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Nº.
XLII
CONCERNING GOD (1)
BUT why should we be at the pains to
seek further than the phenomenal? Why this incessant craving to prove ourselves
immortal, and to argue a God into the universe?
The answer is manifold, because the
appeal is to nature, to reason, and to principle. First, evolution, as revealed
by the facts of physical science, is inexplicable on the material hypothesis; as
equally also are the facts of occult science and experience. Secondly, it has
been proved that mind in man anticipates the demonstration of natural laws, and
argues by mathematical and logical induction that what is ought to be, while yet
the actual fact is undiscovered. It is thus evident that mind, greater than and
yet identical with man’s intelligence, has preceded phenomenon. Thirdly, the
primary principle in the sane mind, justice, demands satisfaction, and insists
that rectitude of intelligence infers also rectitude of spirit. And if this be
conceded, all the rest follows. What, then, must we conceive – positing this
indefeasible principle of justice as the central sun of our philosophical
system? Equity on all planes, and a perfect correspondence and balance between
physical and spiritual; between the world of causes and the world of effects.
Justice is represented
by the dual balance, of which one scale is
spirit and the other matter; one male and the other female; without which dual
principle the system of the balance itself would be impossible. The balance is
unity; the scales are the duad.
What, then, is God? Spirit; essential
substance. Is God, then, impersonal? Impersonal if the word
persona
be taken in its radical meaning, but personal in the highest and truest sense of
that word if the conception be of essential consciousness. For God has no
limitations. God is a pure and naked fire burning in infinity, whereof a flame
subsists in all creatures. The Kosmos is a tree having innumerable branches,
each connected with and springing out of various boughs, and these again
originating in one stem, and nourished by one root. And God is as a fire burning
in this tree, and yet consuming it not. God is “I AM.” Such is the nature of
infinite and essential being. And such is God in the beginning before the
worlds.
What, then, is the purpose of
evolution and separation into many forms? Life is the elaboration of soul through
the varied transformations of matter.
Spirit is essential and perfect in
itself, having neither end nor beginning. Spirit is abstract. Soul is secondary
and perfected, being begotten of spirit. Soul is concrete. And the whole object
of creation or manifestation is the evolution of souls. Spirit is the primary
Adam; soul is Eve, the woman, taken out of the side of the man. Spirit is the
first principle; soul is the derivative.
Now, the essential principle of
personality or consciousness – the higher personality – is spirit. And this
personality is God. Wherefore the higher and interior personality of every monad
is God. But this primary principle, being naked essence, could not be separated
off into individuals unless contained and limited by a secondary principle. This
principle, being derived and not essential, must be evolved.
Spirit, therefore, is projected into matter in order that soul may be begotten
thereby.
Soul is begotten in matter by means
of polarisation, And spirit, of which all matter consists, returns to its
essential nature in soul. Soul is the medium by which spirit is individuated,
and in which it becomes concrete. So that by means of creation, God the One
becomes God the Many. And the object set before the saint is so to live as to
render the soul luminous and consolidate with the spirit, that thereby the
spirit may be perpetually one with the soul, and thus eternise its
individuality.
For personality is of and in the
spirit; but individuality appertains
to the soul. But for creation there would be one
vast diffused and unindividuated consciousness, contained in one vast diffused
substance. Of this substance all things consist by means of this force or
spirit; and the soul grows up out of matter by means of evolution; – that is, by
the inherent force acting on the manifest substance. And thus the soul is born
in the womb of matter, and within her is conceived the personal element which,
divided from God, is yet God and man. For God is not multiplied neither
diminished; but God is separated into many. The matter is the wax, the soul is
the wick, and God is the flame which illumines. If they ask thee the reason of
creation, thou shalt answer, – The evolution and elaboration of the soul.
Anna is the rolling year, the Time,
of which is born Maria the soul, the mother of God. (1)
God is the first of the ten categories of Aristotle (2)
as the number one is the root of all numbers. Thou canst not begin the tables
with the duad, because the unity is the primal idea. Therefore this unity is
positive and essential in necessity.
To God everything is good; it is only
to men that evil appears positive. As it is written, “I am the Lord, and there
is none else; I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create
evil; I the Lord do all these things.” For that which differentiates evil from
good is the plane of the action, and the medium in which the thought is
conceived. If thou love from the plane of the spirit through the medium of the
soul, thou lovest as Christ loveth. But if thou love from the plane of the
astral man, through the medium of the body, thou hast lust. And, again, if
spirit desire aught, it desires that which is like itself, spiritual, and its
treasure is in heaven: this is aspiration. But if the plane of desire be the
astral, the medium of desire is material, and the material desireth matter, that
is, riches upon earth. This is avarice. And again, the passion of the spirit is
a fierce upward burning towards spirit; a force bursting forth and leaping into
life; a vehement taking of heaven by heavenly violence. This is zeal. But the
passion of the astral is a fierce burning downward through the body; a force
translating itself in material action; a furious and blind collision of matter
with matter. This eventuates in murder. See, then, that according to the plane
and the medium, so is an act good or evil. There
is nothing truly evil in its essential idea; for, primarily, all is good,
because the primary is spirit.
(In answer to questions.) Any desire or act of the body that does not profit the
mind, that is sensuality.
It is necessary that certain interior
mysteries belonging to the Celestial be kept secret, because if they should be
given to the people the mysteries would all speedily become materialised, and so
lost. But if they be confided to a few Wise, and transmitted only to the
Initiate, they will be preserved in their true meaning. And again, if these wise
men betray their secret, the uninitiated would lay violent hands on them, and so
they and the secret would perish together. But when the majority are wise, then
may the mysteries be told openly. (1)
Footnotes
(101:1)
(103:1) See Part I, No. III, “Concerning the Immaculate Conception,”
and No. XLVIII (i), “Concerning the
Christian Mysteries.”
(103:2) Σόφία, original
substance or simple being; the Ensoph of the Kabala. E.M.
(104:1) The fact that the mysteries have
been disclosed anew, expressly in order that they may be made generally known,
is by no means to be interpreted as an indication that in the view of their
guardians the time has come when the “majority are wise.” But this only; – (1)
That the concealment of the mysteries has already led to their materialisation
and loss at the hands of the priesthoods, and only by their publication can they
be restored; and (2) that the majority are sufficiently wise, at least in the
land of the present promulgation, to refrain from murderous persecution either
for the sake of opinion or in the interests of an Order. E.M.
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