(Lecture delivered March 23, 1930)
As I have told you before, I am a man with a message to give to my fellow men, a message which is sublime. It is not mine; but is, in all verity, the message of those who sent me and who sent my predecessors into the world to carry this message to mankind, and to all who attend our theosophical gatherings or read our literature.
A man with a message in these days is no uncommon thing: "The woods are full of them." The streetcorners know them well. According to the old saying, every soapbox on a street corner has a human and animate statue on it; and the voices that you hear, leathern-lunged, strong, but not usually convincing, are the voices of men who tell you things that they believe to be true, or say that they believe to be true.
I do not bring to you something that I merely tell you that I believe to be true. That would have no permanent effect on your minds. You do not know me; you do not know anything about me, except in so far as you can judge of my sincerity and earnestness from my voice and my manner of speaking, and the ringing conviction which I try to put into my voice; but if I were to tell you that this is what I believe, and this is the message that I have been sent to give to you, I would be telling you not even half of a truth, and thus far I would be misleading you.
This message is not mine. It is not the own message of any theosophical speaker. It is not the own Message to my fellow men of all my predecessors of all past time. It is not theirs, because it was not imagined by them, not formulated by them. It is not the result of burning the midnight oil; but first — and you can prove this for yourselves if you will study theosophy honestly — it is, I say, the formulation in human language of the truths of the universe; for truth can be known. That is the first teaching that theosophists have. There is such a thing as truth, and therefore it must be in its very nature a formulation of natural law, dealing with the structure and composition of the universe, exterior and especially interior.
How is this truth arrived at? How is any truth arrived at? I ask you again: How is any truth arrived at? Can a man take a pencil and sit at his desk, with a sheet of paper before him, and by making marks on the paper arrive at the realization of a sublime truth? Most enormously unlikely. I say it again, most enormously unlikely. But truth is light; it comes into the human mind of those who are prepared to receive it, as invigorating flashes of illumination; as intuition, as ideas, hunches some men call these. When these hunches are experienced, those who receive them usually experiment upon the nature surrounding them in order to test the hunch, and thus they prove that the hunch is true.
In other words, truth is from within, from the spiritual nature within you; and men are great precisely in proportion as they receive these interior flashes of illumination. They are common to all human beings, but some men have them more frequently and see the vision sublime more clearly than others; and these latter are the men who are more evolved, the greater men, they who can put their consciousness in vibrational unison, so to say, with the vibrating energies and forces of the universe. Then their minds automatically become true interpreters of natural law. That is one way by which truth can be gained. The reception of teaching under an illumined teacher is the other way, and in our theosophical life and training the devoted student follows both these methods.
Not a single discovery of science has ever been made — not a single discovery in psychology or in religion or in philosophy, has ever been made — except in one or the other way, or in both these ways. This is one of the commonest known facts, that some of the greatest discoveries in research have been made intuitively or by what men call hunches; and you must have heard this fact stated again and again, for it is usually thus that they who have discovered great truths have begun their work. In this way men have come upon some Ariadne's thread, by following which they have laid bare some of nature's secrets, and have walked out from mental darkness into the great light.
They all will tell you, these discoverers: "I did not do it myself. The light came to me suddenly. I had an idea and I followed it out."
But theosophy is very much more than merely a collection of hunches received by different men in different lives. Evolution has produced men greater than the average humanity. These greater men are the mental and spiritual titans of the human race, the great spiritual sages and seers, the expounders of truth, the great ones whose thoughts have made and have unmade civilizations. The names of some of them, as I have so often told you, are household words at the fireside of every civilized home. It is these great spiritual sages and seers, the receivers of light, who have formulated into human language this system of the ancient wisdom today called theosophy, and who in their own time came forth and taught their fellow-men what they themselves had both learned and received from their teachers.
After this manner was founded this system or that system — all the great world-religions and world philosophies. Jesus the Syrian sage, Gautama, Sankaracharya, Lao-tse, Confucius, and, in fact, all the great mystic sages and seers of the world — such men are they.
But theosophy is something still more. There is such a thing as so training the faculties and energies of the human understanding, of the human mind, of the human heart, that these become enormously receptive of natural truth. This procedure in ancient days was called initiation into the Mysteries. Specially trained men, trained by others who had been previously trained and prepared, sent their spirit into and behind the veil of exterior matter, deep into the abysses of the cosmic heart, and consciously brought back what they had there seen. I am now speaking of the great initiates of the ages.
This truth which they thereupon revealed — a larger revelation in this sublimely human sense — to mankind, is that system of natural law and fact explaining the existence, the structure, the fabric, the origin, and the destiny, of the universe, and therefore of man. We call this system today theosophy. We likewise call it the ancient religion of mankind, or the ancient wisdom. The name by which we call it, however, matters not at all.
If you look at the background — if you study the foundations — of every great world religion and world philosophy, you will find this wonderful system there. It is that universal system of natural truth which is the foundation and background of all the great religions and philosophies of the past, and will be the same for them of the future.
Occidentals are not accustomed to hearing things like this. You Occidental men and women do not like to be told what capacities and powers you have within you: that the spirit of man is supreme over matter, and that its evolution is endless. You do not like to be told these things. You like to be told: Cast your burdens upon a Savior, let him save you. Or perhaps you like to be told: Go to the beasts your ancestors; that is where you belong.
Theosophists tell you, on the contrary, that you are the makers of your own destiny: that what ye sow, ye shall reap; for nature, spiritual nature in especial, is infinitely just, infinitely harmonious, infinitely true in her balances. There is no chance; there is no haphazard action anywhere. Occidentals do not like to be talked to in this way. That is precisely why I am now talking to you in this way. I am jarring you, jolting you, waking you up! — or trying to do so. That is a part of my duty; and I tell you frankly that I win hosts of friends by doing it.
You do not like it at first, but oh, how you do like it afterwards. When once you understand it, how your heart leaps with exultation when the truth once strikes home; and then you say to yourself, in the calm silences of the nighttime, perhaps it may be a month or a year hence: "By Jove, that chap I heard at Point Loma was right after all! I have just got his idea." How often that has been proved to be true!
No, most of you don't like to be told that you have divine powers within you, waiting to express themselves. You don't like to be told that you are something more than a groveling worm of the dust. You don't like to be told that the spirit of man and the human will, when trained, are sublime, with almost unimaginable capacities — capacities, faculties, powers — to come forth as and when evolution and growth bring them forth. As a rule you don't like to be told those things. But I tell you them just the same; and I tell you — and I tell this to my audience on every Sunday, in our Temple of Peace — that each one of you, man or woman, is the feeble expression in your ordinary humanity of a divine being overshadowing, locked up within you so to speak, and trying to express its transcendental beautiful and marvelous powers through you.
I tell you that each one of you is an incarnate god, child of the gods who guide and rule the universe, offspring of the cosmic spirits — call them by what name you like, but do pray get the idea. The idea is the important thing — that your spiritual and mental ancestry is divine, and I do not speak here of your bodies. Your bodies are mere transitory events in which you are passing one phase of your long evolutionary pilgrimage in both space and time; but you, the thinking man, the feeling man, the consciousness-sun within you, expressing faculty, power, intelligence, love, compassion, pity, wisdom, feeling — all the things which in their aggregate form the real and loftiy human being — these are all manifestations of the transcendent spirit within you, and because humanity is still imperfectly evolved, these manifestations are still feeble and imperfect in their expressions.
I repeat that Occidentals, as a rule, don't like to be told these things. You don't like it; and you don't like it because you don't believe it; and you don't believe it because you are not accustomed to being told it. It is a bad habit of mind that enchains you. Your brains are full of mental cobwebs, and oh, how pitiful it is! They are merely cobwebs of miseducation and mistraining. Clean these cobwebs out. Sweep them away. Let in the light. Appeal to your own inner forum of consciousness, which is the supreme arbiter, the supreme consciousness-center of each one of you — and then you will see!
Through the message that I have to bring to you, I bring you vision; I bring you light; I cannot help you except in showing to you the way, so that you may follow that way and thus help yourself to become yourself. I cannot otherwise help you. Can I walk for you? Can I eat for you? Can I grow for you? Can I learn for you? No. But I can show you the pathway, that sublime pathway of wisdom and illumination which begins, for each human being, in any one incarnation on this earth, in the present life and thereafter leads inwards, for it is the pathway of consciousness and spiritual realization leading ever inwards, more inwards, still more inwards, towards the Mystic East, which is the rising sun of spiritually-divine consciousness within you.
This is not poetry; it is fact. I direct your minds towards the Mystic East which is the heart of the universe, and it is in the core of you. You are not separate from the universe. Every one of you is an inseparable portion of the universe. You are here, and there is just one thing that you cannot do, and that is to go out of the universe. You are an organic part of the whole, and therefore everything that is in that whole is in you, active or latent. Every faculty, energy, everything, is in the core of the core of your being, which is your road, so to speak, by which you grow out from the heart of being, your spiritual selfhood. Oh, how simple all this is and how willfully blind are people that they will not see it.
Here is the first question that I have before me to answer this afternoon:
"What should be the attitude of the theosophist to the practice of mental healing in general, and to Christian Science in particular?"
Now, I think that this is an unkind question. Why should I speak for other theosophists? I do not know what all my fellow theosophists think. In our Society they may think what they please. I know what I think, but I cannot answer for all the Fellows of The Theosophical Society. I am the Leader of the Society but I am most certainly not the guardian of their consciences. They can believe or disbelieve as they will. That is their affair. Theosophists have no dogmas in The Theosophical Society; in joining us you don't have to sign any creed.
We have, in our Society, F.T.S. — Fellows of The Theosophical Society — who possibly are believers in Christian Science. I don't know, and I don't care. And there may be those who disbelieve in it: and this I don't know, and I don't care about it. My duty as a teacher is to show the light, to show the pathway. Then my duty is done — except to give help if I can when help is asked of me. But I am not the guardian of anyone's mind or conscience. For myself I can say that I have been taught the wisdom-religion. Being taught, I have a responsibility, and that is to teach and to teach aright. But once I have taught and have done my best, then even the very gods can ask no more of me than that.
Supposing this question were otherwise framed, thusly perhaps: What do you think of mental healing, and of Christian Science in particular? I will tell you just what I personally think, but that need not affect anyone else. I have known many people of beautiful character who are mental healers, and Christian Scientists; but their belief is no concern of mine. They have their own beliefs. They are entitled to them. I have respect for them if they are sincere, but that does not mean that I believe as they do. That does not bar at all their joining The Theosophical Society. All that you need in order to join The Theosophical Society, and to become at one with the band of workers whom the great Masters of Wisdom and Compassion head, is an honest belief in the principle of universal brotherhood. This is the sole and only prerequisite to joining The Theosophical Society.
Really I don't know enough about mental healing, and Christian Science in particular, to talk to you at length about them. These two beliefs have no particular interest for me personally and therefore I certainly am not going to stand here and tell you merely what my opinions about them are. What earthly good would that do to you? It would not do me any good, except, perhaps, that I might clarify my own ideas by trying to express to you what I have in my mind. I do not mind saying that I have rather firm convictions about these two beliefs, but they are not based so much on what the Christian Scientists or mental healers do, as on what they preach. But what of that? Those opinions are my own opinions. I am entitled to them. You may have other opinions. You are entitled to them.
So you see I cannot answer for what attitude other theosophists may take or have with regard to these two beliefs. They are entitled to assume any attitude towards Christian Science and mental healing. My own attitude therefore is briefly this:
If these good people are sincere, are kindly, do what they believe to be their duty in a spirit of fraternal goodwill towards their fellow men, I do not care a snap of the fingers what their philosophical or religious beliefs may be. Those beliefs do not personally concern me. It is precisely opinions which separate men, which keep men asunder from their fellow men. I do not want to emphasize opinions. Contrariwise, I want to call you together on common grounds of truth. I seek the points of contact and union, not the points of disunion and discord.
I hate hate, and I love love. I read with disgust attacks by any man on the religious or philosophical feelings of some other man. Nevertheless, this does not prevent me from having very definite and convinced feelings and opinions of my own. But I know something of human nature and I will not allow my opinions to crystallize unless I happen to know that I am right; and then I am not easily moved.
There is much of good in Christian Science and in mental healing on the following point (and I think it is fine), that their followers have helped to bring into the world an idea new to the Occident, but a very ancient idea, regarding the illusory nature of this so-called dense, material world. That idea, which is one of our theosophical teachings, has helped theosophists enormously. Our teaching is that the whole physical world is illusory. It is also the teaching of ultramodern science. But when we say illusory, we do not mean nonexistent; we merely mean that the average human being does not understand what it really is; but as we in our bodies are also composed of physical substance, therefore we in our bodies are illusory in the same way.
These mental healers and Christian Scientists have also helped to give men courage. Personally I would seek courage along some other path, and I think a far higher and nobler path; but these kindly-hearted people have found this their own path; they have comfort in walking that path; and do you think that I would throw one particle of mud or say one word that would hurt a kindly heart? Never!
My attitude, therefore, towards mental healing and Christian Science is simply one of kindliness and goodwill; and of particular kindliness and especial goodwill where Christian Science and mental healing meet, contact, our own majestic theosophical philosophy. I cannot say what other theosophists think; and that is not my affair at all. In our Society we have members of all religious beliefs, I suppose, and Fellows who believe in no religion at all except theosophy, which is Religion per se — the very heart of religion — without dogmas, without crippling mental or spiritual bonds.
Question Two:
"What is the theosophic distinction between physics and metaphysics?"
This question is a bit vague. However, I think that I have the questioner's idea, and my answer is that fundamentally I think that there is no difference at all. Fundamentally I see no difference whatever. From the standpoint of a mere category, yes, certainly. Physics are the things which deal with the material universe. Metaphysics are supposed to be the things which deal with the spheres unseen. There is the formal, categorical, distinction; but do not cheat yourselves with words nor with categories. Our theosophical teaching is that the visible world is naught but the expression of the invisible: that the visible physical world is rooted in the invisible, and merely expresses the powers, energies, forces, pouring out of, so to say, the invisible spheres, and expressing themselves in these physical realms.
Therefore, fundamentally there is no distinction at all, because physics is merely an expression of the operation of metaphysical laws and substances; and, as always, ultramodern science is now beginning to teach precisely the same Theosophical truth — is now beginning to declare that universal nature, exteriorly and interiorly, visibly and invisibly, is builded throughout upon an identically similar, structural plan, as I have just pointed out.
I think it was on last Sunday, or on the Sunday before, that I read to you an extract from some eminent English scientific writer, in which he pointed out that physics, from having been formerly believed to be based upon tangible, material, and very concrete physical realities, is now discovered to be, and held to be, founded entirely upon intangibles, immaterials, and invisible foundations. The fact is, our science is becoming mystical. It is beginning to become spiritual. It is beginning to realize that the things of the external, physical world which scientists are now studying are but the expressions on this plane of the energies and powers inherent in the worlds invisible; and it is really these invisible spheres which compose ninety percent of the universe.
Our physical sphere, so to speak, is just one narrow crosssection, like a line, like a plane, dividing an apple into halves, and the superior and the inferior spheres may be represented by the two halves of the apple. Matter is but concreted forces, crystallized forces. You can put it in the inverse way if you like, and say that force or energy is but etherealized physical substance; but theosophists prefer the former way of speaking. We think that it is a truer way by which to express the natural fact.
Therefore matter and energy or force are one. Fundamentally spirit and substance are one, and that is precisely why spirit or force can control substance, matter. Spirit is the superior pole of which physical matter is the nether pole. All things begin in spirit as energies, and return to spirit at the great consummation of evolution, the end of the manvantaric cycle as theosophists say, or cosmic life period of any universe, after which ensues a period of rest, and then a new universe, the child of its predecessor. The karma, or child, or consequence, of the last universe begins a new course of evolution.
So the distinction, from the theosophical standpoint, between physics and metaphysics, is merely one of form, of human category, but in natural being there is no difference whatsoever. It is impossible to understand the smallest physical act, unless you explain it, and you can only understand it by putting it on a metaphysical foundation. Otherwise you cannot do it; and the scientists are all beginning to realize that now. The materialism of our fathers and grandfathers is as dead as a corpse.
Here is an interesting question: it begins with two quotations:
"'If men were as faithful as dogs.'
"'Believe me, friends, a dog understands the language of the soul.'
"Question: Do dogs reincarnate?"
Why not? Why not? I ask. How is it they are here — not only dogs, but all the other ranges of the beasts and of the plants? What produces the variety, the diversity, the heterogeneity, in the universe? Chance? What is chance? When a man does not know how to explain a thing, he says: it is chance. There is no chance. Nature is governed and ruled by inflexible and ineluctable law from beginning to end, and throughout the eternities; and therefore everything that is was caused, and anyone of you who knows anything of a beast, especially our household pets, knows that the animals have the beginnings of individuality, the beginnings of character: that two dogs are not alike any more than two trees are alike over the entire forests of trees of the world. The variety, the diversity, the heterogeneity in nature of which I have just spoken, is simply the consequence or resultant of the hosts, multitudes, armies, hierarchies, of evolving beings which infill the universe and indeed of which the very universe itself is builded. And these express themselves even on our physical plane in the vast and bewildering medley of diversity and variety around us.
Of course dogs reincarnate, just as much as human beings do. The dog is an involved expression — and so is any other beast, so is any plant — an involved expression of pent-up energies, fundamentally spiritual at their core, attempting to self-express themselves outwardly. What brings the oak out of the heart of the acorn? Chance? What is chance?
Of course animals reincarnate, just as human beings do, in the broad and general way of looking at the wonderful operation of the natural law of rebirth. But not exactly as human beings do, simply because human beings are more evolved than are the beasts.
Now, what I have just said contains no contradiction. I will try to explain more accurately what I mean. A man is more evolved than a dog is, or than a horse or a pig or a cow, or a rose or any other plant. But will you tell me, please — and if you know, you will tell me — in what is a human being so vastly superior to a dog? I mean fundamentally. I have just said that a man is more evolved. Of course he is. He is like a god to the beasts. But essentially, in the core of each, there is no difference whatsoever between human flesh and the wood of this platform, or the flesh of the beasts. They are formed more or less of the same chemical elements, and are all rooted in the same universe.
What, then, is the difference between a man and a dog? A man has evolved, brought forth, from within himself, more or less of the divine splendor locked up within, of which I spoke when I began talking to you this afternoon: in other words, of the inner god: of that divinity within which it is human destiny to express in ever greater fullness as time goes on. The dog is but poorly, slightly, an expression of the locked-up monadic essence, as theosophists say, within or above. But these words above and within, of course, are human words, and are merely attempts to delineate somewhat of the location of consciousness.
Theosophists say that the beasts in far distant aeons will become men. But do we mean this in the Darwinian sense: that the bodies of the beasts are going to turn into human bodies? WE DO NOT! ! ! We mean that the life-essence, the inner power, the inner bundle of energies, will expand more and more as time goes on, throwing out from within the latent powers of the inner splendor, and that as this is done in ever greater measure, so the dog, slowly, slowly passes out of doghood, as it were, into something higher; passes slowly out of this something higher into something still more perfect, and so on until finally this inner urge of the reincarnating bundle of energies, of this consciousness-center, manifests its inner powers sufficiently to show forth and to express in human form, the human aspect of the spiritual monad. Please think it over.
Every atom in my body is a learning thing, low in the evolutionary scale at present, but nevertheless the expression of an inner flame, the expression of an inner consciousness and of a will, which slowly, through the ages, casts off house of life after house of life, merely in order to enter into higher mansions of existence.
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
"The Chambered Nautilus" of Oliver Wendell Holmes expresses a sublime truth.
No, it is not the dog body that becomes a man; it is not the ape body that becomes a man. On the other hand, there is not a drop of simian or ape blood in the human body, not one drop. I have explained all this before, and shown what our theosophical teaching of evolution is, in another course of lectures delivered by me a couple or so of years ago under the title Theosophy and Modern Science, and these lectures have just recently been printed in book form.
Nevertheless, the apes and dogs and other beasts will ultimately evolve into humanity, but not the bodies of them. The bodies will die out, just as our human physical bodies will die out, and then we human beings shall be incarnated in bodies of more truly human dignity and beauty, manifesting in larger measure and power the splendor of the god within. I tell you somewhat of what you are within, and of what you have locked up within you — unspeakable beauty, involved, undeveloped powers and faculties as yet, of which you may dream perchance: and these dreams are unconscious prognostications of what the future will bring forth; they are intuitions, intimations, of what the human race will in future become.
We are not Darwinists, but we are evolutionists through and through and through, in the sense that I have just explained — a god within, seeking through the ages ever more and more to express its transcendent powers, unrolling, unwrapping, unfolding, what is locked up within itself. Theosophical evolution, that is, closely follows the Latin meaning of evolvere," to roll out," to unfold. Thus are we evolutionists. Thus does the acorn bring forth the oak. Thus does the microscopic human life-germ bring forth the human babe which grows into the six-foot man, bringing forth what is within; for evolution is growth.
A friend this morning sent in to me a newspaper clipping. It is taken from a paper that I have never heard of: The Bible Crusader, which, I believe, is a champion of so-called Christian Fundamentalism; and this little clipping I will read to you. It will illustrate neatly but perhaps rather feebly, what I have been talking about. The clipping is a poem and is entitled: "An Ode to a Fly."
Don't be discouraged, poor little fly,
You'll be a chipmunk by and by;
Ages later, I can see,
You'll be a full-grown chimpanzee.
Next I see, with a prophet's ken,
You'll take a place in the ranks of men;
And then, in the great sweet by and by —
Why should I swat you, dear little fly? —
We'll be angels, you and I —
Prospective chum of my home on high,
This is what Darwin says — not I.
But, you know, Darwin did not say that! It is amazing to hear anyone talk of Darwin saying that a fly would evolve into being an angel. But, do you know, this little "Ode to a Fly" exemplifies very neatly what might be called the theosophical teaching of evolution — if you understand how to read it! If the idea is that the body of the fly slowly changes until it becomes a chimpanzee, then we say, No. But if the meaning is, as I like to construe it, that that tiny spark of animate existence which in the present body we call a fly — that spark, that spark of life and growing being — slowly through the ages becomes brighter and brighter as the inner powers and faculties unroll and express themselves as it passes up the rungs of the ladder of life until manhood is reached, when the inner god begins to show itself: then we can sing this "Ode to a Fly," and know just what it means. "We shall be angels by and by. Why should I swat you, little fly?"
Yes, dogs reincarnate, and so do flies, and so do we. We are all growing; everything that is, shares in the universal life. We are all united together, every one of us. There are no real inner barriers, no spiritual gulfs, between any two of the families of living beings. The same chemical elements compose the bodies of all of us. The same psychical atoms compose the intermediate nature of all of us. The same spiritual monad which is the core of you, the inner god, is likewise the spiritual kin of another monad which is the core, the fountainhead, of that little spark of animate existence.
Please do not understand me to mean that this divine thing is incarnated in the body of a fly or of a dog. That is ludicrous, that is not what I mean. I mean that even a little fly, even a dog, even a plant, is rooted in the divine, just as much as a human being is, just as much as the highest god in highest heaven is. Only, the human being expresses that divinity much more and much better than the beast; and the god expresses that divine flame of intelligence and consciousness and will better than do we poor, imperfect, human beings.
"To what far country does persistent self-preferment lead?"
Where do you think selfishness leads to? I can tell you: Consistent, persistent, unending pursuit of self-preferment leads to the far-distant lands, in the "mystic West," of forgotten hopes, of abandoned faculties and powers. It is the far-distant land of unhappiness and of decay.
There is one thing that nature will not tolerate for long, and that is persistent self-preferment to the detriment of others, for the very heart of nature is harmony, the very fabric and structure of the Universe is coordination and cooperation, spiritual union; and the human being who seeks self-preferment unremittingly, without surcease, ends in that far-distant country of the Mystic West, the land of forgotten hopes, the land of spiritual decay; for nature will have none of him for long. He has set his puny, undeveloped will against the mighty currents of the cosmos, and sooner or later he is washed on to some sandbank of the river of life, where he decays.
Nature demands of all human beings cooperation, brotherhood, kindly feeling, love, self-forgetfulness, working for others. What would happen if a brick in a brick wall suddenly took it into its head (if it could, and had a head!) to try to become the whole wall? Pretty soon you would see a mason coming along, and that brick would not remain there long. That is the idea. Nature will not tolerate persistent and inveterate selfishness.
Look at our bodies. Look at a tree. Each is builded up of hosts of minor things, of minor entities, all working together, and composing one thing, in which they all live and move and have their being, and therein they partake of the common life. The universe is founded in harmony, the heart of it is love, for love and harmony are two aspects of the same thing. Selfishness is shriveling, it means cold, it means the opposite of the expansive, warm power of love. The selfish man or woman always, sooner or later, goes to the wall. The wicked may flourish like the green bay tree for a little while, but not for long. And oh, how much nobler it is, how much grander it is, for men to feel their common kinship with each other, to feel almighty love stirring in the heart, to sense the feeling of our common brotherhood, and to live to benefit mankind — all this is sublime. Therein lie peace, evolution — unwrapping, unrolling, — happiness, devotion, friendship; and above everything else perhaps, that sense of inner self-respect which comes to a man when he realizes that he has lived his best.
The heart of each one of you is a divine being. This divine being is trying all the time to express itself better and ever better through your emotional and mental intermediate nature, which you call your human soul. Why not open the portals of your human selfhood to the rays from the divine sun within, and live, live like grand men? It is easier by far than to live a narrow, selfish, useless life.
The god within you is the core of your being. When you become fully allied with it as far as your sublimated human nature will allow you to be, then you become a man-god, walking the earth. You become a Christ, a Buddha. This essential divinity is in you, in every one of you.