(Lecture delivered July 20, 1930)
CONTENTS: Intelligence or blind chance in the universe? — The central fire of cosmic being. — No consciousness-tight compartments in the universe. — The portals to the mysteries of the universe. — Two ways to achieve your destiny. — Self-directed evolution. — Do nature's evolutionary courses bring satiety? — Better try another planet! — Does nature do things just for fun? — Lessons in the schoolhouse of earth-life. — Cosmic spirits or gods: the name matters not. — Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you. — Universal brotherhood: but what about the outcasts of India? — Repulsive individualism vs. the radiant beauty of impersonality. — Selfishness is unwise. — Is there danger in automatic writing? — The two kinds of automatic writing. — The wonderful untapped resources of the spiritual nature. Bring them forth!
I usually conclude my public lectures with telling my audiences that, collectively and individually, they are gods, imbodied divinities, divine sparks arising out of the heart of the universe which is its Central Fire — that bright and flaming fire of life and intelligence which holds all things harmonious, and keeps them running in courses symmetrical and orderly. It is the source, the fountainhead, of everything that is — of you, of me, of gods, of monads, of atoms, of worlds, of suns, of nebulae, of universes — all of them existing in the vast spaces of limitless space; and all rooted in the vastly large spacial universe which we may call the invisible.
Or, in your viewing of the universe, do you prefer the old-fashioned hypothesis now dead, which was nothing but a scientific superstition, to wit, the old hypothesis of materialism, which a great British scientist has recently said is as much a superstition as was the medieval belief in devils and witches, to the effect that the entire body of the cosmos is nothing but a fortuitous dance of atoms, blindly driven hither and yon, unguided, undirected, unimpulsed, dead. What a nightmare, actually inconceivable and not to be formulated in any strictly logical categories!
No human mind can successfully put such ideas together into a coherent system of thought: that out of non-intelligence springs the bright and flaming fire of intellect, and that out of cosmic disorderliness comes the fine flower of the universe — order, cause and effect. Therefore the roots of all things are divine; the origin of all things is sublime intelligence which flows through all that is, and which theosophists sometimes call by the phrase, the Central Fire of cosmic being.
Each one of you is a spark of it. Each one of you essentially therefore is a divinity. Each one of you is an evolving and learning entity. You are not perfect. You are not wholly imperfect. You have powers; you have faculties; you have capacity for growth; and evolution is nought but the welling forth of what is within, the self-expression of the faculties and powers and energies lying latent in every evolving entity and thing anywhere. Therefore this means that the future destiny of mankind, considered as a host, is to be a host of gods.
You cannot bring forth what is not within you. What is not within you, therefore obviously will not express itself, because it is non-existent; and the very root of you is this divine flame of intelligence, of willpower, of consciousness, of love — of the cosmic love which is all-permeant, penetrates everywhere, and which nothing can resist because it is nature's fundamental essence, nature's fundamental energy, nature's fundamental law. Ally yourself with this, and in proportion as you succeed in so doing, you become irresistible, and irresistible for good alone.
"A soul's destiny!" You already have the picture. A soul's destiny must include, likewise, its origin. Anything that will explain what any soul — not necessarily a human soul — any conscious entity came from and will ultimately attain through evolution, must explain likewise what it is at the present time. The three go together; indeed, when we add the future destiny of a soul to the preceding three we realize that the past, the present, and the future must also hang together inseparably. The Occidental world for too long, for altogether too long, has been under the psychological cloud of an idea that things in nature exist in consciousness-tight compartments: that matter is one thing, and that spirit is something else; or matter is one thing and that energy is something else; and that by some mysterious magic which no one has ever been able to explain, these two run along concurrently in nature's evolutionary courses, and yet have no radical, root-relation with each other.
That idea was just a full-fledged superstition. Our majestic theosophical philosophy teaches strictly to the contrary of this, to wit, that everything is interconnected, interblended, interbound, interlinked, with everything else. Nothing, no entity, exists unto itself alone. It cannot. Each is an offspring of the universe, the child of that universe. Everything that is in the universe, therefore, is in each child of the Universe.
Do you get the meaning and reach of this obviously necessary conclusion? It means that you have the possibility of infinite growth before you. You spring forth from the universe, of which you are, each one of you, an inseparable part. You cannot leave it. There is nowhither whither you may go. Everything that the whole contains is contained latently or actively in every infinitesimal portion of that whole. Ex uno disce omnia, as the Latins said, which I may paraphrase by saying: out of every single drop of the ocean of the sea, ye may learn the whole ocean.
Your consciousness is the great portal to all the mysteries of the universe, because your innermost consciousness is that universe. You are its child, and therefore the pathway to all things is within you. This pathway is not without. Everything that the universe contains is your spiritual and natural heritage. All things are already within you, in seed. Therefore see and understand what you have locked up within you. Dream of it, figurate it to yourselves, make the picture, imagine it — as the first step to becoming greater.
Out of manhood ye shall grow into godhood — I mean to say, into individual gods. I do not use the word godhood in the meaningless sense of a mere abstraction as it is so often used. Out of you, by developing what is within you, in time, as the ages pass, ye shall develop what is locked up within you, which is Divinity. The whole universe is your field of action. Out of it you came. You are in it passing through one phase of your long, long, indeed endless and beginingless, evolutionary journey. And you will grow greater as the ages pass, as your consciousness expands to become universal from being limitedly human.
What is man? He is an aggregate, he is a composite entity. He is himself a little universe. Everything is in him in seed, or more or less active. Your very bodies are formed of the cosmic elements; and through these cosmic elements, as builded into the human frame, you express yourself feebly, an effort at self-expression which makes you what you are at present, human beings. Just like a little child which, as it grows, succeeds in expressing ever more perfectly up to maturity the locked-up powers, but not yet succeeding in doing so in childhood, so we, as men — shame upon us, incarnate gods as we are! — express ourselves, our inner faculties and powers, alas! only too often with naught but an inarticulate cry. How much better could we do if we only would! Every one of us, every normal human being, is a Christ in his inner parts, is a Buddha. Yes, and more — the universal heart is within us.
Do you know what the ancient philosophers of Hindustan said in their magnificent philosophical teachings? I will tell you a little of it. They asked a question: Kas twam asi? Who art thou? And the answer came: Tat twam asi. That (the Boundless) thou art. A child of the universe you are, sprung from its own substance, therefore filled with the very fire which governs and lightens every articulation of the universal worlds — all is in you.
It is to bring back some of the ancient knowledge of the archaic wisdom-religion of antiquity, that the Theosophical Movement was founded, to give men hope, to give them vision — the vision sublime — to give them peace, to give them consolation. And last, but not least, to make them feel for others, to instill the sublime precepts of universal brotherhood into human hearts which had grown stony and unfeeling, and to bring light and illumination to minds which had become darkened through miseducation; because with light and compassion working within them, men become truly men, because then indeed they are already passing out of manhood, trembling, as it were, on the verge of touching divinity.
"The destiny of a soul:" Out of boundless time in the past ye came, ye children of men; out of the womb of infinity and eternity ye have been journeying hither. Hither and forwards into boundless duration shall ye follow the path of growth. What a picture for your quiet hours of meditative thought!
There are two ways for a man to achieve his destiny, for a human soul to reach its own inner powers, the full expansion of its own godlike genius. Two ways: and the first is that followed by the majority, the great and voiceless majority, drifting along like flotsam on the ever-running, ceaselessly moving river of time; and this is the path of natural evolution, of natural growth. But oh! how slow, how slow, how slow it is! Ages will pass before the inner expansion of your faculties and powers reaches even a modicum of a larger greatness.
The other pathway, that all the great sages and seers of the ages have shown to their fellow men, that which means a quicker growth, a more rapid evolution, a more speedy emergence from the chrysalis of humanhood into possessing the wings of the spirit — the bird of eternity, to change the metaphor somewhat — is initiation, which is a reality on earth even today. There is a path — as H. P. Blavatsky, the main founder of The Theosophical Society, so nobly wrote — there is a pathway, steep and thorny though it be for the average man, yet it leads to the very heart of the universe. The one traveling this path passes through the portals of growth quickly, relatively speaking; and I can show you how to put your feet upon this pathway, so that instead of spending ages and ages and ages and ages in slowly evolving, in slowly expanding, in slowly bringing forth the powers and faculties within you, you can grip yourself, guide your own evolution, and thus much more quickly grow.
This is self-directed evolution, as my great predecessor Katherine Tingley called it. This is initiation. It exists today. But there are preparations even for initiation. None can follow a pathway, is it not obvious, which he has not the strength to walk upon. Therefore he must gather strength unto himself. He must prepare himself. To use the language of the Christian New Testament, he must "gird up his loins and take his staff in his hand, have no thought for the morrow, and carry nothing with him." Lightfooted must he speed along, without encumbering and hampering weights.
How do you do it? How do you make these preparations? All the great seers and sages of the ages have told you. I will tell you it again. It is also the message of the wisdom-religion of antiquity today called theosophy. It is as follows: Become self-forgetful, for then you throw off your burdens: you hate not, and you love all things, both small and great. Forget yourself, and you are then no longer enchained with the bonds of desire and acquisition tying you to things of evanescent and impermanent value. Your soul, your spirit, your mind, your heart, become infilled with impersonally great and noble thoughts, desires, and aspirations, which even one thought of merely personal profit and personal acquisition and gain will kill at least for the time being.
Love, forgive, be merciful, be compassionate, be pitiful; in other words, expand your consciousness, and if you can do these things successfully, ye need never fear temptation. It will never really touch you, nor bind you, because it will have no hold upon you. This is so because you will then have become selfless. Think it over. It is really so easy to do all this. And yet men will not follow this pathway.
Out of eternity have we come, journeying through realm after realm of Nature's mystic and invisible constitution— through the worlds both invisible and visible — gathering experience in each, perfecting our faculties in each. And when grown great in any such world, or on any such plane, or in any such sphere, having learned all the lessons that these worlds and planes and spheres can give us, we then pass to still nobler things.
Why are we here? Some people seem to think that nature's evolutionary courses bring satiety, bring surfeit. How vain and thoughtless an idea is this! Their idea of the universe seems to be a limited and restricted field in which one set of faculties only is exercised; and these people remind me of the individual who must have been in the mind of the poet who wrote some verses which a friend kindly sent in to me, and which I brought with me in order to read to you if I had a chance to do so this afternoon. My chance has come, and I will now read them. They were originally printed in the Washington Evening Star. They were headed: "Better Try Another Planet."
Same old topics — same old news.
Same old pictures — same old clues.
Same contentions bring surprise;
Same old wets and same old drys.
Motors spin and make a dash,
For a triumph or a smash.
Pictures gay delight the eye;
Same old things you'd like to buy.
Science shows the same old terms;
Same old atoms; same old germs.
Same discoveries we view,
Each with names both long and new.
Same old struggles for release,
Threats of war and plans for peace.
Same old market on the jump —
Same old profit; same old slump.
Though confusion we may find
In a changeful state of mind,
With new themes of grief or mirth,
It is still the Same Old Earth.
I would have headed this poem just exactly as the editor of the Washington Evening Star did, I suppose, unless indeed it was so entitled by the author of it. "Better Try Another Planet" — which is exactly what you will all do some day. Nature is not so builded as to bring satiety and surfeit to her children. She never repeats herself. Each new experience is in a new field; each new experience is a new life with new opportunities and new environments. There is endless change because change is growth, and growth is evolution; therefore change is evolution, philosophically speaking, of course. Do you think that one life on earth brings out all your powers, brings into full flower all your faculties and energies? Alas! most men and women die with a feeling of having lived almost in vain. Not a billionth part of what is within them have they discovered or brought into action. And it is their own fault. Human beings are lazy, intellectually and otherwise. Talk to a man about self-directed evolution, self-directed growth, and look at him carefully. In some you will see a quick lighting of the eyes; the bright flame of intelligence has been touched, evoked. You have given such as these a new and a holy thought, and they will guard it and profit by it. But in the eyes of others you see no more response than if you looked into the eyes of a dead fish!
Do you think that nature does things just for fun? I don't see any sign of that. On the contrary, the very sufferings and pains that human beings have, and that wring their hearts, show that they are growing. Don't be afraid of pain. Don't be afraid of sorrow. They both are friendly. Don't think that you are unfortunate because you have done something which brings nature's reaction upon you in the shape of suffering or pain. You are learning a much-needed lesson. You are growing; and the pains and sorrows are growing pains. That is why human beings return to earth again and again. They haven't learned their lessons in the schoolhouse of earth-life.
When a human being has learned all that earth can teach him, he is then godlike and returns to earth no more — except (hear the glad tidings!) except those whose hearts are so filled with the holy flame of compassion that they remain in the schoolroom of earth that they have long since advanced beyond and where they themselves can learn nothing more, in order to help their younger, less evolved brothers.
These exceptions theosophists call the buddhas of compassion, the Christs; and such a spirit is the Christ-spirit. Each one of you some day will be given the choice. Which path, my brothers, will ye then take? Either is noble; both lead to heights of spiritual sublimity. But one, the road of compassion, is divine. Some day ye must make that choice. But the results of making that choice, of choosing the road of self-forgetfulness and pity and impersonal love for all others, for all things, while temporarily holding you in the realms of illusion, of matter, will ultimately lead you by a road, straighter than any other, to the very core of the core of the universal heart; for ye shall have obeyed the impersonal commands of cosmic love, and that means allying yourselves consciously with divinity.
Think of the philosophy of it and you will see how consistent and logical it all is. Therefore have all the great sages and seers of the past taught their fellow men: If ye wish happiness and peace and faculty and power and knowledge and wisdom and growth, give yourselves utterly. It is the little personal things which cramp your powers. It is the personal "I" which limits your receiving of the impersonal divine flame, of the impersonal divine light, trying to enter your human consciousness from your spiritual being — the clouds of your selfish, aggressive, and acquisitive personality hindering the entrance of this flaming light. Abandon these faults of the personality and stand forth in your own inner godhood — this is the destiny of a soul. It remains within your own choice which ye shall do, and it lies on the lap of the gods. Therefore choose! And abide by your choice. Such is nature's law. Choose divinity and become a god and with its concomitant powers become a master of life. Or choose the opposite, and remain indefinitely in the realms of illusion.
I have said that ye are gods. Ye are so; and if there be any Christians here in the audience this afternoon, I say to them to look at the identic words as found in your own Christian New Testament. The heart of the heart of the core of the core of you is a divine being, and you, as men, are merely expressing feebly these divine powers within you. There is a pathway steep and thorny which leads to the heart of the universe — to your own heart of hearts.
Knock — and this is not a knock of physical hand — and it shall be opened unto you. Ask, and ye shall receive in full measure, overflowing. And the invitation is to become — that is what it means — what you are yourselves within.
H. P. Blavatsky in her The Secret Doctrine, volume I, page 224, wrote very briefly but admirably upon this point. She says: "Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various [cosmic] spirits; [which are gods, and you may call them gods if you like, as I do] distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts, and occasionally and singly, the vehicles of some of them." Do you understand? Men are the handiwork of these cosmic gods and spiritual beings; and each such god or spiritual entity expresses itself through the human tabernacle which it has built up. Each one of you therefore is a conglomerate constitution builded by the faculties and powers flowing forth from the heart of the heart of you which is this inner god, your cosmic spirit.
It is thus that men are builded up into humanity, into possessing the human constitution including of course human physical bodies; each such constitution more or less — and usually less — expressing at least a little of these sublime, these divine, powers and faculties. But occasionally — and here listen well, friends — occasionally and singly a human being becomes the vehicle, the self-conscious temple, of the divine entity within, and then such a man walks the earth an incarnate god. Such was the Christ, such was the Buddha. Such were many if not most of the great sages and seers of the past.
Initiation will bring to you this guerdon of self-forgetfulness, this recompense of a heart which has become a temple of wisdom and love. Try to understand my thought. It is in its element so simple. It promises so much; and I say again unto you: Knock, and it shall be opened. Ask — and the asking must come from you — and then ye shall be taught, ye shall receive the light. There is truth in the universe. That truth can be had, and the way to have it is by willpower and by perseverance in following the path, and by self-forgetfulness, so that ye will not have your feet clogged by the mire of selfish desire, holding you fast on the pathway. Come and partake of the Master's feast.
Here is one of two or three questions that I have been asked to answer this afternoon. It is the following:
Are the sixty million "untouchables" of India within the fraternal circle of universal brotherhood, notwithstanding that their "elder brothers" have pronounced them outcasts — lower than the beasts? Is there a possibility that Occidentals may descend into the "I am holier than thou" abyss and develop a legion of untouchables in the Western world?
The answer is, Yes, in either case. Even the untouchables are sons of God as the Christian said, and sons of the gods as theosophists say, because the heart of the heart of each one of them is a divinity. Religious bigotry, unwise attempts to keep those who are unfit for it out of the magic circle of wisdom and the ancient teaching of knowledge, brought about the existence of the caste system and the legion of untouchables, because they were supposed to be unfit and therefore technically unclean. Nevertheless I say: Certainly do they come within the circle of universal brotherhood, which has no frontiers and no barriers against any. Even the beasts, even the plants, we reckon as elements in nature's law of universal brotherhood and to this brotherhood belong the souls also of all other things.
All, in the theosophic conception of universal brotherhood: all, all are entities having one common source, following the same identical evolutionary pathway of growth, and all marching steadily forward into the future towards better things.
And your proud Occident, priding itself on its brotherhood, how about your untouchables? Walk the streets of your great cities before ye cast stones, even at those who live in glass houses. Examine your own household, O friends!
One of our noblest and greatest doctrines is the teaching of universal brotherhood, as I have attempted briefly to set it forth to you in other words this afternoon, the feeling of comradely kinship with all that lives, because in very truth ye are more than mere kin: the same consciousness flows through all things, all are derived from the same source. Your very bodies are builded of the same chemical atoms that are in the bodies of all other things; and ye are all marching forwards to the same destiny.
In one life a man may be born a prince in his palace, and in another life, for deeds wrongly done and deeds left undone, he may be born a peasant in his hut, or as some poor untouchable; but the lessons of life even here can be learned and learned well. Let us who know these things teach our fellow men their high responsibility, and the duty that devolves upon them to act aright, to think aright, to feel aright. Let us teach them that all men are brothers, not as an emotional precept, not as a thought passing forth from an emotion, but as a fact under the sanctions of nature's never-ending and irrevocable laws. Each one of us is our brother's keeper. A man fails in his duty if he does not help his fellows; and I tell you, lest I be misunderstood, that sometimes the noblest help is correction, but correction given kindly, with true impersonal love, and with no thought of personal advantage; and the best correction is teaching him to see aright the laws of life. Win the hearts of your fellows, and ye shall have peace among you.
Yes, the untouchables of your Occident, they are many and of many kinds. Walk the streets of your great cities any night. Go into the market-places. Enter palaces or enter huts, and ye shall find the same that ye shall find in India, and with as little excuse here as there.
Men must protect themselves against evil — that is true. No man should permit a wrong, whether done to himself or to others. The true man should never become particeps criminis, a participator in a crime, by weakly allowing some criminal act to happen, if he can prevent it. But be tactful, be kindly, and forgive. Try to understand and to help by means of education the weak and the stumbling, for ye, my brothers, have yourselves stumbled time and time again.
Why do persons who have developed the impersonal outlook possess a beautiful radiant personality, with voices as soft and melodious as the rustle of the corn, or the soothing murmur of brooks — while he who concentrates upon the personal, rejoices in a more or less repulsive individualism?
How easily explainable! When a man becomes self-forgetful, he becomes a very sun of light, radiating spiritual energy, radiating energy of a spiritual and intellectual kind, which permeates the love flowing forth from him into the very hearts of others, and takes these others by storm. Whereas a man who thinks of naught but self — my, my wishes, my thoughts, my plans, my property — makes a perfect cocoon of imperfect and ugly selfhood around himself, through which nothing can shine, and which is like an adamantine wall around him more hard and durable than steel; and when he stands before you, or you see him walking the street, he produces no other effect upon you than, just as this questioner has said, your instinctive sense of a more or less repulsive individualism.
Let the love within you shine forth. Love will break even stony human hearts. Nothing, not even hate, can withstand its passage. Therefore how wise were the philosophic ancients: "Hate not. Conquer hatred by love, for this is the ancient law." It is nature's law. The strong man is he who loves, not he who hates. The weak man hates because he is limited and small. He can neither see nor feel the other's pain and sorrow, nor even sense so easy a thing as the other's viewpoint.
But the man who loves recognizes his kinship with all things. His whole nature shines with the beauty within him, expands with the inner fire which flames itself forth in beautiful and symmetrical thoughts, and therefore in beautiful and kindly acts. The self-forgetful man or woman likewise in time will gain a sympathetic voice which will make its own appeal, even if his words be not fully understood. His very features will soften and become kindly, therefore attractive. He will not be feared. He will not be hated.
Selfishness is ignoble. It is also very unwise, because there is nothing like selfishness that cripples you and that mires your feet in the slough of the lower selfhood.
Here is an unusual question:
Is there any danger in automatic writing?
It depends upon what you mean by automatic writing. There is more than one kind of it. If you refer to certain things of a psychical character, then I can only state that automatic writing of this kind is accompanied with more than one danger, but perhaps the main is that the will becomes somnolent, and the grip of the spiritual nature over the lower man is by so much the more decreased.
As a matter of fact, there is a great deal talked today in the Occident about psychical powers, and under this word psychical are classed a great many things that do not belong in that category at all. The human being has spiritual powers, grand and sublime faculties and energies, which the average man will not know of because he won't look within. He is too lazy intellectually and otherwise. But the psychical powers per se are on a much lower plane and belong merely to the astral part of the human being, a part of his inner constitution which is but very little more ethereal than the gross physical world.
It is possible for a human being to write automatically due to an energy emanating from this lower part of his constitution, and he can do this by throwing himself into a negative state of mind. This can indeed be done by practice, but it is a very baleful practice which will in time bring untold suffering in its train. It is, furthermore, unwise because it places one's energies, one's attention, the concentration of one's intellectual faculties, on the lowest — almost the lowest at any rate — part of the human constitution.
Those who do not understand these things frequently ascribe the origin of this automatic writing to the influence of "spirits" from the other world. In certain parts of the globe, not in the Occident, but in India for instance, automatic writing which is beyond the control of the writer is ascribed to the bhutas, which we may briefly call spooks, ghosts, simulacra, the reliquiae, of dead men, in other words the astral dregs and remnants of human beings. That influence, according to what the Orientals say, produces this kind of automatic writing; and almost all the automatic writing of the Occident is of that type.
The brain is an exceedingly delicate instrument, sensitive to etheric waves, to astral waves, to waves of consciousness. Thought-transference proves it — of which the average human being is scarcely conscious at all, although these waves, I say, are passing through the brain tissue all the time.
But having said this much and now leaving it aside, let me call your attention to the fact that there is another automatic writing of a wholly different type. This kind is wholesome, good, and proper to cultivate if you have a wise and reliable teacher. Otherwise you will almost invariably slip on the path. This other kind of automatic writing can occur when the higher part of the human constitution becomes the controlling factor for an hour or two or three mayhap. The human being then is no longer conscious of his physical personality at all; he has transcended that. He has raised himself, has become for the time being almost at one with the god within, and in these circumstances his hand writes what may actually be a very message from his own spiritual nature.
But alas, in the present state of human evolution none can do this without initiation, without training, without a teacher. H. P. Blavatsky did much automatic writing of this latter kind; and what she wrote was sublime, not merely in the thoughts, but in the very diction; it was grammatical, perfect, fascinating.
This latter kind of automatic writing is on a par with the melodies which the musician hears inwardly, such as was the case with the deaf Beethoven. It is such harmonies as the poet hears, feels, senses, so that he is utterly oblivious of the physical world, utterly oblivious of his surroundings; for the poet then lives in this higher world, this world of abstract thought and harmony; and then, if his brain is alert enough, is sensitized enough, he writes down the thoughts of beauty which he receives inwardly. It is thus that the great poets, the great musicians, the great artists, receive their inspirations. It is the inner voice, the inner vision, the inner wisdom.
Raise yourself into union, even if it be only temporary, into communion, with the god within you, and ye shall be all things — statesman and poet, philosopher, scientist, inventor, everything; for it is all in the spiritual part of you, and this spiritual part contains wonderful untapped resources. Know yourselves and follow the path to wisdom, to knowledge illimitable, and to unspeakable peace.
Even material success will be yours; for none would even wish to prevent your feet, to hinder your passage; for love would flow forth from you. All men would be with you, none against; and this is the reward, the guerdon, of becoming a true man, a man-god. And in the future, ye children of earth as now ye are, ye shall be gods walking this our mother planet, because ye shall have unrolled, unwrapped, unpacked, brought forth from within yourselves your latent faculties and powers and energies.
Children of the heart of the universe, ye shall be men-gods on earth; ye shall walk this earth in the distant aeons of the future — because evolution will bring it about — as gods, because ye shall think like gods and therefore ye will feel like gods and act like gods. Such is the destiny of a soul.