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William
Kingsland Page v "THE great question, What is Life? is one which may be asked and answered in many different ways; but each individual must assuredly answer it in some manner or other, for he is confronted with it in a most undeniable and practical form, simply because he is alive. Each one of us possesses life and consciousness, and we cannot avoid the problem: though we may fail to understand its real nature, and may even - with more or less success for a certain length of time - ignore it. In its lowest and most material aspect the problem is simply one of daily bread - or daily pleasure. Many, indeed, are unconscious of the problem in any other form. But man cannot live by bread alone: and sooner or later, in the evolution of every individual there must come a time when the great problem assumes other and higher aspects. In the history of man's endeavour to solve the problem of his own life, and the great Riddle of the Universe of which he is part, these higher aspects fall into three categories, known respectively as Science, Philosophy, and Religion. Each of these may be said to regard the problem from a different point of view, and each is commonly looked upon as more or less independent of the others. To show that this is not so in reality is one of the main objects of this present work. What is herein attempted, therefore, is somewhat in the nature of a synthesis of science, philosophy, and religion: not, however, as either of these is commonly understood in any mere formal or scholastic sense, but rather as representing three phases of human thought and experience which are fundamentally inseparable in the true life and development of every individual, and which can be thus understood without any special training in connection with either. It is therefore hoped that what is here presented will enable the reader to understand somewhat more of the nature of Man- / Page vi / and his relation to his environment and to the Universe as a Whole - than is commonly found either in science as such, or in any purely formal system of philosophy, metaphysics, or religion. We say somewhat more, because by no possibility can the solution of the problem of life and consciousness be placed before any man or woman in mere words or phrases. These are but algebraic symbols - and, at best, a broken and fragmentary symbology - of what little the mind can grasp of Realities which lie beyond the mind -but not beyond experience - even as they lie beyond the forms of time and space in which alone the mind can express itself. But, though the problem cannot be thus solved, it may possibly be helpfully stated-with the unknown factors clearly indicated. To state a problem is often half-way towards a solution. The intuition may possibly fill in what the mind fails to formulate; and this will certainly be done whenever the soul has experienced - in its own inner nature, and proper manner - what the outer symbology endeavours to express. Science, in the modern acceptation of the term, has no dealings with either religion or metaphysics; the former being regarded as altogether outside of its possible investigations, the latter being commonly sneered at as mere intellectual web spinning. Yet it is quickly seen that every scientific concept necessarily begins and ends in a metaphysical region; and, indeed, the retort has been made that scientists are, after all, only unconscious metaphysicians. Moreover, it is readily granted that no depart-ment of human thought, knowledge, or experience can really be separate from the whole; and that if science, religion, and philosophy or metaphysics may be said to have their own particular sphere of activity, each more or less independent of the other: it must, at least be granted that nothing which is really true in either of these can be antagonistic to what is true in the others. We need in the first instances, however a clear conception of the nature of truth; and this will occupy our attention in our first chapter. We are desirous that the reader should understand that no claim is made for any theory or theories advanced in this work other than that they are more or less in the nature of a helpful / Page vii / formulation of existing knowledge, and reasonable deductions made therefrom. They are true just to the extent to which they are helpful in throwing some little light on the problems of life and the great Riddle of the Universe. We might even say of any mere theory, that its value lies not so much in its abstract truth as in its concrete helpfulness. It is certainly necessary that it should be true within the limits of existing knowledge, and as a statement of what things appear to be; but it must help us to further knowledge or practical achievement, otherwise it is but a barren and empty form Where we do not really know, we must be content with a working hypothesis; where we do not actually see, we must endeavour to form a mental image which shall help us to further discoveries. Such is the scientific method. Some would deny us even the possibility of knowing any-thing at all in certain directions. Mere Materialism goes beyond mere Agnosticism, and asserts positively that there is nothing to know, where Agnostics are content with asserting 'we do not know.' The materialistic position we shall have to repudiate absolutely. To the Agnostic we hope to offer a sound working hypothesis. To the Religionist - not the mere formal religionist who is already satisfied with a cut-and-dried system - we may perhaps hope that what is herein presented may prove to be something more than a mere working hypothesis: that it may even become a living truth, proved in his own experience. There are three things in the Universe the existence of which we know of beyond dispute. These three things are: Consciousness, Matter, and Motion. With regard to the first of these it has been asserted by some that it is the product of the other two, and this view of the matter is commonly termed Materialism. On the other hand, Idealism commonly regards matter as merely the objectified contents of Consciousness: thus making Con-sciousness the fundamental Reality, and matter more or less of an illusion when regarded as having an independent reality of its own. We shall endeavour to reconcile these extreme views, and show how they meet in a truly Scientific Idealism. Now with regard to Matter and Motion, it is a funda-mental axiom of the scientific conception of the phe-nomenal universe that these are eternal and indestructible. / Page viii / The indestructibility of matter (or substance) -the qualifica-tion is important-and the conservation of energy (or motion) are the corner-stones of modern science. They possess our minds with an insistency which refuses to be displaced. They are essentials of our intellectual apprehension of the nature of the Universe: and we shall endeavour to show that they are the negation of all materialism, and most positive factors in a truly Scientific Idealism. As regards Consciousness, the whole question is: can we really conceive of it as being the product of matter and motion; as being merely a particular phenomenon, like heat or electricity? If we cannot do this, then consciousness must be conceived of as something else other than matter and motion; and, equally with matter and motion, we must conceive of it as being eternal and indestructible. Science is commonly supposed to be ascertained or de-monstrable knowledge: and so it is-up to a certain point. But the man of science is continually questioning the unseen and unknown, seeking to penetrate with his imagination, with the eye of the mind, that region which lies beyond the reach of his physical senses. In order to create a mental image of forms of matter and modes of motion in the unseen world. That mental image is necessary, in the first place, based upon what is already familiar, and it serves as a working hypothesis for the discovery of new facts which, in their turn, may modify or even completely revolutionise the existing mental image. Let us take, for example, the working hypothesis formulated by Dalton at the commencement of last century concerning the atom of physical matter. The mental image embodied in that hypothesis was that of an ultimate minute particle of matter incapable of further subdivision. Each of our well-known chemical elements was considered to consist of a special kind of such atoms, each special atom possessing not merely its specific and distinctive chemical qualities, but also a definite weight, corresponding to the combining weights or proportions of the different elements. This was called the atomic weight of the element. All our great modern science of chemistry has been built up on this theory, which is true-so far as it goes. Up to a certain point the mental image of the atom, as a definite / Page ix / indivisible minute particle, is sufficient for all practical pur-poses of chemistry. But for some considerable time prior to the discovery of Radium, certain physical and chemical phenomena were known which made it extremely probable that the chemical atom was not the smallest particle of a substance-in fact, that it was an exceedingly complex thing, and therefore further divisible. With the discovery of Radium this view became a certainty; and therewith the old working hypothesis- though true within its own proper limits-has had to give way to a new one, and the scientist is forced to create a new mental image of the atom. This new mental image is a very wonderful and magnificent thing, opening out an infinite microscopic universe, an infinite interior conception of space comparable in every way to the infinity of macrocosmic space which we sense when we look outwards to the universe of Suns, and Planets, and Worlds, and Systems without end. A working hypothesis, then may be true within certain limits, and may even be presented as a dogmatic form of truth-so long as its limitations are recognised. Now it is precisely as a working hypothesis that we would present the present work to our readers; and if any state-ments made herein may appear to be of a dogmatic nature, it is to be hoped that it will be understood that they are so only as legitimate deductions from given premises, and not in any sense as final statements of Truth. Sooner or later in the evolution of the individual there comes a time when the mind and intellect revolts against the limitations of authority and convention. Nothing that is living can remain long in a fixed state; such a state, indeed being the equivalent of stagnation and death, not of life which is essentially movement and expansion. In proportion as systems of thought or religion become fixed and hardened, so surely do they die. Infallible systems of truth, religious or philosophical, are like infallible systems of breaking the bank at Monte Carlo: tested in the long run by human experience they are one and all found to be inadequate to achieve the result for which they profess to exist. That is not to say that they are not useful in their way, or that they may not give to many individuals a good run for their money - a considerable equivalent of excitement or emotion, and even a temporary / Page x / success; while they will certainly give what, after all, may be said to be the main thing in evolution, namely experience. Doubtless if all the factors which go to determine any and every spin of the roulette wheel or deal of the cards, or even a preponderating proportion of these were known: we might have an infallible system of breaking the bank. Likewise, if we knew all the factors which are concerned in the phenomenal universe we could explain any single phenomenon in all its relations and proportions - which is equivalent to saying that we could explain the universe from top to bottom, and should, therefore have an infallible system of Truth But nothing is more certain than that we do not know all the factors; and so, failing this, your infallible system is compelled to give a name to some one or more of the unknown quantities, and to assume that thereby its nature is adequately explained. This may be, and indeed commonly is, sufficient for an individual up to a certain point. There is no authoritative system too absurd or superstitious to lack some adherents. We are intellectual and spiritual children first, before we are spiritually full grown-men. It apparently takes ages untold to evolve the full-grown spiritual man; it being no less than this which lies at the root of the whole evolution of the Human race. And because the individual is a child first - not physically merely, or in any one particular life, but through long periods of the childhood of the Race - so the Race as a whole, and also the sub-race, the nation, the tribe or the community, must pass through that preliminary stage when authoritative guidance is a necessary part of training for the later stage when the man becomes a law unto himself. Sooner or later the child must grow into the man. Sooner or later the authority to which he has hitherto submitted-unconsciously at first, and with more or less willingness or revolt in the second stage - must be tested and approved by his own judgement, or altogether rejected and set aside. This is true - sooner or later - of every kind of authority, whether parental, communal, or in matters of reason, belief and con-science In the third stage, the man definitely takes his nature and destiny into his own hands. He commences to do what no / Page xi / one else can do for him: he commences to work out his own salvation. In doing this, the test which he brings to bear upon the authoritative systems which we have hitherto been offered to him as the solution of the problem of his own nature with which he is now face to face, is simply the test of his own experience. No other test really exists for any one. Not necessarily, however, not by any means merely the conscious experiences of his present physical life, but experiences and intuitions welling up from the deep un-fathomable subconscious parts of his own nature - the fruit of many lives, of many incarnations; the experiences not merely of a particular individual thread of consciousness linked by memory, but also of a larger consciousness on a higher Plane, embodying the experiences of individuals, and families and tribes, and races long since buried in the oblivion of the past so far as history is concerned: yet active, living potent, in every cell of our bodies, and assuredly present with us as faculty - and possibly also as memory in a higher self-causing the instinctive use and adaptation of our physical organs, and the intuitive acceptance or otherwise of certain matters which belong more especially to the inner subjective nature, to the mind, soul, reason, and conscience. The more we think, indeed, of the causes which have made each individual what he is to-day, the more we find that each individual has affiliations which link him with the whole past. Even physically there is a continuity of germ-plasm and proto-plasm which goes back to the very commencement of life on this globe. Where, then, did the present individual commence his experiences- those experiences which enable him to be what he is today What makes him an individual at all: something, namely, separate and distinct? The more we come to examine these and similar questions, the more we shall find that our artificial distinctions based upon the mere appearance of things, break down; and the individual must ultimately claim not merely his relationship to the Whole but his identity therewith. Thus the individual, in the search for the reality of his own life and consciousness, finds that reality ever appearing to evade him, because it always lies in something further, something greater, something yet to be attained. And in proportion as this is realised, he must necessarily revolt against any and / Page xii / every system which would limit him: either in the past, the present, or the future. Now it would appear that at the present period in the evolution of our…" "…Races, a very large number of indi-viduals-though perhaps not yet a preponderating proportion-have arrived at this third stage of intellectual and spiritual manhood which we have just sketched: the stage at which nothing can be accepted on mere authority The intellectual, and even the religious thought of to-day is largely marked by a revolt against authoritative systems and dogmas which one hundred years ago passed almost without question. This state of things is bound to overtake sooner or later every system as a system, simply because as such it is a materialised thing. Thought, life, consciousness, are subtle, fluid, progressive; matter form, dogma, are inert, cumbrous, restrictive. The life, growth, evolution of Humanity, can never long remain fixed or materialised in any particular form; it enters into and flows through all but will not be restrained or condemned of any. History and the records of the past are strewn with the dead carcases of authoritative systems which onece exercised undisputed sway; and our present systems wherever they endeavour to limit and restrict, can only meet with the same fate. History will doubtless continue to repeat itself, for the same Principle is ever working therein. But it is necessary to note here that along with the present revolt, deeply underlying it, indeed, as the cause of it, is the larger intuition of a Truth not embodied in the present dominant system: or rather, not expressed in the present authoritative form into which that system has been hardened by ecclesiastical authority. Avery large number of individuals at the present time have become more or less conscious of a spiritual truth as to their own nature which is the very antithesis of Materialism on the one hand, and of Supernaturalism on the other. The God within them has awakened; the 'crawling worm' theory of man's nature can no longer hold them in bondage; they are becoming conscious of their own inherent and inalienable divine nature. Intellectually it is seen that all science and all philosophy tend more and more to correlate and unify all phenomena and all nature, both subjective and objective; and the immediate deduction which we must make from the funda- / Page xiii / mental principle of the Unity of the Universe is, that our own nature, in all its relations and proportions, is one with that Self-Existent Reality which must necessarily lie at the Root of all things; that Principle-by whatever name It may be called-which is the universe. This truth is not merely expressing itself intellectually in our literature: it is being realised-made a living truth-with ever greater intensity in the inmost nature of those to whom we refer as having passed the spiritual-babe stage. In some cases it is even thus realised before it is apprehended with any intellectual clearness; and in the effort to formulate it into a more or less logical system it is sometimes grafted with more or less success, on to some older and more authorita-tive system. But, in so far as this is sought to be done, the deeper truth which is thus dimly apprehended is almost bound to stultify itself. You cannot hand a universal truth or principle upon any particular peg or ism. You cannot put new wine into old bottles. You cannot shut up in any individual form that which lives and moves in all. The realisation of the oneness of the individual self with the Universal Self, with the Life AND Consciousness which moves in ALL, is the keynote of the higher Truth which is now being realised in so many ways, in so many streams of thought all tending in the same direction and to the same result-a higher knowledge of the Self and its powers. This modern trend of thought has sometimes been re-ferred to as "The New Mysticism." We may give what name we like to the Universal Self, to that Ultimate Reality in and by which all things exist, and live, and move, and have their being: and we may try to hang this ultimate truth on some particular peg-perhaps it is only by doing this that some can realise it in any degree at all-but whatever be the name or form given to it, the principle which underlies any possible form in which it can be stated must always be one and the same. It is this principle, rather than any particular form, which we shall endeavour to elucidate. Many writers are writing about it to-day, some from one point of view, some from another. Those who read and understand are an ever-growing number. Moreover, we are learning more and more to realise in action our real powers: the hidden, deep, unsuspected powers of the inner man, the power of human / Page xiv / thought and will. And even as science has now discovered some of the hitherto unsuspected inner forces of the atom of physical matter, so also science itself is discovering that behind the conventional man-ay, even within our very bodies-lie potencies and powers deep and strong as the Infinite Itself. All the Cosmic Powers of the Universe are Man's did he but know how to utilise them. They are more than his, they are Himself. Whether a popular religion can ever be scientific and philosophical, may perhaps be questioned. Any attempt to bring down to a low level the highest achievements of human thought-not to speak of the transcendent insight of the seer or mystic-must inevitably be more or less of a failure. The history of all religions is a standing witness to this. Superstiti-on survives, or re-asserts itself, even on the very foundations laid by the highest teachers the world has ever known. Nevertheless, it is not wholly beyond hope that, in an enlightened age, Religion may be, nay must be, scientific in so far as nothing which is known as scientific fact shall be found antagonistic to it, and philosophical in so far as it shall be rational and logical instead of authoritative…"
Page305 "If a man die shall he live again?" Such is the supreme question which man has been asking in all ages, and still asks; has been asking and answering again and again; the question to which the whole of history discloses the ineradicable response in man's own heart and conscience - the decisive answer, YES. Yet many have doubted and questioned; and even despaired and denied. Many have demanded proof, and have not obtained it; others have not demanded proof, yet proof has been given them abundantly. Some are satisfied with a traditional faith or belief, with a reputed historical fact that "one rose from the dead" To others this is wholly inadequate, not merely as being un-provable tradition, but also on the very basis claimed for it as being a unique or supernatural occurrence, and as such, wholly valueless as an explanation of the natural law of all human life in its relation to the spiritual world. Our task here, however, is not to analyse historical evi-dence, nor even to consider the adequateness or otherwise of the many historical forms which the belief in man's immortality has assumed in various ages. In each age, in each race, in each individual, the question is asked and answered in its own special manner, according to the knowledge available. What we have now to do, therefore, is to answer the question in terms of the fundamental principles which,…" "…we have endeavoured to elucidate and establish on a sound scientific and philosophical basis; to answer the question in terms of universal principles applied to the individual or particular. If man lives again - or rather, if he never dies - he does so in virtue of, and in harmony with, cosmic law; in harmony with principles which our ever-increasing knowledge shows us / Page 306 / to be constant, continuous, uniform; and operative in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm. If man be immortal, he must be so because of his own inalienable nature; and no historical event can in the slightest degree determine or effect his immortality. Historical events are not the cause of man's destiny; they are the fulfillment thereof. Our first and fundamental principle is that of the Unity of the Universe; the principle that the whole Universe-unseen as well as seen-is the expression, the activity, the Life of One Infinite BEING. Life and consciousness, therefore, are eternal and indestruct-able. The outward and visible symbol of the existence of this Eternal Noumenon is substance and motion. The inner witness is Life and Consciousness Itself, of which we all partake. But though Life itself cannot perish, yet perchance that which we know as the individual may do so-merged as it were, when the form disintegrates, in the Infinite Ocean of Life. If, indeed, the law of cycles be such that sooner or later the whole phenomenal universe must vanish, merged once more in the Absoluteness of Primordial Substance out of which it is differentiated ; if "all the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and their host shall fade away" then, indeed, must that which we now know as the individual self also vanish; merged in that One Self from which it is in reality never separated. For assuredly the individual self is only a time phenomenon; it is the One Self seen or known partially and incompletely. But though the ultimate consummation of the great cosmic process which we name evolution would appear to be a far distant event in the history of the individual man, and even of the history of the whole race-or still more so of the Solar System-yet none the less we must clearly realize that this great cosmic process only exists for or in the individual con-sciousness; it only exists in those limitations which constitute the individual. In reality there is no time process, but only an eternal Here and Now; so near to us that we might, as it were, stretch out our hand and grasp it, and make it our own-so near, and yet so far. And when the individual has grasped it, behold! he is / Page 307 / no longer an individual; for he has dropped the limitations which make him such; he has lost himself, for he now knows his true Self to be none other than the One Self. While, however, we need to keep in view continually this fundamental unitary principle; while we are compelled to postulate an Absolute Noumenon as the true basis of all life and consciousness, as well as of all phenomena; and while this principle must thus be the centre and focus of all science, of all philosophy, and of all religion: we must also formulate our knowledge in terms of our present limited or individual consciousness, and deal with the evolutionary process in relation thereto as if it were a concrete reality"
Wherever appropriate within Brother Kingsland wise words. The scribe offered always, the he as in she, of the she as in he, of being , being one and the same. Woe is man, said woman.
Page 307 continues "For us as individuals there does exist an evolutionary process; and between ourselves and the final consummation of that process lie ages of phenomenal existence, in which smaller cycles must run their course and disappear, merged in the larger ones to which they are more immediately related; whilst these latter must in turn be absorbed in something still more cosmic or universal. The physical Plane must be redissolved in the etheric; the etheric in the mental; the mental in the spiritual; till all that is an individual and pheno-menal is once more merged in the one Absolute, from which - as time phenomenon - it originally emanated, and to which it must therefor inevitably return. The larger cycle, then, to which the individual human being belongs, or is more immediately related, is that of Humanity as a whole; a cycle which we have already found it necessary to consider, even from an organic point of view, as constituting something unitary; a definitely directed evolution producing Man from some primordial form of Substance. But the outer phenomenon is only the hieroglyph or symbol of the inner Noumenon; and it is that Noumenon, the spiritual or Divine Man, which we must consider as the energising, vitalising principle at the root of the whole cyclic process which constitutes the evolution of Man; an evolution which, however must be an involution, a descent into matter, or phenomenon, before it becomes an evolution; and which, as such, must be operative on the higher Planes before it becomes materialised on the physical. We may postulate, therefore, one unitary Principle or / Page 308 / Noumenon of Life and Consciousness constituting Man, and standing in the same relation to the whole cycle of man's evolution, as the one Absolute Noumenon does to the whole Cosmic Process. Cosmically, this unitary Being or Logos will be the informing or energising Principle in the whole evolution of our earth. It is the vitalising principle within the cosmic germ-cell of matter or substance which - as we have already seen…" "…produces the race of Man through lower organic forms as inevitably as the in-dividual man emerges from the individual germ-cell It is necessary that we should clearly define and under-stand this distinction between Man and men; between the inner spiritual Principle which is One, and the outer mani-festation which is many, if we would understand much which is otherwise dark and mystical in many ancient scriptures and teachings. Thus in terms of Christian (esoteric) doctrine, this unitary Principle, or Logos, is the "Divine Son," the Cosmic Christ of St Paul, "who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible . . . and in him all things consist" (hold together) Col. I 15). "All things were made by (through) him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (Johni. 3). In the same way therefore, that the One Universal Nou-menon appears to us to break up or individualise into an infinite variety of forms which go to make up the phenomenal Universe, while at the same time we are compelled to postulate that this is not so in reality, that the Noumenon always is and always must be ONE: so we must conceive that this Divine Being which is MAN, manifests itself phenomenally as an involutionary and evolutionary process; repeating or reflecting thereby the universal process, and being thus "the image of the invisible (incognisable) God"; the ever-concealed Absolute Noumenon. On the highest spiritual Plane, then that which 'down here' becomes men, is MAN the "Divine Son" and the relation of individual men, of ourselves, to this supreme Logos, will be precisely that which we should postulate in any scientific or philosophical concept of the relation of the particular to the universal. In consciousness there is an appearance of / Page 309 separation, of time and space phenomena; in reality there is no such separation; it is the One Life which operates in All. All great teachers, from the very earliest ages, have con-sistently taught this doctrine; have taught that man's true life is derived from, and one with, the larger Cosmic Life - whatever name may be given to that great cosmic fact. They have also taught that this true inner indestructible life can only be realised by the individual in proportion as he abandons all attachment, by hope, fear, or desire, to outer temporary or phenomenal forms. But we may now ask how - if all individual life and con-sciousness is in reality the One Life and Consciousness - we, and all other individual forms, have lost the realisation of this oneness; how in fact, consciousness, as such, can ever lose its essential and inherant oneness; how we apparently see infinite degrees of consciousness; and how we ourselves may even doubt whether our life and consciousness will survive the disintegration of the outward physical form?…" Consciousness, then, together with its correlative phe-nomenon, is how the One Noumenon is known; or knows Itself. In Itself and by Itself this One Noumenon is incog-nisable and unknowable. That is obvious, because a thing is known only by its opposite, or by relation and contrast; but in the Absolute there is neither opposite nor contrast. But in a certain sense, an infinite One necessitates an infinite many. To be infinitely known or cognised, the infinite Subject demands an infinite Object; or rather, an infinity of objects (phenomena). The Infinite must know Itself in an infinite variety of ways. In the second place, let us consider how we as conscious individuals do actually make use of our consciousness. A little reflection will show us that our consciousness is for the most part directed outwards; it is almost wholly / Page 310 / engaged with objective phenomena. Do we not, indeed, even take these phenomena to be reality, and live our life wholly therein; striving even to grasp and possess these fleeting shadows which we know must pass away? This fact, then which we find in the individual, may perhaps give us a clue to something similar operating in the universal; and - inadequate as any such concept must necessarily be - we shall at least have something not wholly inconsistent with our present knowledge and experience. Conceive, then, of the LIFE, the ceaseless activity of the One Noumenon, as being essentially of the nature of Self-realisation by means of a creative process, which consists fundamentally in the objectivisation, the outward presenta-tion as phenomenon, of the Infinite contents of the One Self. In this view we cannot conceive of this creation as an act whereby something which is not-self is brought into existence. We must rather conceive that the One Self cannot help, as it were, the eternal expression of Itself by a process whereby It sees and knows Itself as Phenomenon as well as Noumenon, as Object as well as Subject; a process, in short, which is the eternal realisation or expression of ITSELF. It is precisely this self-realisation which constitutes our own life; which constitutes all individual life. Between con-sciousness and phenomenon there must always be an exact parallelism, however much we may limit consciousness, or in whatever individual forms we may locate it. The outward the objective, the visible, is ever and always the expression the symbol and sign of an inner subjective invisible self. The outer phenomenal universe, then - infinite as the com-plement of an infinite subjective SELF - is not in reality the not-self. The One Self is in reality both Subject and Object, though the individual self is not; and the outer phenomenal aspect of this essential Unity can only be considered as a Not -Self by an arbitrary limitation or negation of the real nature of the self; a limitation, illusion, or nescience, charac-teristic of all individual forms of consciousness as we at present know them. Let us conceive, then, that the consciousness of the One Self, the Universal Consciousness of Primordial Substance, entering in, as it were, or associating Itself with those in-dividual forms which are the presentment of Itself to Itself: loses in those forms Its sense of Oneness or Unity; identifies / Page 311 / Itself for the time being wholly with the form; and regards all other forms as the Not Self. This entering in - which will correspond with the actual creation of the forms - will con-stitute the involutionary cosmic process, the formation or emanation of the phenomenal universe. The reverse or evolutionary process, is the gradual repudiation by the subject or self of the self-imposed limitation. Thus the great heresy, the great illusion, is the sense of seperatness; while, on the other hand, the great secret of life, the great religion, the elixir, the philosopher's stone, that which frees the individual from all illusion, from all bondage, that which "brings immortality to light," is the realisation of oneness with the Infinite Divine Life which lives, and moves, and is conscious in ALL. From our own individual nature we thus obtain some hint, some dim conception of the nature of the great Cosmic Process: on the fundamental assumption that the universal is reflected in the individual and particular. We may then conceive of the Cosmic Process - as a con-scious act on the part of the One Self- to be particularised as follows: (a) A presentation of the contents of the One Self as objective form or phenomenon; this objective form being the natural and inevitable accompaniment of every act - or rather of the ceaseless action - of the One Self; which eternal activity is known to us as motion.. (b) An entering into, or identification of the Self with particular objective forms or phenomena; an affirmation, "I am this, and this"; con-stituting the involutionary or limiting process. (c) A negation of the previous affirmation; a self-realisation that the Self is infinitely more than this, or this that the self is not limited or conditioned by any forms or phenomena, but is the cause of these forms, and can create or repudiate them at will. This negation or repudiation of form and limitation constitutes the evolutionary process, which is essentially an expansion of life and consciousness. The individual self in its evolutionary progress realises itself in ever larger and still larger relation and proportion; till ultimately it realises itself as verily the One Self If our fundamental conception as to the unity of Life and Conscious-ness is valid, it is clearly to be seen that the sense of individual-isation, of separateness from the other selves, is an illusion: no such separateness existing in reality, but only in appearance, / Page 312 / according as consciousness identifies itself more clearly with individual and limited forms. Such identification of ourselves with individual physical forms, more particularly with our physical bodies, is that which gives us our conventional and limited ideas of the nature of life and consciousness; and we commonly attribute to others an individual and separate I-ness such as we ourselves experience. But what, indeed, is this same I-ness, this sense of self, save the one inherent unique quality or attribute of con-sciousness Itself; of Being, which knows itself as One ? By no possibility can I think of myself as two, or as many; the I-ness must always be unitary; and what I thus think of myself, so does all life and consciousness everywhere, in every form. Are there, then, many selves; or shall we still adhere to our fundamental Monism? Further, by no possibility can I- or any other I ever think of itself otherwise than as existing at the centre of the universe. Is not this also the inherent and unique quality or attribute of Consciousness Itself; of that which knows itself not merely as One but as All ? For the SELF, as cause of All? verily is that centre; and in consciousness can never be otherwise. Only - that centre is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere.
Where it cometh all things are,
Consider also that Consciousness being One and Universal, that which now appears to us to be a separate unit or self, as associated with some phenomenal form, must ever retain its sense of I-ness or selfhood even when - by reason of the disintegration of the form - it becomes merged in some larger unit. However large, or however small in our present estima-tion may be that unit which at present we conventionally call 'I': it must always be 'myself,' even when it has expanded to include the whole Universe. We cannot con-ceive of the sense of self as being lost, though we can conceive of the sense of separation as disappearing; and herein is the saying true, that "he that loseth his life shall find it." For it is only by losing the present personal self, the personal attachment to forms and formulas, that we can find that larger Self which lives and moves in ALL. Page 313 "… In thus losing what we now falsely regard as an individual separate self, we must, therefore, realise that our true selfness will ever grow stronger and more real. There will be no further fear or question as to whether when 'we' die, when the phenomenal form perishes, 'we' shall continue to live Life is universal and omnipresent: inherent in the omni-present Primordial Substance. But even as any portion of this substance, considered as an object, may be conceived of as subdivided to infinity -yet must each portion, however small, retain all the attributes, the inalienable nature of Sub-stance as such - so also, considered in its subjective aspect as Life and Consciousness, the one self - in reality as inde-structible as Substance itself - by attachment to phenomenal forms, by limitations or modes of consciousness which we call time and space, may conceive itself as individual and conditioned - even to an infinite degree. On the other hand, it may - nay, it must - expand until "the universe grows I." Our working theory of life, based upon the foregoing considerations, and upon the fundamental principles disclosed by philosophy and science, will now be seen to be simply that of the individualised consciousness, self, or Ego, gradually freeing itself from the limitations of phenomenon, form, or matter-the objective pole of the dual aspect of the ONE, con-sidered as something separate, or existing as a reality by and in itself - and realising its own infinite nature as the cause and producer of phenomenon. The individual self, seen in all its relations and proportions, is really the One Self, which experiences, knows, suffers, rejoices - or, in one word - lives in ALL In exoteric religions, man fears and worships this Divine source of his being as a personal God, to whose presence he may perchance approach as he would to that of some earthly potentiate. But the Infinite can never be really thus approached. It must always remain at an infinite distance when conceived of in terms of time and space. "While we are approaching God, we never come to Him," says Eckhart the Mystic; and in all true Mysticism, in all esoteric religion, it is the oneness of the individual self with the Universal Self which is realised and taught. Thus man lays claim to his immortality, not as phenomenon, / Page 314 / but as Noumenon. Man the phenomenon is not immortal - that is the empirical fact of our everyday life. Man the Noumenon, the cause of man is immortal: because he is that Infinite Life which, as the eternal Root of ALL, is also the One Reality, the "thing in itself," though not any thing as a thing." The scribe, doing a Ramakrishna writ, the she as in he, of the he as in she. And left it to the imagination. "Of this One Reality it is impossible for us to conceive otherwise than that IT is eternal, imperishable, and unchangeable. But between individual man and the full realisation of his true divine nature there appears to lie a long evolutionary process. Man is the Pilgrim of the Universe. Why or how he set forth on this pilgrimage we do not know; we have only obscure allegories of a "fall," Yet since he is a "divine son" that pilgrimage is certainly the embodiment of a Divine Idea, which, as such, must in fact belong to the very nature of Divinity Itself. We may now, therefore, ask ourselves, in view of these fundamental principles, what may be the immediate destiny, the cycle of evolution, which lies immediately in front of ourselves? In
physical science we find that we must fall back upon the
etheric Plane for the inner energising principle and cause
of all physical plane phenomena. The etheric Plane literally
ensouls the physical; and it is to the energies and
activities of that Plane that we must look in the first
instance, not merely for the force which builds up physical
matter, which unifies the corpuscles or
electrons of the physical atom, but also for that
unifying and co-ordinating principle which ensouls
and makes a unitary economy of every organic form
on the physical Plane
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