THE GREATEST THING EVER KNOWN
by Ralph Waldo Trine
THE MOMENT WE FULLY AND VITALLY REALISE WHO AND
WHAT WE
ARE, WE THEN BEGIN TO BUILD OUR OWN WORLD AS GOD
BUILDS HIS
Chapter 1
THE GREATEST THING EVER KNOWN
The greatest thing ever known—What
is it? Full surely the answer must be one that is
absolutely universal, both in its nature and in the
possibilities of its application. It must be one
that can be accepted wholly and unreservedly, not
only by a single individual, but by bodies of
individuals, be they the originators of any
particular school of Ethics, the followers of any
particular system of Philosophy, or even the
adherents of any great system of Religion. It must
be one so true in itself that it can be accepted by
all men alike the world over. And again, it must be
an answer that is true for no particular period of
time, but equally true for all time—an answer that
was true not only for yesterday, that is true for
today, that may be true for tomorrow, but one
equally true for yesterday, today, and forever.
In laying our foundation, therefore,
it must be laid upon something as true and as
certain as Life itself, and as eternal as
Everlasting Life. What is as true and as certain as
Life itself?—Life, only Life. And what do we mean by
this answer? Let us give it for a moment our most
careful consideration for upon what we find here
depends and rests all that is to follow.
Let us start, then, with that in
regard to which all can agree; something taken not
from mere tradition, from mere hearsay, but
something that comes to us from no source other than
our own interior consciousness, our own reason and
insight. In other words, let us make our approach,
not from the theological standpoint, but from that
which is far more certain and satisfactory—the
philosophical. Then, and then only, will we allow
pure reason to be our guide, and then by having as
the earnest desire of both mind and heart, truth,
truth for its own sake, and then for the sake of its
influence upon everyday life, we will thus allow
pure reason to be illumined by the “Light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”
In the degree that we open ourselves
to and are true to this are we on sure and safe
ground, for thus are we going directly to the source
and the only source of all true revelation. In the
degree, on the other hand, that we close ourselves
or become untrue to this are we on uncertain and
dangerous ground, and liable to find ourselves
hopelessly floundering in the quagmire of
theological traditions and speculations and doubts,
of which the world has already seen so much. Pure
reason, therefore, shall be our guide—pure reason
illumined by the Inner Light.
Again, then, What is Life? Being is
Life. Life is Being. Being, therefore, is our
starting-point, and indeed our very foundation
itself. Each can form his own idea of being, so that
in reality it needs no defining. By it we mean that
self-existent Principle of Life and all that attends
it, without beginning and without end, the Power,
that animates all and so that is the Life of all. In
short, we can scarcely define Being, if indeed it
can be defined, without using the word Life, and
indeed without identifying the two. Being and Life,
then, are one and the same. One infinite
intelligence expressing Itself as Life.
It is Being that projects itself
into existence. Being, acting through its own
intelligence, prompted by Love, projected by Will,
goes out and takes form. We cannot say that it
enters into form, for until it projects itself into
existence there is no form, but form comes by virtue
of Being, the self-existent Principle of Life and
Power, manifesting itself in existence. So in a
sense Life, which is one with being, is the soul,
and form, of whatever nature the body. Only as Being
projects itself into existence are we able to know
it. We can know the fact that Being is, but only as
it manifests itself in form are we able to know it
itself.
Being is one, not many. As Being is
the source of all Life, there is, then, only one
Life, and this Being is the Life of all. “The One
Divine Being, and this alone, is the true Reality in
all Existence, and so remains in all Eternity.” And
there is nothing real that is, or, indeed, that can
be, outside of it. True, then, are the words of one
of the most highly illumined philosophers of modern
times— “Thus we have these two elements: Being, as
it is essentially and in itself; and Form, which is
assumed by the former in consequence of Existence.
But how have we expressed ourselves? What is it that
assumes a form? Answer: Being, as it exists in
itself without any change whatever in its inward,
Essential Nature. But what, then, is there in
Existence? Answer: Nothing else than the One Eternal
and Unchangeable Being, besides which there can be
nothing.”
This Being which is Infinite is in
truth, then, the Infinite Being, and this Infinite
Being is what we mean by God—each using the term
that appeals most to himself. Literally, the “I Am,”
as is signified by the name Jehovah, which is
derived in the Hebrew from the words ‘To Be.’ God,
then, is the Infinite Being, the Infinite Spirit of
Life which fills all in existence with Himself
alone, so that all is He, since He is All. If God is
all, then all must be He, and from this fact there
is no escape, and no other conclusion can be arrived
at which does not do violence to all rational
thought.
There are those—and to such these
pages are not addressed, for so limited are they in
comprehension, or so closed to Truth and hence so
engrossed in bigotry, that they either can or will
see nothing that may be opposed to their present
ideas—there are those that say that God is all, and
immediately begin to fill up the universe with that
which God is not. Again, there are those open to and
eagerly seeking for the highest Truth who say: “But
evil is not God, and how then can God be all, for
surely there is such a thing as evil.” Certainly
evil is not God, nor has God anything to do with
evil. Evil is simply the result of the temporary
perversion of the good, and as such must either
cease or in time die at its own hands, for evil is
self-consuming. As such, then, it has no essential
reality, for that which has essential reality has
neither beginning nor end.
Man is the only one who has to do
with evil, he alone is its author; man, who in his
thought separates himself from Divine Being in whom
alone true happiness and blessedness can be found.
Regarding the mere bodily existence as his real
life, he tries to find pleasure and happiness
entirely through these channels, and many times by
violating the higher laws of his being, and thus
what we term evil enters in. But though man has
perfect freedom in all his thoughts and acts, God
will suffer no such violation. And so, from the pain
and suffering that result from the violation of the
higher laws of his being, he is pushed on in his
thought and through this in his life to the Reality
of his being, and finds that only in conscious union
with God true pleasure and blessedness lie, as God
surely intends. True, then, evil is not God, nor has
God anything to do with evil, as “God is of too pure
eyes to behold evil and cannot look upon iniquity,”
for man alone has to do with evil, so long, and only
so long, as he lives his life outside of a conscious
union with the life of God.
Infinite Being, God, then, is the
one and the only Life. You and I in our true selves
are Life. It cannot be truly said that we have life,
for we are Life; Life that manifests itself in the
form in existence that we denominate by the term
body. And as the Infinite Being, the Infinite Life,
God, is the “I Am”, the life of all in existence,
then we indeed are parts of the Infinite Being, the
Infinite Life, the “I Am”, of the very God Himself.
And thus it is that your life and mine is one with
the life of God. By this we do not mean the mere
body, but the Real Self that takes to itself the
form—body. It is impossible that there be any real
life that is not one with the life of God; and in
this sense it is true that the life of man and the
life of God are essentially and necessarily one and
the same. In essence they are one and the same; they
differ not in quality, for this is impossible
rationally even to conceive of. There is a
difference—it is a difference simply in degree, not
in essence or kind.
It is only by reason of our own
thought that our life is separate from the life of
God, only by reason of our own thought that we live
in this separation, if indeed we can use the term
live where the full life is not consciously realised
and enjoyed. Truly, then, “In Him we live and move
and have our being.” We never could have been and
never can be, other than Divine Being. And I fully
agree with the thought expressed in a letter from
Prof. Max Müller in which he says: “I cannot accept
Athanasius when he says that we can become gods; man
cannot say, ‘become God’, because he is God; what
else could he be, if God is the only true and real
being?” Man is the individualised expression or
reflection of God imaged forth and made manifest in
bodily form. How is it, then, I hear it asked, that
man has the limitations that he has, that he is
subject to fears and forebodings, that he is liable
to sin and error, that he is the victim of disease
and suffering? There is but one reason. He is not
living, except in rare cases here and there, in the
conscious realisation of his own true Being, and
hence of his own true Self.
We must in thought be conscious of
who and what we are before the qualities and powers
of our real being, and hence our real selves,
actualise or even manifest themselves. Says one of
the most highly illumined seers of modern times:
“The True Life and its Blessedness consists in a
union with the Unchangeable and Eternal; but the
Eternal can be apprehended only by Thought, and is
in no other way approachable by us.” Thought is the
atmosphere, the element, in a sense the very
substance, of the phase of Divine Being that we call
human life. How much it is likewise that of other
forms of Divine Being in existence, as we see it in
the various manifestations of life around us, we
cannot be so fully certain of. But certain it is
that through thought and through thought alone, we
are able to conceive of Divine Being as the Infinite
Spirit and Essence of Life, and then to see clearly
that it is the Life of our Life, and then to live in
the realisation of our oneness with it, and in this
way allow the Divine Word to become incarnate in us
by being thus fully and completely manifest in us,
precisely as it became manifest and hence incarnate
in the Christ Jesus, as we shall hereafter find.
When Divine Being manifests itself
in physical human form, its inward essential nature
or reality changes not, for this from its very
nature it is impossible for it in any way to do. It
does, however, have to manifest itself through the
agency of physical senses, and precisely for this
reason is it that for a time our real inward
Essential Nature and Life is concealed from us, but
this again only by reason of our limited
comprehension. When we are born into the world of
Nature we see and become aware through and by means
of the physical senses, and the natural physical
world becomes to us for a time the real world.
Eventually, however, through these very senses we
are able to conceive of the One and Eternal Source
of Life as our real and therefore our only life, and
then through them to hold ourselves in this living
realisation. Hence, first that which is natural and
then that which is spiritual is necessarily as well
as literally and philosophically true.
Happy, however, is the man who
dwells not long as the purely natural man, but is
early transformed into the spiritual, and so in whom
the Divine Word early becomes incarnate. Blessed
state indeed, says the thoughtful and earnest seeker
for the best things in life, and more to be prized
than all else besides; but if this state is really
possible of realisation, what can be said regarding
the method of entering into it? There is only one
thing in all the wide universe that will enable you
as well as all the world to do it effectually. “Be
ye therefore transformed by the renewing of your
minds.” This is the force, the transforming power,
so far as the form of life we denominate by the term
human is concerned; this and this alone. True, then,
and most welcome is the great fact of facts that the
world is beginning to become so conscious of today
that “The mind is everything; what you think, you
become.”
Mortal mind? says one. Yes and no.
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as mortal
mind—there is only Divine Mind. When in our own
thought, and by reason of our limited comprehension,
we shut ourselves off and look upon ourselves as
individual physical beings, we give birth to a
temporary mode of thought that might well be termed
mortal mind, or, rather, the product of mortal mind.
But it is at first natural, and it is only by using
this “mortal mind” that it is able to be
transformed, and hence renewed into the Divine Mind.
So by wisely using that which we have, the natural,
we are transformed from that which is most apparent,
and consequently that which we think we are, the
mortal, the physical, into that which from all
eternity in reality are, and never except in our
minds can get away from,—the Spiritual, the Divine.
It is through this instrumentality that the Divine
Life within us, the Divine Life with all its
ever-ready-to-break-forth glories and powers, is
enabled to be changed from a mere passive and hence
potential actuality, and to burst forth into the
full splendours of conscious, active life.
Surely, then, thought rightly
directed and rightly used has within it the true
regenerating and hence redeeming power. Through our
thought and it alone are we able to make for
ourselves a new heaven and a new earth, or, rather,
by thus finding the kingdom of God, and through it
entering into the conscious realisation of the
heavenly state, are we able to make for ourselves a
new earth by actualising the kingdom of Heaven in
our lives while living on the earth, and which, when
once truly realised, can never be lost.
The majority of people are not
awake; it is only here and there that we find one
even partially awake. Practically all of us, as a
result, are living lives that are unworthy almost
the name of lives, compared to those we might be
living, and that lie within our easy grasp. While it
is true that each life is in and of Divine Being,
hence always one with it, in order that this great
fact bear fruit in individual lives, each one must,
as we have already said, be conscious of it; he must
know it in thought, and then live continually in
this consciousness. An eagle has been chained for
many months to the perch just outside of his cage;
so long has he been conscious of the fact that he is
bound by the little silver chain which holds him
that he has given up all efforts to escape, almost
forgetting, perhaps, that the power of flight is
longer his. One day a link of the little chain
opens, but, living so long in the consciousness that
he is held in captivity, he makes no effort to
escape. The freedom of the heavens is now his, were
he only conscious of his power. But day after day he
sits sullenly longing for freedom but remaining a
captive still. One morning, however, he ventures a
little farther out on his perch than usual, when
suddenly a strange consciousness is his—he sets his
wings, and the captivity which has held him for
months will perchance know him no more forever. And
so it is with man. On account of the false gods that
tradition and prevailing theology have brought him,
he knows not himself, and not knowing himself he
knows neither his powers nor his possibilities.
The human soul is held captive. An
opaque physical structure is about all that he can
be said truly to give evidence of. The day comes,
however, when in his thought he moves out a little
farther than is usual, then a little farther and a
little farther. The Inner Light is now moving
within, he catches at first a little glimpse of his
real Essential Being, then a little more and a
little more, and eventually the fact of his
essential oneness with the Infinite Life and Power
bursts in upon, illumines, and takes possession of
his soul. In bewilderment, and almost afraid to
utter it at first, he cries aloud, “O God, I am one
with Thee!” Enraptured by this new consciousness, he
holds to the thought of this oneness, and living
continually in this thought his life forever after
flows steadily on in one constant realisation of his
oneness with Divine Being. And so “the first man,
[which] is of the earth earthy,” is changed into
“the second man, [which] is the Lord from Heaven,”
and thereafter the Christ sits enthroned.
Compared with the new life that he
is now continually living, the old life of ignorance
with its consequent limitations, which can now know
him no more forever, deserved only the name of
death, for, in a sense, he was indeed dead unto
life, and only he who lives in the conscious
realisation of his oneness with the One and Only
Life can be said truly to be born into Life. He is
born into the world and lives in the world, but into
consciously real and eternal Life he has not yet
entered. He is born the Adam man, but within him the
Christ man has not awakened, or, rather, he has not
yet awakened to the Christ within, and so the Christ
man is not yet born, and sitting therefore in
darkness he knows not yet the glorious realities of
life. “I am thine own Spirit” are the words that the
Infinite Father by means of the Inner Voice is
continually speaking to every human soul. He who
will hear can hear, and through it step out into
fulness of life.
We hear much in the prevailing crude
and irrational theology in regard to the “fall of
man;” but it is only as man has departed from the
Inner Light, and gone after false man-made gods,
that anything that might rationally be termed a
“fall” has come about. Separating our lives in
thought from their oneness with Divine Life is what
constitutes, and what alone will ever constitute,
the fall of man. But the teaching that has come to
us through past generations, which has as its
dominant keynote, poor worm and miserable sinner,
death and the grave, is as false as it is pernicious
and therefore damnable in its influences. These old
thoughts and words have had the influence of taking
heaven out of earth and populating the earth with
doubt, and error, and sin, and crime. New and true
thoughts and words will make literally a new heaven
and a new earth.
Man is essentially Divine, part and
parcel of the Infinite God, and so, essentially
good. When he severs his connection in consciousness
with the Divine, then and then only do doubt, and
error, and sin, and crime, with their consequent
pain, suffering, disease, and despair, enter into
his life. Only a pure and radical infidel—by this we
mean one who is in reality such, for there are many
who are called infidels, even by many avowed
religionists, who live a far truer religion than
they themselves live—can rationally hold to the
doctrine of original sin, with its consequent poor
worm and miserable sinner. The religious teacher who
professes to believe in God as the One Divine and
Supreme Being and at the same time holds to this
irrational doctrine, is many times more a disciple
of the Devil, whom he recognises and whose power he
evidently respects, than he is of the Infinite God
in whom he professes to believe. He and he alone it
is who finds a place for what he and his theology
term the Devil. The one who truly believes in God as
the only true and real being and the source of all
life and power can indeed find no place for the
Devil. He sees and recognises the evil that comes
from lives that lose for a time their conscious
connection with the Supreme Source of their being,
but he can find no place for any other essential and
abiding Reality.
And as this separation from God is
made entirely through the instrumentality of the
mind, he sees that making one's conscious connection
again with God—the true and only true
redemption—must also be made through the
instrumentality of the mind. Believing in the God in
whom he believes, and, knowing the God whom he
knows, he sees no place for an atonement in the
sense of appeasing the wrath of an angry God.
Knowing the God whom he knows, he shares not in
those barbaric, not to say idiotic, notions. He does
see, however, that redemption can and must be
through living in the conscious at-one-ment with the
Father's life. He recognises it as the natural
method that the Adam man be first born, with freedom
of thought and consequently freedom of action, and
that from him the Christ man then comes forth into
consciousness. He recognises that it is God's, and
consequently Nature's and evolution's method, that
“the first man is of the earth earthy, the second
man is the Lord from heaven.” He recognises the fact
that kittens are born blind, not because their
parents or even their grand parents sinned, but
because it is simply natural for them to be born
blind, and that in process of time their eyes will
open. He also recognises that, on account of our
limited comprehension, the “natural” appears first
and then the “spiritual,” but in reality the
spiritual is from the very first incarnated within,
and only because it is can it in process of time,
either sooner or later, assume the ascendancy by
changing from potential into active life.
Once in a while there comes into the
world one who from the very first recognises no
separation of his life from the Father’s life, and
who dwells continually in this living realisation;
and by bringing anew to the world this great fact,
and showing forth the works that will always and
inevitably follow this realisation, he becomes in a
sense a world’s saviour, as did Jesus, who, through
the completeness of His realisation of the Father's
life incarnate in Him, became the Christ Jesus. He
in this way pointed out to the world how all men can
enter into the realisation of the Christ-life and
thus be saved from all impulse to sin. And so
instead of coming to appease the vengeance of an
angry God—difficult for one who has any adequate
conception of God even to conceive of—He brought to
the world, by exemplifying in His own life as well
as by teaching to all who will hear His real
message, the method whereby all of us can enter into
the full and complete realisation of our oneness
with the life of the tender and loving Infinite
Father that dwells within.
Redeemed from the bondage of the
senses through which alone sin comes, and born into
the heavenly state, into life eternal, is everyone
who comes into the same relations with the Father,
and hence into the same realisation of their oneness
with the Father's life, that Jesus came into. It is
difficult, however, to see how anyone will be
redeemed from the bondage of sin and enter into the
heavenly state simply by believing that Jesus
entered into it while here. No amount of believing
that He lived the life He lived will take anyone
into the heavenly state, but living the life that
Jesus lived will take everyone who lives it there,
in any age and in any time, even whether or not they
know that such a man as Jesus ever lived.
The world has less need for a
perverted and hence perverting doctrine of
“vicarious atonement” that bodies of men have
formulated by either intentionally or ignorantly
dragging the teachings, as also the life, of the
Master down to a purely material interpretation.
Less need, most truly, has the world for this
perverting doctrine than it has for the great
vitalising fact of a conscious living at-one-ment
with the Father's life, as everyone whose spiritual
sense is at all unfolded will inevitably get from
the life and teachings of the Master, if indeed they
are more interested in the real living Truth that He
taught than in the almost numberless man-made
theological theories and dogmas regarding it.
In order that we may ever keep our
standing ground clearly in mind, let us now gather
into a single view the substance of what we have
endeavoured thus far to present. From everlasting to
everlasting is Being, self-existent, without
beginning and without end. Depending upon nothing
outside of Itself and the essential essence, the
very life of all that through It comes into
existence; It is therefore Infinite Being. Existing
at first as pure Spirit, It is therefore Divine
Being. Literally the “I Am,” the Divine Jehovah, the
Infinite God. Then, animated by love, and acting
through Its own volition, It projects Itself into
existence and assumes the various forms we see in
the universe about us, including us ourselves. But
by the act of projecting Itself into existence, the
Infinite Divine Being does not change in the least
Its essential inner nature, as indeed it would be
impossible for it to do.
What, then, in reality is there in
existence? Only Divine Being, the Infinite God in
all His manifold manifestations; and thus it remains
through all eternity, as must necessarily be from
Its very nature, and otherwise It could not be. God,
then, is the Infinite Being, the Infinite Spirit
which is the essential essence, the Life of all,
which therefore fills all the universe with Himself
alone, so that all is He since He is all. But when
Divine Being incarnates Itself in flesh and forms
for Its use a physical body—a human body, as we call
it—it necessarily has to manifest through the
instrumentality of physical senses, and, though
Divine Being is infinite, the vision of man is
limited, and for a time his true inner Life (always
Divine Being) is concealed from him, for he
naturally interprets everything from the standpoint
of the physical. First that which is natural, and
man knows himself only as a natural physical being,
differing not essentially from the material universe
about him. As he looks out, however, he sees that he
differs from other forms in existence, in that he
has a mind through which thought is engendered, a
mind that grows by using. Then contemplating himself
and longing for the truth of his existence,
gradually there dawns upon his consciousness the
fact that his life is Divine Being, that other than
this it has never been except in his own mind when
in his thought he mistook the mere physical form in
existence as the real essential life itself, thus
separating his life from the Infinite Divine Life.
He thus, realises that in God he lives, moves, and
has his being, that God is the life of his life, his
very life itself; and thus he comes in time into the
conscious, living realisation of his oneness with
the Infinite Life and Power. And so we find it
true—first the natural man, then the spiritual.
Through thought, and through thought
alone, the second man, the Lord from Heaven, is
gradually evolved out of the first man, which is of
the earth earthy. Through a perfectly natural
process of evolution, out of the first man
Adam—sense perception—is evolved the Christ-
man—Divine self-realisation. Impossible, however, is
it for anything to be evolved that was not first
involved; and so man finds that the Lord Christ has
always been within and he has known it not. It is
the same today as it was many years ago with Jacob
when he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and
I knew it not.” This and all that followed he found
simply by using the stones of the place where he
was; for with the stones of the place he made for
himself a pillow, and it was while sleeping on this
pillow that he beheld the ladder set upon the earth
and reaching to the heavens, upon which the angels
were ascending and descending, and thus it was that
he entered into communion with the life of the
heavens. Later, then, he transformed the pillow into
a pillar that served as a guide to other men.
And so with every human soul—we must
use simply the stones of the place where we are. The
only stones with which human life can build is
thought. It and it alone is the moulding, the
creative power—earnest, sincere thought of the place
where we are, this constitutes the stones of the
place where we are and with which we can make a
pillow upon which for the time being to rest.
Through this and this alone will the life of the
heavens be opened to us; for angels ascending
—aspiration—will in time bring to us angels
descending—inspiration. Then with Jacob of old we
will cry out, “Behold, the Lord is in this place;
and I knew it not.” Then our pillow, the thought
that gives us the knowledge that the Infinite Divine
Life is always within, the Essential Essence of the
human soul itself, we can convert into a pillar, a
pillar that will be a guide to lead other men into
this same realisation and life.
And so the entire problem of human
life is wonderfully simple and easy if we are but
true to the highest within us, and keep ourselves
free from the various perplexing and mystifying
theological theories and dogmas. These for the most
part give merely a promise of spiritual awakening,
realisation, and power in some other form of life,
rather than actualising it here and now in this
life. But only as man becomes conscious of the Lord
Christ within, only as he becomes conscious—
realises in thought that he is one with the Infinite
Life and Power—does this great fact become a moving
and mighty force in the affairs of his daily life.
Until this is true he remains in the condition of
the eagle, which, though unchained, thinking
nevertheless that he was still chained, remained in
captivity when the freedom of the heavens awaited
simply the spreading of his wings.
Although the answer to our title has
been given both in lines and between lines long
before this, it may be an aid to us, especially in
making practical what is to follow, to put it as
best we can into a definite form: The greatest thing
ever known— indeed, the greatest thing that ever can
be known—is that in our real essential nature we are
one with the Infinite Life and Power, and that by
coming into, and dwelling continually in, the
conscious, living realisation of this great fact, we
enable to be manifested unto and actualised within
us the qualities and powers of the Divine Life, and
this in the exact degree of the completeness of this
realisation on our part. The one great Truth of
Being, therefore, is that there is no real Life
except God (Good), and that the poor excuses for
lives lived by so many today is simply the result of
ignorance of this fact.
God is the Infinite Spirit of Life
behind all, whence all comes, and our lives as
individualised spirits are continually coming from
this infinite Source by means of this divine inflow.
As our lives as individualised spirits are directly
from, are parts of the Infinite Spirit of Life, then
the degree of the Infinite Spirit that is manifested
in the life of each must be identical in quality
with that Source, just as a drop of water taken from
the ocean is, in nature, in characteristics,
identical with the ocean, its source. And how could
it be otherwise? The liability to misunderstanding ,
however, is this: in that although the Life of God
and the life of man in essence are identically the
same, the Life of God so far transcends the life of
individual man that it includes all else beside. In
other words, so far as the quality of life is
concerned, in essence they are the same; so far as
the degree of life is concerned they are vastly
different. If it is true that there is no difference
in essence but only in degree, does it not then
follow that in the degree that man opens himself to
this divine inflow does he approach to God? If so,
it then necessarily follows that in the degree that
he makes this approach does he take on the
God-powers. And if the God-powers are without limit,
does it not then follow that the only limitations
man has are those he sets to himself, by virtue of
not knowing himself and therefore not realising his
innate possibilities?
Chapter 2
DIVINE ENERGIES IN EVERYDAY LIFE
NOW what, let us ask, is the result
and hence the value of this realisation? For unless
it is of value in the affairs of everyday life, it
is then a mere dead theory, and consequently of no
real value. Use must be the final test of
everything, and if it has no actual use, or if no
visible results follow its use, we had better not
spend time with it, for it is then not founded upon
Truth.
First, let it be said, it is not the
mere intellectual recognition, merely the dead
theory, but the conscious vital and living
realisation of this great truth, that makes it of
value, and that makes it show forth in the affairs
of everyday life. This it is, and this alone, that
gives true blessedness, for this is none other than
the finding of the kingdom of God, and when this is
once found and lived in, all other things literally
and necessarily follow. Through this the qualities
and powers of the Divine Life are more and more
realised and actualised, and through their leading
we are led into the possession of all other things.
Those who come into this full and
living realisation of oneness with the Divine Life
are brought at once into right relations with
themselves, with their fellow-man, and with the laws
of the universe about them. They live now in the
inner, the real life, and whatever is in the
interior must necessarily take form in the exterior,
for all life is from within out. There is no true
life in regard to which this law does not hold. And
if the will of God is done in the inward life, then
is it necessarily done in all things of the outward
life, and the results are always manifest. Thus and
thus alone it is that individuals have become
prophets, seers, and saviours; they have become what
the world calls the “elect” of God, because in their
own lives they first elected God and lived their
lives in His life. And thus it is that today people
can become prophets, seers, and saviours, for the
laws of the Divine Life and the relations of what we
term the human life to it are identically the same
today as they have been in all time past and will be
in all time to come.
The Divine Being changes not; it is
man alone who changes. It is solely by virtue of
man's leaving the inner life of the Spirit and thus
departing from God, or by virtue of his not yet
finding this real life, that sin and error, pain and
disease, fears and forebodings, have crept as
naturally and as necessarily as that effect follows
cause into his life; only by closing his eyes to the
inner light, by shutting his ears to the inner
voice, that, although he has eyes to see, yet he
sees not, and, although he has ears to hear, yet he
hears not. It is only by uniting one’s life with the
Divine Life, and thus living again the life of the
Spirit, that these things will go, even as they have
come.
All the evil, unhappiness, misery,
and want in the world are attributable to man, and
are the direct results of his taking his life,
either consciously or unconsciously, either directly
or indirectly, out of harmony with the Power that
works for righteousness and consequently for
wholeness and perfection. And when our life is lived
in the life of God, and God's will therefore becomes
our will, all is and necessarily must be well with
us, for contrary to His will it is impossible that
anything should ever come to pass. And thus it is
that he who seeks first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness shall have all other things added unto
him.
The soul, the real life, is Divine,
and by allowing it to become translucent to Infinite
Spirit by living continually in this conscious union
with Divine Being it reveals all things to us.
Things become hidden, mysteries fill and
uncertainties pervade life only as we turn away from
the inner light and life. There is nothing that is
hidden of itself; to God all things are known, and
one who consciously lives their life in the Life of
God sees with the Divine vision that reveals all
things to them. One who lives continually under this
Divine guidance enters thereby into the realm of the
highest wisdom, and even in the most trivial things
of everyday life they never find themselves in a
state of doubt or perplexity, for they always know
what to do and how to do it. They have no regrets
for the past, because before they entered into their
present consciousness they were in a sense dead unto
life, and all regrets that they might have for the
past are now swallowed up in the joys that the new
birth that has brought them into fulness of life
continually spreads before their every step. They
have neither fears nor forebodings in regard to the
future, for they know that contrary to God's will,
(which is now their will), nothing can ever come to
pass. Peace, therefore, a full and abiding peace, is
continually theirs.
As all life is from within out, and
as this is absolutely true in regard to the physical
body, the fountain of Divine Life that has been
opened up within, which of itself can admit of no
disease or imperfection of any kind, will allow only
healthy conditions to be externalised in the body;
and where unhealthy conditions have been built into
it before entrance into the new life, the life that
now courses through it will in time drive them out
by entirely replacing the diseased structure with
that which is pure and whole.
As you begin to grow in this
realisation, a continually growing sense of power
will be yours, for you are now working in
conjunction with the Infinite God, and with God all
things are possible. In material things you will not
be lacking, for all things are from this one
Infinite Source, and, guided by the Divine Wisdom
and sustained by the Divine Power that are now
yours; in a perfectly natural and normal way you
find that an abundance of all things are yours,
always at hand in sufficient time to supply all your
material needs, and never is there lack when the
time comes, if you simply do each day what your
hands find to do. Sure always of this unfailing
source of supply, one does not give oneself to the
accumulation and the hoarding of great material
possessions, thereby robbing life. Your thoughts
will grow more and more into the nature of their
Divine Source, and as thoughts are forces, and as in
the degree that they are spiritualised do they
become even more effective in their operations, so
through their instrumentality you are able to mould
more and more effectively the everyday conditions of
life. And so as you enter into this new life you
find that all things of the outer life fall into
line; for as is the inner, so always and necessarily
is the outer.
These truths will come as new
revelations to many, and again to many they will
come merely as agents to strengthen and possibly to
arouse to renewed life the realisations of which
they are already more or less conscious. In
themselves, however, they are not new, but as old as
the world. They are the real spirit of true
Christianity; not, however, of the Christianity that
the majority of people conventionally hold, and
which in many respects is as radically inconsistent
as it is void of results, but the great transcendent
truths of our relations with the Father's life that
Jesus taught. They are likewise the real essential
spirit of all the great religions of the world, and
as all religions in their purity are from the same
source,—God speaking through the minds of those who
have come into a sufficient union with Him to hear
and to interpret His voice, the one universal source
of all true inspiration and revelation,—so far as
their fundamental principles are concerned they are
necessarily the same.
The great spiritual awakening, the
beginnings of which we are witnessing in all parts
of the world today is evidence that the Divine
Breath is stirring in the minds and hearts of men
and women in a manner such as it has rarely if ever
stirred before. Men and women are literally finding
God. They are now breaking through the mere letter
and form of an old and too-long-held ecclesiastical
theorising and dogmatism into the real vital spirit
of the religion of the living and transcendent God.
They are waking here and there and everywhere to the
realisation of their oneness with the living God.
Their lives are being completely filled with this
realisation, and as a consequence they are showing
forth the works of God. They are leaving the old
one-day-in-seven, some-otherworld religion, and they
are finding the joys as well as the practicability
of an everyday, this-world religion. They are
passing out of the religion of death and possible
glory hereafter into the religion of life and joy
and glory here and now, today and everyday, as well
as hereafter and forevermore.
With this new religion of the living
God and the spiritual power that through it is being
made active in their lives, they are moulding in
detail all of the affairs of everyday life, proving
thereby that their religion is the religion of life.
And any system of religion that does not enable its
possessor to do this is simply not religion; and we
should no longer desecrate the Word by applying it
to any such hollow mockeries. To this old semblance
of religion those who are thus entering into this
new and larger religion of life will never return,
nor can they, anymore than the chick can enter
within the confines of its shell again after it has
been once born into life. Having found the pearl,
the shell for them must perish; or rather, as it is
of no farther value to them, it perishes simply by
the operation of natural law. Centred thus in the
Infinite, and working now in conscious harmony with
Divine forces, they ever after rule the world from
within.
Chapter 3
THE MASTER'S GREAT BUT LOST GIFT
The conclusions we have arrived at
thus far we have arrived at independently of any
authority outside of our own reason and insight. It
is always of interest as well as of greater or less
value to compare our own conclusions with those of
others whose opinions we value. It would indeed be a
matter of exceeding great interest to compare those
we have reached with those of a number whose
opinions come with greater or less authority to all
the world. Space does not permit this, however, and
I propose that we give the balance of our time to
the consideration, though necessarily brief
consideration, of two such; one universally regarded
as one of the most highly illumined teachers, if not
the most highly illumined, the world has ever known,
the Christ Jesus; the other universally regarded as
one of the most highly illumined philosophers the
world has ever known, the philosopher Fichte. In
these two we have the advantage of the life and
teachings of one who lived and taught nearly
nineteen hundred years ago, and one who lived and
taught a trifle less than a hundred years ago. By
selecting these, let it also be said, we have the
advantage of two whose lives fully manifested the
truth of that which they taught.
In considering the life and
teachings of Jesus, let us consider them not as dull
expositors interpret and represent them, but as He
Himself gave them to the world. Certainly Jesus was
Divine; but He was Divine, as He himself clearly
taught, in just the same sense that you and I and
every human soul is essentially Divine. He differed
from us, however, in that He had come into a far
clearer and fuller realisation of His divinity than
we have come into, as indeed His life so clearly
indicates. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, as
indeed every one must be who comes into the full
realisation of their oneness with God, as Jesus
Himself again so clearly taught.
In the thoroughly absurd, illogical,
and positively demoralising doctrine of “vicarious
atonement,” as given us by early ecclesiastical
bodies by perverting the real teachings of Jesus
even to the extent of calling interpolations in the
New Testament to their aid, we certainly cannot
believe. Many do, however, believe that it has done
more harm to the real teachings of Jesus, has been
more productive of scepticism and infidelity, than
all other causes combined. It is a doctrine that can
be formulated only by those who have no spiritual
insight themselves, and who therefore drag the
teachings of the Master down to a purely material
interpretation because of their inability to give
them the spiritual interpretation that He intended
they should have.
If Christ’s mission was not that of
vicarious atonement, not for the purpose of
appeasing the wrath and indignation of an angry God
and thus reconciling Him to His children, what then
was it? Clearly His mission was that of a Redeemer
as He gave Himself out to be a Redeemer to bring the
children of men back to their Father. And how did He
purpose to do this ? Clearly by having them
consciously unite their lives with the Father's
life, even as He had united his. The kingdom of God
and His righteousness is not only what He came to
teach, but what He clearly and unmistakably taught.
That He plainly and unequivocally
taught His disciples that this was His mission is
evidenced by numerous sentences such as the
following, occurring all through the gospels: Matt.
4:23, “Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in
their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the
kingdom,” etc. . .Luke 8:1, “He went about through
cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good
tidings of the kingdom of God”. . . Luke 4:43, “But
he said unto them: I must preach the good tidings of
the kingdom of God to other cities also, for
therefore was I sent.” . . . Luke 9:2, “And he sent
them forth to preach the kingdom of God and to heal
the sick.”. . . Matt. 24:14, “And this gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a
testimony unto all nations,” etc. In more than
thirty places in the first three gospels do we find
Jesus thoroughly explaining to His disciples His
especial mission—to preach the glad tidings of the
coming of the kingdom of God; and even before He
entered upon His public work, we hear John the
Baptist going before Him and saying, “Repent ye; for
the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
What did Jesus mean by the kingdom
of God, or, as He sometimes expressed it, the
kingdom of Heaven? As an answer, and an answer
better than any speculations in regard to it, let us
again take His own words: “Neither shall they say,
Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of
God is within you.” He taught only what He Himself
had found, the conscious union with the Father's
life as the one and all-inclusive thing. With Jesus
from the very first, only in union with God was
there reality. And this found, the conscious union
with the life in the Father's life seemed nothing at
all marvellous to Him; it was perfectly natural,
and, the only life He knew. Hence He could not say
otherwise than that He and the Father were one.
His vision was so clear and His
already realised Divine life was so full and
complete, that He knew that it was utterly
impossible for His life to be without the Father's
life, as we indeed shall know when our vision
becomes clear and we enter into the same fully
realised union with it. This great knowledge came to
Jesus not through intellectual speculation and still
less through any communication from without; it came
to Him through His own interior consciousness; to
all appearances He was born with it. He was born
with a peculiar aptitude for discerning things of
the Spirit, the same as among us some are born with
a peculiar aptitude for one thing and others for
other things. But so great was this power naturally
in Jesus that in it we may justly say He had a great
advantage over most people born into the world, and
for this reason was He all the more able and all the
greater reason was there for Him to be one of the
great world Teachers and hence Redeemers.
He was indeed Immanuel—God with us.
Jesus, I repeat, never speaks of His life in any
other connection than as one with the Father's life.
In reply to a question from Thomas in the fourteenth
chapter of John, He says, “If ye had known me, ye
would have known my Father also: from henceforth ye
know Him and have seen Him not.” Philip, who was
standing near, unable to comprehend the interior
meaning of the Master's words, said unto Him: “Lord,
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” Jesus,
somewhat surprised that He had not made Himself
clear to them, replied, “Have I been so long time
with you, and dust thou not know me, Philip? He that
hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou,
Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in
the Father, and the Father in me? The words I speak
unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father
abiding in me doeth His work. Believe me that I am
in the Father and the Father in me: or believe me
for the very works' sake.”
But if His especial mission was to
preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God, why,
I hear it asked, did He claim that only through Him
can we come unto the kingdom as He indeed says in
His conversation with Philip and Thomas immediately
preceding the part just quoted: “I am the way, the
truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the Father
but by me.”? Yes He did, simply because it was the
living Truth that He brought, which was and ever
more is to redeem men by uniting them in mind and
heart with the Father. He realised oneness with the
Father's life was the way, the truth, and the life,
and only by going over the same path that He Himself
had trod can anyone be truly united with the Father.
He found this great, vital and redeeming truth
nowhere else in the world; He had to speak as one
standing alone, and in this sense He spoke most
truly and most literally when He said, “No one
cometh unto the Father but by me.” And in order to
point out His life, His realised oneness with the
Father's life, as the way, the truth, and the life,
He spoke and indeed had to speak as He did, even at
the risk of being misunderstood and having His words
taken in a purely material sense, as was the
tendency of the spiritual poverty of the age, and
indeed as His very disciples so often interpreted
His words, as we have but recently seen.
In order to give forth the spiritual
teachings which He gave, He had to use the language
and the illustrations that their material minds
could grasp, and in this way make His teachings
doubly liable to a purely material interpretation.
“I am the bread of life,” said He to those assembled
about Him; “your fathers did eat the manna in the
wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which
cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat
thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which
came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this
bread, he shall live forever: yea, and the bread
which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the
world.” The Jews taking His words in a material
sense argued one with another and said: “How can
this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus simply
reaffirmed His statement, saying: “Verily, verily, I
say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the son of
man and drink his blood, ye have not life in
yourselves. . . . For my flesh is meat indeed, and
my blood is drink indeed.” Literally, “My flesh is
the true food, and my blood is the true drink. He
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth
in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me,
and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth
me, he also shall live because of me.” And many of
His disciples, even when they heard Him speaking in
this way, said among themselves, “This is a hard
saying; who can hear him?''—who can understand him?
Jesus, quickly perceiving that they were again
dragging His words down to a material interpretation
asked them if what He had just said caused them to
stumble, and then, in order that they may get His
real meaning, He said, “It is the spirit that
quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words
that I have spoken unto you are spirit and are
life.”
And so all except those who are
wholly spiritually, not to say even mentally, blind,
can readily see that what Jesus meant to say, and
what He actually did say, was, the words that He
spoke to them of His oneness with the Father's life
were the true meat and the true drink, of which,
unless a man ate and drank, he had not life in
himself, but that these were able to give him life
and life eternal. “He that eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.” Or,
reversing the expression, He that dwelleth in me and
I in him, he it is that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood. “The words that I have spoken unto you,
(they) are spirit and (they) are life.” “As the
living Father hath sent me, and I live because of
the Father, so he that eateth me, he also shall live
because of me.”
In the words of another, “To eat His
flesh and drink His blood means to become wholly and
entirely He Himself; to become altogether changed
into His person without reserve or limitation; to be
a faithful repetition of Him in another personality;
to be transubstantiated with Him, i.e., as He is the
Eternal Word made flesh and blood, to become His
flesh and blood, and what follows from that, and
indeed is the same thing, to become the very Eternal
Word made flesh and blood itself; to think wholly
and entirely like Him, and so as if He Himself
thought and not we; to live wholly and entirely like
Him, and so as if He Himself lived in our life.
"As surely as you do not now attempt
to drag down my own words, and reduce them to the
narrow meaning that Jesus is only to be imitated, as
an unattainable pattern, partially and at a
distance, as far as human weakness will allow, but
accept them in the sense in which I have spoken
them, that we must be transformed into Christ
Himself, so surely will it become evident to you
that Jesus could not well have expressed Himself
otherwise, and that He actually did express Himself
excellently well. Jesus was very far from
representing Himself as that unattainable ideal into
which He was first transformed by the spiritual
poverty of the after-ages; nor did His apostles so
regard Him.” (quotation from Fichte in ‘The Way
towards the Blessed Life,’)
To live in Christ is to live the
life He lived, by living in the Truth in which He
lived and which He taught. The one great Truth in
which He continually lived was, as we have seen,
that only in conscious union with God is there any
real life, and therefore we can readily see why He
continually gave out, as the gospel writers tell us
so many times He did, that His especial mission was
to preach the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.
Were it not possible for us to live the same life
that He lived, He certainly would not have taught
what He taught. This wonderful life of fully
realised Divine life Jesus claims not for Himself
alone, but for all who actually live in the Truth
that He taught. It was not to establish any material
institution, as the church, that Jesus made His
mission, but that the kingdom of God and His
righteousness should become actualised and hold sway
in the minds and hearts of men—this was His mission,
an entirely different thing from the founding of a
material organisation.
Paul and his party, sharing the then
prevailing ideas that a material kingdom was to be
established, were the originators of the church, not
Jesus. We find the word ‘church’ mentioned in the
four Gospels by Jesus only once or twice, and then
only in an incidental way, while we find the kingdom
mentioned over thirty times in the first three
Gospels alone. As we have already pointed out, had
it been His purpose to establish a material
organisation, then He certainly would not have given
it out that something else was His especial purpose.
But when the material organisation, the church,
purely a man-made institution, was established, the
early church fathers bringing even interpolations of
the Holy Word to their aid in establishing it and
some of its various observations,— as modern
scholarship has already so clearly discovered, and
as it is continually discovering,—the following
ages, thinking that they had an institution to keep
up, gradually lost, to a greater or less extent, the
real spiritual teachings of the Master in their zeal
to keep up the form of an institution with which He
had nothing to do. And those long and bitter
persecutions of the church in the early and middle
ages, as well as the long list of crimes sanctioned
and committed directly by the church of the middle
ages, show that they had not the real truth; for
those who live in the truth and have it uppermost in
their minds and hearts never persecute—only those
who are on either uncertain or false ground, and
whose endeavour it is to keep up the form of an
institution which they feel would otherwise fall to
the ground.
No, true religion has never been
known either to persecute or to show intolerance of
any kind. Throughout the whole history of the
churches’ heresies and persecutions, the persecuted
party has ever occupied a correspondingly higher and
the persecuting party a lower position, the
persecuting party continually fighting as it were
for life. But the Real Truth that Jesus taught will
not cause nor will it even permit persecutions—hence
we find the latter only where there is the lack of
the former. And again, the Real Truth that Jesus
taught will not admit of divisions, much less of
intolerance, for all real truth is exact truth, and
in regard to it there can be no differences, and our
modern theologians, and our churches of today, which
get their form and life from the speculations and
theories of the former, certainly have not the real
Truth that Jesus taught for they are divided in
various directions on practically every dogma that
they seek to promulgate.
And strange as it may seem, heresy
trials, with all their absurd attendant features,
are not entirely unknown even yet today. But in
Jesus' own words, “A house divided against itself
cannot stand.” And so if the church of today wants
to stand as a real power in the world, or if indeed
it wants to stand at all, it must either get back
to, or it must come up, as the case may be, to the
real Living Truth that Jesus lived and taught.
Unless it does this it will inevitably lose its hold
on the people even more rapidly than it is losing it
today. And certainly the younger ones whom it does
not yet hold will not be drawn to it, when they can
turn to that which has a thousand-fold more of truth
and hence of life-giving power than it has to offer.
That this is not a mere sentiment on
our part is evidenced by the wonderful rapidity with
which the “New Thought” movement—would that we could
designate what we mean without using any term—which
has its underlying Truth, this conscious union with
the Divine Life and the actualised powers attendant
upon it as Jesus taught,—hence not a new discovery,
but a recovery,—is growing in America, in England,
to be brief, in practically every civilised country
in the world. Thousands every year in our own and in
other countries are finding in it the joys of the
realised Divine Life, and are turning to it from
that which but poorly feeds them; and that this also
is no mere sentiment on our part is evidenced by the
contents of a letter recently sent by a noted divine
in high official standing in the church in England
to a noted American preacher, in which he said, in
substance, that the church in England is literally
honey-combed by the “New Thought” movement, and
asked that he be sent a list of the best books that
had already appeared in America along the lines
indicated.
And so what we need today is the
same as what the world is eagerly calling for, the
life-giving power of the great central Truth that
the Master taught, and not the various theories and
speculations in regard to His origin, His birth, His
life, and the meaning of His teachings. And still
less, the fabrications of the early church fathers
in regard to inherited sin, original sin, vicarious
atonement, and their believe-and- be-saved doctrine,
and the alternative doctrine—fail to believe that
which is opposed to all reason, all common sense,
all real mercy, as well as all true justice, and be
damned, be forever and eternally lost.
Jesus is indeed a lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world, but He takes them
away by bringing to the world the Truth that shall
make men free. Hence it is through His life and the
Truth that He lived and taught, not through His
death and the observance of the various ceremonies
and forms that have grown up around it. Those who
are aided by symbols—and I am aware of the fact that
for some, many hallowed associations are connected
with them—may do well to make use of them until they
outgrow the need for them. But symbols are of value
only where the real thing is not, and those who have
the real thing no longer have need for symbols. “But
the hour cometh,” said Jesus, “and now is” (since I
have brought you the real Spirit of Truth), “when
the true worshippers shall worship the Father in
spirit and truth; for such doth the Father seek to
be His worshippers. God is Spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus, according to His own words,
did not propose to rest satisfied with the mere
historical belief that He was the Eternal Word made
flesh, and much less, as some phases of theology
teach, that reconciliation with the Father, as
ordinarily understood, was His purpose. God would
adopt no methods in connection with His children
that are opposed to their own reason. Nor would He
adopt any partial, limited, or tribal methods. And
if, as various theologians would have us believe,
that reconciliation with the Father can come about
only by a belief in the shedding of the material
physical blood of Jesus, that through it the Father
may receive satisfaction for His favour, how, then,
in regard to the great company of those who cannot
accept a theory so absurd, so illogical, and so
opposed to the nature of the living God whom they
know, and whom they no longer have to speculate and
theorise in regard to, to say nothing of the
millions upon millions of those who never have
heard, and other millions who never can hear, of the
man Jesus and the story of His blood “shed for the
sins of the world,” nine-tenths of whom, for good
reasons, would not believe it if they did hear it?
No, these fabrications cannot be
true, for “in every nation, he that feareth God and
worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.” And so
one may be without connection with any church, and
even without connection with any established
religion, and yet be in spirit, hence in reality, a
much truer Christian than hosts of those who profess
to be His most ardent followers, as indeed Jesus
Himself so many times says. “By their fruits ye
shall know them,” said He. “Not every one that saith
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven.”
That which calls itself Christianity
must prove itself, and only that that shows forth in
its life the works, the power, the influence—the
Truth that Jesus' life showed forth—is the real. “He
that believeth on me,” said Jesus,—and shows it by
living my life,—“the works that I do shall he do
also; and greater works than these shall he do
because I go unto the Father.” And he who would know
by what authority Jesus spoke, let him live the life
that He lived and he will then know of the doctrine.
Thus and thus only can it be known. We may speculate
and theorise in regard to it, but only by living the
life can we know it.
Chapter 4
THE PHILOSOPHER’S RIPEST LIFE
THOUGHT
Let us now see how the truths we
have already set forth stand in reference to the
thought of the philosopher Fichte. Truth, the
highest truth, and truth for its own sake, was the
one supreme object of his life. And in order to
discern this clearly himself, that he in turn might
point it out clearly to others, he stood erect and
alone, free from connection with any institution,
organisation, or system of thought that would
distort or limit his vision and induce him either
intentionally or unintentionally to interpret truth
by bending it to suit the tenets of the system of
thought or the institution to which he might be,
even though inadvertently, bound.
It was of Fichte that an eminent
English scholar once said: “Far above the dark
vortex of theological strife in which punier
intellects chafe and vex themselves in vain, Fichte
struggles forward in the sunshine of pure thought
which sectarianism cannot see, because its weakened
vision is already filled with a borrowed and
imperfect light.”
It is, moreover, always of value to
know how the truth that one finds and endeavours to
give to others finds embodiment in his own life, for
this is the sure and unfailing test of its vitality,
if not indeed of its reality. A word or two,
therefore, in reference to the life of Fichte may
not be inappropriate here, a word or two from the
same eminent English scholar quoted above, the
translator of his works from the German to the
English, for he knew well his life the same as he
knew also his philosophy. “We prize his philosophy
deeply,” says he; “it is to us an invaluable
possession, for it seems the noblest exposition to
which we have yet listened of human nature and
divine truth; but with reverent thankfulness we
acknowledge a still higher debt, for he has left
behind him the best gift which man can bequeath to
man—a brave, heroic human life.” “In the strong
reality of his life,—in his intense love for all
things beautiful and true,—in his incorruptible
integrity and heroic devotion to the right, we see a
living manifestation of his principles. His life is
the true counterpart of his philosophy—it is that of
a strong, free, incorruptible man.”
And now to a few paragraphs of
Fichte's thought bearing more or less directly upon
the theme immediately in hand. After setting forth
in a very comprehensive manner the truth in regard
to Being, which he identifies with Life much in the
same general manner as we have already endeavoured
to set it forth, and then after making it clear that
by God he means this Infinite Being, this Spirit of
Infinite Life, he says: “God alone is, and nothing
besides him,—a principle which, it seems to me, may
be easily comprehended, and which is the
indispensable condition of all religious insight.”
“But beyond this mere empty and imaginary
conception, and as we have carefully set forth this
matter above, God enters into us in His actual,
true, and immediate life,—or, to express it more
strictly, we ourselves are this His immediate Life.
But we are not conscious of this immediate Divine
Life; and since, as we have also already seen, our
own Existence—that which properly belongs to us—is
that only which we can embrace in consciousness, so
our Being in God, notwithstanding that at bottom it
is indeed ours, remains nevertheless forever foreign
to us, and thus, in deed and truth, to ourselves is
not our Being; we are in no respect the better of
this insight, and remain as far removed as ever from
God.”
“We know nothing of this immediate
Divine Life, I said; for even at the first touch of
consciousness it is changed into a dead World. . . .
The form forever veils the substance from us; our
vision itself conceals its object; our eye stands in
its own light. I say unto thee who thus complainest:
‘Raise thyself to the standing-point of Religion,
and all these veils are drawn aside; the World, with
its dead principle, disappears from before thee, and
the Godhead once more resumes its place within thee,
in its first and original form, as Life,—as thine
own Life, which thou oughtest to live and shalt
live.’ ”
In setting forth how universally
Divine Being incarnates itself in human Life, he
says: “From the first standing-point the Eternal
Word becomes flesh, assumes personal, sensible, and
human existence, without obstruction or reserve, in
all times, and in every individual man who has a
living insight into his unity with God, and who
actually and in truth gives up his personal life to
the Divine Life within him,—precisely in the same
way as it became incarnate in Jesus Christ.”
Speaking, then, of the great
fundamental fact of the Truth that Jesus Himself
perceived and gave to the world, and also of the
manner whereby He came into the perception of it, he
says: “Jesus of Nazareth undoubtedly possessed the
highest perception containing the foundation of all
other truth, of the absolute identity of Humanity
with the Godhead, as regards what is essentially
real in the former.” “His self-consciousness was at
once the pure and absolute Truth of Reason itself,
self-existent and independent, the simple fact of
consciousness.” Then in showing that Jesus as He is
presented to us by the apostle John never conceived
of His life in any other light than as one with the
Father's Life, he says: “But it is precisely the
most prominent and striking trait in the character
of the Johannean Jesus, ever recurring in the same
shape, that He will know nothing of such a
separation of His personality from His Father, and
that He earnestly rebukes others who attempt to make
such a distinction; while He constantly assumes that
he who sees Him sees the Father, that he who hears
Him hears the Father, and that He and the Father are
wholly one; and He unconditionally denies and
rejects the notion of an independent being in
Himself, such an unbecoming elevation of Himself
having been made an objection against Him by
misunderstanding. To Him Jesus was not God, for to
Him there was no independent Jesus whatever; but God
was Jesus, and manifested Himself as Jesus.”
To show, then, that this is a
universal truth, brought in its fulness, and with a
living exemplified vitality, first to the world by
Jesus, but by no means applicable to Him alone, he
says: “An insight into the absolute unity of the
Human Existence with the Divine is certainly the
profoundest Knowledge that man can attain. Before
Jesus this Knowledge had nowhere existed; and since
His time, we may say, even down to the present day,
it has been again as good as rooted out and lost, at
least in profane literature.”
That we must come into the same
living realisation of this great, transcendent Truth
that Jesus came into, either through His teaching
and exemplified realisation of it, or through
whatever channel it may come, he clearly indicates
by the following: “The living possession of the
theory we have now set forth—not the dry, dead, and
merely historical knowledge of it—is, according to
our doctrine, the highest, and indeed the only
possible, Blessedness.” “The Metaphysical only, and
not the Historical, can give us Blessedness; the
latter can only give us understanding. If any man be
truly united with God, and dwell in Him, it is
altogether an indifferent thing how he may have
reached this state; and it would be a most useless
and perverse employment, instead of living in the
thing, to be continually repeating over our
recollections of the way. Could Jesus return into
the world, we might expect Him to be thoroughly
satisfied, if He found Christianity actually
reigning in the minds of men, whether His merit in
the work were recognised or overlooked; and this is,
in fact, the very least that might be expected from
a man who, while He lived on earth, sought not His
own glory, but the glory of God who sent Him.”
And what in the eyes of Fichte are
the results that follow and hence the tests of the
genuineness of this higher realisation, this True
Religion, as he sometimes terms it? His words in
this connection are: “True Religion, notwithstanding
that it raises the view of those who are inspired by
it to its own region, nevertheless retains their
Life firmly in the domain of action, and of right
moral action. The true and real Religious Life is
not alone percipient and contemplative, does not
merely brood over devout thoughts, but is
essentially active. It consists, as we have seen, in
the intimate consciousness that God actually lives,
moves, and perfects His work in us. If therefore
there is in us no real Life, if no activity and no
visible work proceed forth from us, then is God not
active in us. Our consciousness of union with God is
then deceptive and vain, and the empty shadow of a
condition that is not ours; perhaps the general, but
lifeless, insight that such a condition is possible,
and in others may be actual, but that we ourselves
have, nevertheless, not the least portion in it.”
“Religion does not consist in mere
devout dreams, I said: Religion is not a business by
and for itself, which a man may practice apart from
his other occupations, perhaps on certain fixed days
and hours; but it is the inmost spirit that
penetrates, inspires, and pervades all our Thought
and Action, which in other respects pursue their
appointed course without change or interruption.
That the Divine Life and Energy actually lives in us
is inseparable from Religion, I said.”
To show, then, how completely at one
in his or her consciousness this truly religious man
or woman becomes, how his or her own personal will
is lost in, and so transmuted into, the Divine Will,
as also the calmness and tranquillity with which his
or her life forever thereafter flows along, he says:
“The expression of the constant mind of the truly
Moral and Religious man is this prayer: ‘Lord! let
but thy will be done, then is mine also done; for I
have no other will than this—that thy will be done.”
“This Divine Life now continually
develops itself within him, without hindrance or
obstruction, as it can and must develop itself only
in him and his individuality; this alone it is that
he properly wills; his will is therefore always
accomplished, and it is absolutely impossible that
anything contrary to it should ever come to pass.”
“Whatever comes to pass around him, nothing appears
to him strange or unaccountable—he knows assuredly,
whether he understand it or not, that it is in God's
World, and that there nothing can be that does not
directly tend to Good. In him there is no fear for
the future, for the absolute fountain of all
Blessedness eternally beats him on towards it; no
sorrow for the past, for in so far as he was not in
God he was nothing, and this is now at an end, and
since he has dwelt in God he has been born into
Light; while in so far as he was in God, that which
he has done is assuredly right and good. He has
never aught to deny himself, nor aught to long for;
for he is at all times in eternal possession of the
fulness of all that he is capable of enjoying. For
him all labour and effort have vanished; his whole
Outward Existence flows forth, softly and gently,
from his Inward Being, and issues out into Reality
without difficulty or hindrance.”
Speaking, then, of how we may at
once enter into and live in the full realisation of
this real life, and also of those who, instead of
entering immediately into the Kingdom and thus
finding the highest happiness and joy here and now,
are expecting to find it in its completeness after
the transition we call death, he says: “Full surely
indeed there lies a Blessedness beyond the grave for
those who have already entered upon it here, and in
no other form or way than that by which they can
already enter upon it here in this moment; but by
mere burial man cannot arrive at Blessedness—and in
the future life, and throughout the whole infinite
range of all future life, they would seek for
happiness as vainly as they have already sought it
here, if they were to seek it in aught else but that
which already surrounds them so closely here below
that throughout Eternity it can never be brought
nearer to them in the Infinite. And thus does the
poor child of Eternity, cast forth from his native
home, and surrounded all sides by his heavenly
inheritance which yet his trembling hand fears to
grasp, wander with fugitive and uncertain step
throughout the waste, everywhere labouring to
establish for himself a dwelling place but happily
ever reminded, by the speedy downfall of each of his
successive habitations, that he can find peace
nowhere but in his Father's house.”
Finally, speaking of how completely
doubt and uncertainty are eliminated from the life
of him who through the realisation of the Truth we
have set forth becomes thereby centred in the
Infinite, he says: “The Religious man is forever
secured from the possibility of doubt and
uncertainty. In every moment he knows distinctly
what he wills, and ought to will; for the innermost
root of his life—his will—forever flows forth from
the Divinity, immediately and without the
possibility of error; its indication is infallible,
and for that indication he has an infallible
perception. In every moment he knows that in all
Eternity he shall know what he shall will, and ought
to will; that in all Eternity the fountain of Divine
Love which has burst forth in him shall never be
dried up, but shall uphold him securely and bear him
on forever”
Such, then, in general, are
fragments of the thought, and, let it be added, the
ripest thought, of one who has exerted perhaps as
great a direct influence upon the life of his own
immediate as well as succeeding ages as any man who
has lived in modern times. It is to Fichte that, to
a very great extent, Germany owes the splendid
educational system it has today. His thought began
to exert its influence at the time when the
country’s educational system was falling into a
state of chaos, and, acting to a greater or less
extent through the minds of Froebel and Pestalozzi,
his thought has aided in giving to the world one of
the truest systems of education it has yet seen. If
the truth and vitality of a man's thought are to be
judged by its permanent as well as its immediate
influence, surely the thought of Fichte found its
life in the realms of the highest Truth, through
which alone real vitality comes, for it has exerted
and is still exerting a most powerful life-giving
influence, an influence, indeed, that will never
end.
Chapter 5
SUSTAINED IN PEACE AND SAFETY
FOREVER
At what now have we arrived, and
what has been the process? From our own reason and
insight, independently of all outside authority, we
have found the great truth that a living insight
into the fact of the essential unity of the human
life with the Divine Life is the profoundest
knowledge that man can attain to. This as a mere
intellectual perception, however, as a mere dead
theory, amounts to but little, if indeed to anything
at all, so far as bearing fruit in everyday life is
concerned. It is the vital, living realisation of
this great transcendent truth in the life of each
one that makes it a mighty moving and moulding force
in their life.
Then we have also found that this
same great Truth was the great central fact of both
the life and the teachings of one who comes as
authority to practically all the world, the Christ
Jesus. That this was the one great Truth in which He
continually lived, that it was the secret of His
unusual insight and power, and that it was also the
great Truth that He came to bring to the world, He
distinctly tells us. That it was not only what He
proclaimed He came to teach, but also what He
distinctly taught, we have likewise found.
We have found also that the ripest
life thought of the philosopher Fichte—he whose
spiritual vision was so fully unfolded as to enable
him to give to the world such a remarkable blending
of the intellectual and the spiritual in his
philosophy—was almost if not identically the same in
reference to this great Truth, as was also his
thought in regard to the life and the power as well
as the mission of Jesus. And when I see day after
day the wonderful results that follow in the lives
of those who have entered into this living
realisation, then I know that Jesus knew whereof He
spoke when He gave the injunction, “Seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all
these things shall be added unto you.” Moreover I do
not believe, but I know, that whoever through this
realisation thus finds the kingdom of' God will find
His words—that all else will follow—literally and
absolutely as well its necessarily true.All will
follow in a perfectly natural and normal manner, in
full accordance with natural spiritual law.
He who goes thus directly to the
mountain top will find all things spread out before
him in the valley below. He who thus becomes centred
in the Infinite will find that to the same centre
whence his inner life issues, all things pertaining
to his outer material life will in turn be drawn.
The beauty of holiness is one with
the beauty of wholeness. To know but the One Life is
to live in the fact and the beauty of wholeness; and
where wholeness is, there no lack of anything will
be found. Also, if what we ordinarily term our
Christian churches, and if the preachers who stand
in their pulpits would fully and universally give
themselves to the real message that Jesus gave to
the world, then we would find that “the common
people” would go to and would hear them gladly;
there would then be no hard pressing social
situation to face, for the people would then have a
living knowledge of the one great Truth through
which all other things would come.
This great transcendent Truth,
however, that was the very essence of the life and
the teachings of Jesus, has been even in our
churches as good as rooted out and lost. And shall
we conclude that because it is practically lost, the
greater part of the time and attention of the
preacher in the large majority of them is given to
the empty, barren, inconsequential themes it is
given to? Or is it because so much time and
attention is given to the latter that there is no
time left for the former? However this may be, it
certainly is true that to a greater or less extent
today we find identically the same conditions that
Jesus found, and that He continually tried so hard
to do away with. “Full well,” said He, “ye reject
the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own
tradition.”
Many a student comes from our
theological schools so steeped in theological
speculations and in denominational dogmas that he
hasn't the slightest conception of what the real
mission of Jesus was. What wonder, then, that the
church to which he goes soon becomes a dead shell
from which the life has gone, into which those in
love with life will no longer enter, a church whose
chief concern very soon is, how to raise the
minister's salary? But once let these minor and
inconsequential, not to say at times petty, foolish,
and absurd, things be dropped, and let all time and
attention be given to the great central Truth that
Jesus brought to he world, and we shall find that
during the next one hundred years, or maybe during
the next fifty years, what will then be real
Christianity will make more progress than what is
now termed Christianity has made during all the
nineteen hundred years it has been in the world.
The fact that during all these
hundreds of years it has not accomplished more than
it has is quite good evidence that something
essential is lacking in it. The real soul-cry even
of all Christendom today is the same as the
injunction given by the native ministers of Japan to
a noted representative of the Christian religion as
he was leaving there not long ago: “Send us no more
doctrines: we are tired of them. Send us Christ.”
And the only way that Christ can be sent is by
sending the great central Truth that He brought to
the world, a truth so world-wide, so universal,
that, so far even as the so-called various great
religions are concerned, in regard to it there can
be no differences, for from its very nature it is at
the very foundation, indeed, the very life essence,
of them all.
And so it is true in this sense that
there is essentially but one religion, the religion
of the living God. For to live in the conscious
realisation of the fact that God lives in us, is
indeed the life of our life, and that in ourselves
we have no independent life, and hence no power, is
the one great fact of all true religion, even as it
is the one great fact of human life. Religion,
therefore; at its purest, and life at its truest,
are essentially and necessarily one and the same.
It is only through this living
realisation of the essential unity of our life with
the Father's life that true blessedness, and even
true peace and happiness, can be found. The sooner,
then, that we come into it, and thus live the life
of the spirit, the better, for neither will they
come nor can they be found in any other way. There
is, moreover, no time either in this form of life,
or in any other form, that we can any more readily
come into it, and thereby into all that follows,
than we can at this very moment. And when this
fountain of Divine Life is once fully opened within
us, it can never again be dried up, and we can rest
assured that it will at all times uphold us in peace
and bear us on in safety. And however strange or
unaccountable at times occurrences may appear, we
can rest in a triumphant security, knowing that only
good can come, for in God's life there is only good,
and in God's life we are now living, and there we
shall live forever.
There is a simple method which will
aid us greatly in coming into the realisation we
have been considering, So simple is it that
thousands and indeed millions have passed it by,
looking, as is so generally our custom, for agencies
of at least apparently greater power; we so
frequently and so universally forget that the
greatest things in life are the most simple. The
method is this: wherever you are, whatever doing,
walking along the street or through the fields, at
work of any kind, falling off to or awaking from
sleep, setting about any undertaking, in doubt as to
what course to pursue at any particular time, in
brief, whatever it may be, carry with you this
thought: It is the Father that worketh in me, my
Father works and I work. This is the thought so
continually used by Jesus, who came into probably
the fullest realisation of the oneness of His life
with the God-life that anyone who has lived in the
world thus far has come into, and it is given
because it is so simple.
From it each can make his own
formula. Jesus' term was “the Father.” Many will
likewise find themselves naturally using the same
term and will find it becoming very precious to
them. Others will find themselves using other terms
for the same conception and thought: It is the
Father that worketh in me, my Father works and I
work. In other words, It is the Spirit of Infinite
Life and Power that is back of all, working in and
through all, the life and animating power of
all,—God,—that worketh in me, and I do as I am
directed and empowered by It. In this way we open
ourselves, and become consciously awake to the
Infinite Life and Power that is ever waiting and
ready to direct and work in our lives, if we will
merely put ourselves into the attitude whereby It
can work in them. In this way we open ourselves so
that It can speak and manifest to and through us.
This It is ever ready to do if we will but make for
It the right conditions.
By carrying with us this thought, by
holding ourselves in this attitude of mind
consciously for awhile, by repeating it even in so
many words now and then at first, we will find it in
time becoming our habitual thought, and will find
ourselves living in it without the conscious effort
that we have to make at first, and we will in time
find ourselves almost unconsciously living in it
continually. Thus God as a living presence, as a
guiding, animating power, becomes an actuality in
our lives.
The conscious presence of God in our
lives, which is the essence, indeed the sum and
substance of all religion, then becomes a reality,
and all wisdom and all power will be given us as we
are able to appropriate and use them wisely; if for
merely selfish, personal ends, they will be
withheld; if for the greatest aid and service for
the world, we will find them continually increasing.
With this higher realisation comes more and more the
simple, child-like spirit. With Jesus we realise—Of
myself I can do nothing, it is the Father within me
that doeth His work. In ourselves we are and can do
nothing; in God we can do all things.
We never can be in the condition—in
God—until through this higher realisation God
becomes a conscious, living reality in our lives.
Faithfulness to this simple method will bring about
a complete change in great numbers of lives. Each
one for themselves can test its efficacy in a very
short time. It is the highway upon which many will
enter that will by easy stages take them into the
realisation of the highest life that can be attained
to. To set one's face in the right direction, and
then simply to travel on, will in time bring one
into the realisation of the highest life that can be
even conceived of—it is the secret of all
attainment.