Part 17

And nothing short of this consciousness of Perfect Wholeness can satisfy us. Everything that falls short of it is in that degree an embodiment of the principle of Death, that great enemy against which the principle of Life must continue to wage unceasing war, in whatever form or measure it may show itself, until "death is swallowed up in victory." There can be no compromise. Either we are affirming Life, as a principle, or we are denying it, no matter on how great or how small a scale; and the criterion by which to determine our attitude is our realisation of our own Wholeness. Death is the principle of disintegration; and whenever we admit the power of any portion of our organism, whether spiritual or bodily, to induce any condition independently of the intention of the Will, we admit that the force of disintegration is superior to the controlling centre in ourselves, and we conceive of ourselves as held in bondage by an adversary, from which bondage the only way of release is by the attainment of a truer way of thinking.

And the reason is that, either through ignorance or carelessness, we have surrendered our position of control over the system as a whole, and have lost the element of Purpose, around which the consciousness of individuality must always centre. Every state of our consciousness, whether active or passive, should be the result of a distinct purpose adopted by our own free will; for the passive states should be quite as much under the control of the Will as the active. It is the lack of purpose that deprives us of power. The higher and more clearly defined our purpose, the greater stimulus we have for realising our control over all our faculties for its attainment; and since the grandest of all purposes is the strengthening and ennobling of Life, in proportion as we make this our aim we shall find ourselves in union with the Supreme Universal Mind, acting each in our individual sphere for the furtherance of the same purpose which animates the ruling principle of the Great Whole, and, as a consequence, shall find that its intelligence and powers are at our disposal.

But in all this there must be no strain. The true exercise of the Will is not an exercise of unnatural force. It is simply the leading of our powers into their natural channels by intelligently recognising the direction in which those channels go. However various in detail, they have one clearly defined common tendency towards the increasing of Life--whether in ourselves or in others--and if we keep this steadily in view, all our powers, whether interior or exterior, will be found to work so harmoniously together that there will be no sense of independent action on the part of any one of them. The distinctions drawn for purposes of study will be laid aside, and the Self in us will be found to be the realisation of a grand ideal being, at once individual and universal, consciously free in its individual wholeness and in its joyous participation in the Life of the Universal Whole.

XXIV

WHAT IS HIGHER THOUGHT?

Resolution passed October, 1902, by the Kensington Higher Thought Centre.

"That the Centre stands for the definite teaching of absolute Oneness of Creator and Creation--Cause and Effect--and that nothing which may contradict or be in opposition to the above principles be admitted to the 'Higher Thought' Centre Platform.

"By Oneness of Cause and Effect is meant, that Effect (man) does consist only of what Cause is; but a part (individual personality) is not therefore co-extensive with the whole."

This Resolution is of the greatest importance. Once admit that there is any Power outside yourself, however beneficent you may conceive it to be, and you have sown the seed which must sooner or later bear the fruit of "Fear" which is the entire ruin of Life, Love and Liberty. There is no via media. Say we are only reflections, however accurate, of The Life, and in the admission we have given away our Birthright. However small or plausible may be the germ of thought which admits that we are anything less in principle than The Life Itself, it must spring up to the ultimate ruin of the Life-Principle itself. We are It itself. The difference is only that between the generic and the specific of the same thing. We must contend earnestly, both within ourselves and outwardly, for the one great foundation and never, now on to all eternity, admit for a single instant any thought which is opposed to this, the Basic Truth of Being.

The leading ideas connected with Higher Thought are (I) That Man controls circumstances, instead of being controlled by them, and (II) as a consequence of the foregoing, that whatever teaches us to rely on power borrowed from a source outside ourselves is not Higher Thought; and that whatever explains to us the Infinite source of our own inherent power and the consequent limitless nature of that power is Higher Thought. This avoids the use of terms which may only puzzle those not accustomed to abstract phraseology, and is substantially the same as the resolution of October, 1902.

XXV

FRAGMENTS

1. God is Love. Man, having the understanding of God, speaks the Word of Power.

2. Man gives utterance to God.

3. The Father is Equilibrium. The Son is Concentration of the same Spirit. The Spirit is Projection.

The Tri-une Relation--always consists of these Three:

(I) The Potential--(II) The Ideal--(III) The Concrete.

(I) The Potential is Life in its most highly abstract mode not yet brought into Form even as Thought. Not particularised in any way.

(II) The Ideal is the particularising of the Potential into a certain Formulated Thought.

(III) The Concrete is the Manifestation of the Formulated Thought in Visible Form.

What everybody wants is to become more alive--as Jesus said, "I am come that they might have Life and might have it more abundantly"--and it is only on the basis of realising ourselves as a perfect unity throughout, not made up of opposing parts, and that unity Spirit, that we can realise in ourselves the Livingness which Spirit is, and which we as Spirit ought to be.

HENCE PERFECT DEMONSTRATION.

"The Truth shall make you Free" Life : Love : = The Truth Liberty :

The Ultimate Truth will always be found to consist of these three, and anything that is contrary to them is contrary to Fundamental Truth.

WORSHIP

Worship consists in the recognition of the Personal Nature of Holy Spirit, and in the Continual Alternation (Pulsation) between the two positions of "I am the Person that Thou art," and "Thou art the Person that I am." The Two Personalities are One.

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