed body.
This "Way" is the evolutionary process, called 180
THE FIRST STEP
Regeneration, — available to every man who will seek it.
But what is Regeneration? It is the Conception, Birth, and Unfoldment of the Divine IDEA or CHRIST-Principle in the Consciousness of Man, until it has wrought the purification and transfor- mation of the whole man, soul and bod)r, making him in consciousness a " New Creation in Christ Jesus."
In the Six First Chapters we followed the same Six Steps to the same end under the symbolism of the Story of Creation, which had its culmina- tion or completion in the " Seventh Day," " the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," representing an Illuminated Consciousness in Realization, or per- fect Salvation in the attainment of the Spiritual Consciousness.
Every man is seeking Satisfaction, whether he follow the quest of wealth, honor, or fame ; whether he plunge into dissipation, sensuality, or crime. He is always after the sweet boon of Satisfaction.
Though in numerous ways men seek and never find it, still there is one sure way to satisfaction, — the Christ-Way, — u I Am the Way."
Only Christ brings to the heart perfect satisfac-
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
tion. Christ is the all-satisfying Good all men are seeking, though they know it not.
Christ is the Way to the Regenerated Life, — " the only way (Name) given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved." There is no other way. " He that entereth not by the Door into the Sheepfold, but climbeth up some other Way, the same is a thief and a robber." "I Am the Door;" " I Am the Way." Thus the Course, the Path, the " Door," the " Way " to Regenerated or Divine Manhood is the Christ- Way. " I Am the Way;'
" And God spake unto Moses and said / Am the I Am (the Lord) : I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob by the name, God Almighty ; but by my name, / Am (Jehovah) > was I not known unto them," The name, "God Almighty," is a purely intellectual conception of God, — ■ a mere theoretical or theological concept, which can never be verified in consciousness, — a God you never can know, because God cannot be known through intellect. Still our first conception is the intellectual. But this is the " Unknown God " — theorized about, but not known. Our first per- ceptions are through intellect, which, when quick-
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THE FIRST STEP
ened, is the " John-the-Baptist" of the mind, able to perceive afar off, but unable to know in con- sciousness. What intellect perceives, the Spirit- ual Man knows — is conscious of. Nevertheless intellect " prepares the way of the Lord."
In searching for the God you can know your starting point must be yourself, always the " known quantity" and God the "unknown quantity" in your Divine equation. You are the key to the whole problem.
Looking beyond the physical body, and dis- cerning your eternal Being within, you have the key which unlocks the very Holy of Holies, and brings you into the Divine presence, where you meet God face to face, and know that you know him. The recognition of Being within is the first step in Spiritual knowledge. It is the Christ Im- maculately Conceived within. Then after the full period of gestation (meditation) — indicated by the mystical number nine (nine months) — with- out regard to time — the Christ will be born to consciousness,- — The Divine Idea will be fully formed in consciousness.
You start with the " known quantity " — Being, within, your " I-Am," — to find the value of " X,"
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the " Unknown Quantity." For God will remain the " unknown" to you till you find him through the Divinity within you. The Way of the " I Am " is " The WA Y." In simple meditation on " I Am " the soul perceives, and then becomes conscious of the Divine Christ. And through this Mediator between the Human and the Divine, you are to gain the larger conception of Infinite Being — the " I Am-that-I Am." For only through the Son can you know the Father. Through the Indi- vidual Consciousness you may know the Cosmic Consciousness.
" No man knoweth the Father save the Son." When the devout Hebrew reads his Scriptures, and comes to the word, Jhvh (Jehovah — Yahveh — I Am), the greatest name of God — the " Unutter- able Name," he either passes over it in silence or substitutes Adoni (Lord), lest the accidental cor- rect pronunciation of this " Great and Terrible Name " should " shake heaven and earth." For though there are many pronunciations, the true pronunciation is unknown. The frequent appear- ance of the word " Lord " in the Old Testament bears unmistakable testimony to that substitution,
THE FIRST STEP
as well as to the great veneration and fear in which they held this name.
Thus it is evident that the names, " Jehovah " and " Lord " always refer to the Christ, as this meaning is inherent in the name itself. Immanuel Swedenborg saw this, and correctly affirmed that Christ is God, and Jehovah is Christ. He is to be found only within ; and his Great Name is, " I Am." Therefore his throne is the heart.
John came as the forerunner of the Christ. He stands for Intellect, which looks without to find the Christ. Wherefore John said : " I am not He;" " There cometh a mightier than I." Yet through abiding in the silence ("desert") Intel- lect's finer perceptions are quickened ; and with the cleansing power of the "Baptism of Repent- ance " becomes capable of cognizing the Christ, and says, " Behold the Lamb of God ! " Yet this Intellect never could do, were there no kinship between the Human and the Divine. (John and Jesus were Cousins.)
Without this kinship Intellect never could be quickened. But John's negative statement cost him his head. Negative statements will always defeat you. Therefore be careful never to place
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negative words after " I Am," Because, while " I Am " is the name of the Lord thy God, you are thus " taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain." " And the Lord will not hold him guilt- less, that taketh his name in vain." The effect must follow the cause.
Jesus ever recognized the Christ within himself. Hence his positiveness and power in the use of " I Am." He spoke understanding^ from the con- sciousness of the Christ, saying, "I Am He," "I Am the Life," " I Am the Way," " I Am the Good Shepherd," "I Am the Light of the world," " I am the Son of God," — in no case using a nega- tive with " I Am." He proved his Divinity by recognizing his Divinity.
For the place to find God is always within.
" I searched for God with heart-throbs of despair, 'Neath ocean's bed, above the vaulted sky : And then I searched myself, my inmost I,-— And found him there."
When at the " Burning Bush " Moses found God within, as he meditated upon " I Am," and identified himself with the Divine, he became clothed with omnipotent power to accomplish
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what the Divine One required of him. The secret of power lies in one's ability to recognize and identify himself with Divinity within. Thus find- ing your Divine Self, a Divine estate is yours. " All that I have is thine," the Bountiful Father says to you. " Nothing shall be impossible to you."
We have not been conscious of our Divinity, because we have been in the hypnotic " deep sleep " of the Adam Consciousness, from which we must be awakened to discover the Higher Self, the Son of God, — the " Eve " — who becomes " Mary."
When once awakened to the Spiritual Con- sciousness, you will find yourself in an entirely new kingdom, the Spiritual Realm, quite unknown to you before, — the Kingdom of Heaven.
For in all the universe God is manifest in vary- ing degrees on various planes of consciousness — in the various kingdoms of nature. Each of these kingdoms is perfect in itself. Yet in it the func- tioning entity is powerless to explore or know any kingdom above its own to which it has not attained.
The mineral is the lowest kingdom man has