He does not regard greatness to be in him but only behind him. Neither vain
ambition nor false egoism can deceive him about the inner reality of his
psychological situation. He understands and feels that a power not his own and
not human is using him as its human instrument, that a larger mind is
overshadowing his ego.
THEIR MEETING AND INTERCHANGE
God is in Man
1
"The God in the sun is the 'I' in me" - this put
tersely is the essence of man's relationship to divinity. A whole book may be
needed to explain it, a whole lifetime to get direct experience of its truth as
insight.
2
We see plenty of evidence that the universe is not
mindless, and therefore that there is a Universal Mind related to it - that is
to say, related to us, who are parts of the whole.
3
It might well be said that I am connected with God
on the one hand, with the world on the other hand, but both connections are
highly ingenious inventions. God is literally in me. His "I" makes my "I"
possible. My own sense of being is immersed in God's archetypal thought.
4
The individual mind not only exists within the
World-Mind, it is born of the World-Mind.
5
Jesus' use of the metaphor, the Son and the Father,
was intended to point out that man, in his inner self, was born of, and is still
in relation to, the Higher power, God.
6
The innermost being of man and the cosmos is ever at
rest, and single. The incarnate being of both is ever in movement, and dual. The
inner is the Real, Changeless; the other is the Appearance, and subject to the
play of two opposed but interpenetrating active forces. Because it is the
quintessence of consciousness and intelligence, I call the first Mind. It is
without shape, infinite and untouchable by man, but because it is,
universes are able to appear, expand, disintegrate, and reincarnate. This
activity is directly due to the agency of the first entity to appear, which I
call World-Mind. From the latter flows ceaselessly the energy which is at the
heart of every atom, the life-force which is at the heart of every man.
World-Mind and Mind are for us the twin sides - a crude but simple,
understandable metaphor - of God. The human being draws breath, exists, and
thinks with awareness only because of this relationship. If he declares himself
an atheist, sees himself only as an animal, rejects any divine basis to his
mind, he testifies thereby to a failure on his own part: he has failed to seek
and find, or because of prejudice - that is, of prejudgement - has sought
wrongly. Jesus gave two helps in this matter: seek the kingdom of heaven
first, and seek it within. It is open to anyone to test this truth
that he is related to God. But if he does not bring certain qualities into the
work, such as patience and humility, the going may be too hard, the result
disappointing.
7
Something of that Mind is in us, as a parent has
left some legacy in the child, but at the same time we are also in that Mind.
8
Gospel of John, chapter 17, verse 21: "As thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee."
9
An ever-active Mind within an ever-still Mind - that
is the real truth, not only about God but also about man.
10
The World-Mind reproduces something of itself in
each individual entity we call the Soul, or Overself.
11
The soul in man, the Overself, is linked with, or
rooted in, the soul in the universe, the World-Mind.(P)
12
The Infinite Mind is centered within its finited
expression, the human ego.
13
Because we have all - yes! sinners as well as
saints - come forth from the divine substance in our bodies and from the divine
mind in our entities, there is something god-like in each of us.
14
How can a man escape from the World-Mind since he
is indissolubly united with it? Through the Overself he is a very part of it,
his consciousness could not work without it.
15
The Godlike deepest Self in us knows and feels on
its own level; therefore the intellect's reasonings and the aesthetic feelings
are reflections on a lower level of spiritual activities.
16
So many human sufferings are the consequences of
human errors, and so many of these errors arise from human ignorance. The
supreme ignorance of all which leads to the greatest sins and sufferings is that
he does not know he is an individualized part of a greater consciousness.
Although this consciousness shines through his ego it is apart from the ego, for
it stands in its own right and exists as an entity by itself. It is this
consciousness which enables a man to act and think in the physical body and it
is his diviner part. Blinded by the error of materialism, he identifies it with
the body itself.
17
The self of every creature is divine Being, the
ultimate Consciousness, but only when evolution brings it to the human level
does it have the possibility of discovering this fact.
18
It is true that the mind makes its own world of
experience, but it is not true that it makes it by itself; for behind the
individual mind is the Cosmic Mind.
19
If the world is but an idea there must be a mind
which conceived it. Although my individual mind has so largely contributed to
its making, it has not contributed to its original conception. Such a mind must
be an undivided universal one in which my own is rooted. It must indeed be what
men commonly call God.
20
Thus the World-Mind originates our experience for
us but we ourselves mold it. It supplies the karmic-forces material and we as
individuals supply the space-time shape which this material takes. Thus there is
a union of the individual with the universal.
21
Whether we think of this mysterious origin as
manifesting itself in waves of energy or in particles of the same force, it is
and must be there for the deeply reflective atomic scientist. Whether we think
of it as God, the Creative Universal Mind, or as God the inaccessible
all-transcending Mind remote from human communion, it is and must be there for
the intuitive. But in both cases this entire universe is but a thought in the
Universal Mind. Every object and every creature is simultaneously included in
this thought: therefore every human being too. Through this relationship it is
possible for a man to attain some kind of communion with IT. This is what the
quest is all about.
22
The ultimate Knower is supra-personal, divine pure
consciousness, the knowing and understanding Self, Saint Thomas Aquinas' "God
Himself who is the Soul's Creator and only Beatitude." All this is higher than
the ego, the person, the individuality, the man himself.
23
The omnipresence of the Infinite Mind carries
great meaning for us individually. For it signifies that this Mind is not less
present and not less active in us too.
24
The World-Mind cannot be separated from any point
of the world. It is present in every point, every creature, now, at this very
moment. There is no need for anyone to think himself cut off or apart or remote
from this divine source of his being. This is just as true in his sorrowful
hours as in his joyful ones.
25
It is because the World-Mind supports man, gives
him consciousness and energy, that he is a sharer in divine existence.
26
If there were any part of the universe, or any
thing in the universe, or any creature in the universe without God in its
essence, then the universe could not have been manifested by God. The essential
self of man must be divine.
27
Wang Yang-ming's disciples often remarked, "The
streets are full of enlightened men!" By this they reiterated their Master's
teaching that all men have the possibility of attaining enlightenment because
all have the divine self hidden under their egoism.
28
Each of us is linked with that Being, the Mover of
all this moving universe. This link must be brought into our field of awareness.
There lies the highest fulfilment of our lives.
29
The individual consciousness is not alone. It is
fathered by a universal consciousness. Between the two there is this link. To
awaken one day and discover (in several cases, rediscover) it will be a man's
most satisfying experience.
30
The World-Mind is omnipresent. There is a point
where every man touches it. When he attains awareness of this point, he is at
last attending the true Holy Communion service.
31
The little centre of consciousness that is myself
rests in and lives by the infinite ocean of consciousness that is God. The first
momentary discovery of this relationship constitutes a genuine religious
experience, and its expansion into a final, full disclosure constitutes a
philosophic one.
32
If God is everywhere, as He must be, then He is in
man too. This fact makes possible his discovery, under certain conditions, of a
diviner element in his being which is ordinarily obscured.
33
In the end, no man can miss being in the presence
of, or confronted by, the divine power. It is a fact which, whether he accepts
or denies the idea of its existence, he must one day reckon with. This is
because he has never really been separated from it, never been aware of any
thing or thought except by virtue of consciousness derived from it.
34
What we know through the senses as forms points to
the existence of the mind. What we know through the intellect as thoughts points
to the mind. What does the individual mind itself point to? We can find the
answer by plunging deep into its core, deeper and ever deeper in the practice of
contemplation until we come to its ultimate source. There, where the world
vanishes and the ego is stilled, we become one with the infinite and eternal
Mind behind the universe.
35
Ordinarily man cannot directly penetrate that
layer of the mind which is continuous with, and contiguous to, the Overself. But
during the deepest state of meditation he may do so.
36
The human mind, finite and limited though it be,
can become an inlet to the universal Mind. Such a happening is attended by
blissful yet tranquil feelings. This little being that is me merges into
larger consciousness that is pure infinite Being - until the body calls
me back.
37
There is something deeper than our ordinary
thoughts and feelings, something that is our inmost essential self. It is the
soul. It is here, if we can reach to it, that we may meet in fellowship with the
Divine. Through it the World-Mind reveals something of its own mysterious
nature.
38
He has come far when he has come to feel
not only that divinity truly is but also that it is as near as his own being.
39
He discovers that Consciousness, the very nature
of mind under all its aspects, the very essence of be-ing under the personal
selfhood, is where man and God finally meet. He knows that God indisputably
exists, not because some religious dogma avers it but because his own experience
proves it.
40
There is a vital and definite connection between
every man's mind and the Universal Mind, between his individual existence and
Its existence. Because of this connection he is called upon to worship It to
commune with It and to love It.
41
Only as a result of being liberated from himself,
taken out of himself, can he find the universal being.
42
The illuminated men of earlier generations, who
usually appeared at the beginning of each historical epoch and from whose ranks
the great social lawgivers and religion-founders were drawn, had no personal
master for none was available at the time. Who taught them? It was none other
than the World-Mind, operating directly through each man's Overself and within
his human consciousness. Whoever is unable to find an outward master in our own
times may still find, when he has worked on himself sufficiently to be ready for
it, this same direct inward help (grace) from the World-Mind if he turns to that
Mind.
43
Through the power of the God within the seeker can
be led to a higher truth, or what the Greek thinkers called the Logos can
help him to find for himself.
44
If he refuses to seek and cling to the human
personality of any master but resolves to keep all the strength of his devotion
for the divine impersonal Self back of his own, that will not bar his further
progress. It, too, is a way whereby the goal can be successfully reached. But it
is a harder way.
45
Socrates got his wisdom from within himself. He
had no master.
46
The teachings of Jesus were not based on any of
the ancient doctrines - that is, those of the Jews, Egyptians, or Indians. They
were entirely Self-inspired.
47
The human mind is fortunate in this, that it has a
connection with the Divine Mind. It can become his spiritual teacher and moral
guide. But he must be careful: first, not to mix his own opinion with what he
receives; second, and not less but more important, to put himself through a
preparatory and purificatory discipline to make the connection vitalized.
48
After all, it is the Overself which was the real
Teacher of all the teachers themselves.
49
No geographical limits ought to be set for the
sources whence a man draws spiritual sustenance. Why exclude other lands and
remain shut in with India alone? Nor should any temporal limits be set for it.
Why exclude the modern world and remain shut in with the ancient one alone?
Enlightened individuals have been born all through history, have contributed
their ideas beliefs experiences and revelations, and all through the social
scales. This is so, must be so, because Truth, Reality, Goodness, and Beauty, in
their best sense, are in the end got from within.
50
God is in your very being. To know him as
something apart or far-away in time and distance or as an object outside
yourself, separate from you - that is not the Way - impossible. Jesus gave away
the secret: he is within you.
51
It is surprising how widely people have ignored
Jesus' message ("The kingdom of heaven is within you") when its meaning is so
clear, its phrasing so strong.
52
If a man lives in harmony with the divine
World-Idea, he may also live in trust that he will receive that which belongs to
him. This will be brought about either by guiding him to it or guiding it to
him.
53
"All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine."
That which you need is yours now - if only you could raise yourself to the
recognition of your true relation to your Overself.
54
Emerson: "The heart, which abandons itself to the
Supreme Mind, finds itself related to all its works, and will travel a royal
road to particular knowledges and powers . . ."
55
We may dwell in mystical inner fellowship with God
but we may not become as God. Those who proclaim such false self-deification
needlessly make a grotesquely exaggerated statement of what is already by itself
a sufficiently tremendous truth.
56
It would be a grave error to believe that when
philosophy says that the divine dwells in everything, it dwells equally in
everything.
57
Man is not God. Yet he can approach God so
intimately, be suffused by His presence so completely, that the first mystics to
call this state "union with God" may be excused. The telepathic closeness which
sometimes exists between two separated lovers, relatives, or friends is a slight
hint of the telepathic closeness which exists between the harmonized human ego
and its divine soul.
58
In my alleged claim that every human being can
develop the divinity within himself, I do not mean that we poor mortals can ever
rise to the stature of the Almighty, and I completely concur with the warning of
Baha'u'llah against man's attempting to "join partners with God." I mean only
that we have within us something that is linked with and related to God: it is
our higher self, the discovery of and union with which represents the limit of
our possible attainment.
59
If it is wiser and humbler to leave some mystery
at the bottom of all our intellectual understanding of life than to indulge in
self-deceiving finality about it, then it is no less wiser and humbler to
acknowledge the ultimate mystery at the heart of all our immediate mystical
experience of life. The mystic's claim to know God when he knows only the
deepest part of his own self, is his particular kind of vanity. Whatever
terminous and transcendental consciousness he may discover there, something ever
remains beyond it lost in utter inscrutability. The World-Mind is impenetrable
by human power. This agnostic conclusion does not, however, touch the validity
of the mystic's more legitimate claim, that the human soul is knowable
and that an unshakeable union with it is attainable.
60
The mystic may indeed feel the very stuff of God
in his rapture but this does not supply him with the whole content of God's
knowledge. If therefore he claims not only to be one with God but also to be one
with God's entire consciousness, it is sheer presumption.(P)
61
The mystical union with God can never be a union
of nature and substances, can never achieve a complete identity of the atom with
the Infinite.
62
What is possible of achievement is, to speak in
terms of spatial symbolism which is the only satisfactory way of treating such a
transcendental subject, to unite with a single point within the
immeasurable infinity of God.
63
Anon: "Ruysbroeck gives a description of the
Beghards, which corresponds generally with that of the Papal Bull. He divides
them into four classes, and accuses them all of the fundamental error making
man's unity with God to be a unity of nature and not of Grace. The Godly
man, he admitted, is united to God, not however in virtue of his essences but by
a process of re-creation and regeneration. Ruysbroeck was obviously hide-bound
by the dictates of theology, and to that extent his mystical knowledge was
suppressed. He accused the first class of heresy against the Holy Spirit,
because they claimed a perfect identity with the Absolute, which reposes in
itself and is without act or operation. They said that they themselves were the
divine essence, above the persons of the Godhead, and in as absolute a state of
repose as if they did not at all exist; inasmuch as the Godhead itself does not
act, the Holy Spirit being the sole operative power in it. The second class were
considered heretics against the Father, because they placed themselves simply
and directly on an equality with God; contemplated the "I" as entirely one with
the divinity so that from them all things proceeded, and being themselves by
nature God, they had come into existence of their own free will. 'If I had not
so willed,' one of them said, 'neither I or any other creature would be.'"
64
Much grotesque misconception exists among the
mystics about this claim to have united with God. Not having passed through the
metaphysical discipline and consequently having only a confused notion of what
God is, they do not comprehend how exaggerated their claim is. For if they were
really united with God, they should have the power of God too. They would be
able to set up as creators of entire universes, of suns, stars, and cosmic
systems. This feat is plainly beyond them. Let us hear no more of such babble
and let them confine their strivings to realizable aims.
65
The mystic who talks vaguely of being one with God
must surely know that the experience has not put him in personal management of
the universe.
66
If the mystic really attains a complete identity
with the World-Mind, then all the latter's evolutionary and dissolutionary
powers and especially its all-pervading all-knowing character would become the
common property of both. But even the most fully perfected mystic has no such
powers and no such character.
67
The frontiers between God and man cannot be
obliterated although the affinity between them can be established.
68
If a man really appreciated his own finite
littleness and the higher power's sublime infinity, he would never have the
impertinence to claim the attainment of "union with God." All such talk is
irresponsible babble, the careless use of words without semantic awareness of
what is being said. No human mind can capture the One Life-Power in all its
magnitude, and its understanding of itself and its universe. All it can do is to
act as a mirror, in the deepest recesses of its own being, and in its own humble
way, of the attributes which it confers on the Absolute from its own limited
human point of view. The rest is silence.
69
Although God is inaccessible to man, man is not
inaccessible to God. (Note attached to para reads, PB: Use above as the basic
principle of Agnostic Mysticism in former class XIII.)
70
It would be sheer arrogance were it not mere
ignorance to believe that because we can go beyond the limited ego, therefore we
can go beyond the divine soul and encompass the World-Mind itself in all its
entirety.
71
No mortal may penetrate the mystery of the
ultimate mind in its own nature - which means in its static inactive being. The
Godhead is not only beyond human conception but also beyond mystic perception.
But Mind in its active dynamic state, that is, the World-Mind, and rather its
ray in us called the Overself, is within range of human perception,
communion, and even union. It is this that the mystic really finds when be
believes that he has found God.(P)
72
This condition is commonly said to be nothing less
than "union with God." What is really attained is the higher self, the ray of
the divine sun reflected in man, the immortal soul in fact - God Himself being
forever utterly beyond man's finite capacity to comprehend. However the mystical
experience is an authentic one and the conflict between interpretations does not
dissolve its authenticity.(P)
73
We exist always in utter dependence on the
Universal Mind. Man and God may meet and mingle in his periods of supreme
exaltation, he may feel the sacred presence within himself to the utmost degree,
but he does not thereby abolish all the distinctions between them absolutely.
For he arrives at the knowledge of the timeless spaceless divine infinitude
after a process of graded personal effort, whereas the World-Mind's knowledge of
itself has forever been what it was is and shall be, above all processes and
beyond all efforts.(P)
74
God, the World-Mind, knows all things in an
eternal present at once. No mystic has ever claimed, no mystic has ever dared to
claim, such total knowledge. Most mystics have, however, claimed union with God.
If this be true, then quite clearly they can have had only a fragmentary, not a
full union.
Philosophy, being more precise in its statements, avers that they have really achieved union not with God, but with something Godlike - the soul.(P)
75
It is quite inevitable for the mystic, overwhelmed
by this tremendous experience, to say "I am God!" But once he has entered
philosophy and passed through semantic discipline and cross-examined his use of
words in thinking and speech, he will know that this term "God" is too
extravagant to use in such an unqualified way. For if he means by that the
World-Mind, then he lacks Its powers and knowledge.
76
There is a type of mysticism calling for
criticism. It is uncritically pantheistic and says it is "the conception of God
in Man." An instance of this type is Al Bistami's utterance, "Beneath my cloak
there is naught else than God." Another is Al Hallaj's words, "I am the Divine
Reality." My view of this type, which may be called self-deificatory, coincides
with that of Al Ghazzali, who is no pantheist, and who teaches that there is a
spark of the Divine in man's soul and that man can know and recognize it. The
correct type may be designated as agnostic mysticism. This asserts man's
inability to unite with the Absolute, his incapacity to attain the Godhead
because it is unknowable.
77
A peril in all self-deificatory teachings is that
they so easily induce the man, who attains a degree of success with meditation
and who believes in them, to clothe himself in a disguised arrogance of the ego
and a deceptive communication or union with God. In The Spiritual Crisis of
Man, I briefly mentioned the Muhammedan mystic Al Hallaj who had fallen into
this peril. I could have added that an Egyptian master in the same Sufi Order,
Abu Al Mawahib, who lived in the fifteenth century passed the following comment
upon him: "Had Al Hallaj attained the reality of self-annihilation (fana)
and the fullness of its meaning he would have been saved from the error
he incurred through saying, 'I am He!'"
78
The Sufi term "companionship with God" is more
accurate than the Christian-Hindu "union with God."
79
Omar Khayyam's agnostic position is perfectly in
accord with philosophy's position. Both his school of Sufism and our teaching
declare the impossibility of man knowing God. We can discover only that God
exists and that the Soul exists but not go farther.
80
Agnostic Mysticism - This teaching refuses
to regard the human spirit as divine but only as having attributes that relate
it to the divine.
81
Vedantic claims which equate the self with God
lead only to moral self-deception and intellectual confusion. For a god can do
no wrong and a human loses his identity, his significance, and his spiritual
obligation to the quest if he thinks himself a god already.
82
The danger of anarchic mysticism is not only
metaphysical fallacy but also moral foolishness. For if I am God, I cannot sin,
cannot even be touched by evil.
83
The mystic who claims to have achieved absolute
identity with God is either speaking quite loosely or taking something to be God
which is not.
84
What the mystic does attain is the feeling of
being possessed by the Overself. Just as there is such a thing as demoniac
obsession, so there is such a thing as divine possession. But this does not
entitle him to proclaim himself God.
85
This claim could not arise if the word "God" had
been subjected to semantic analysis, so that he knew what he was talking about.
86
Few individuals are properly qualified to form a
correct conception of the successful mystic's experience. If in the joy of his
ecstasy he chooses to call it "the union with God," he does so because
preconceived belief leads him to expect such "union." But when scientifically
examined from inside no less than from outside - which means that the examiner
can thoroughly know what he is talking about and appraise it at its true worth
only if he has been both a practising mystic and, above all, an initiated
philosopher himself - it will be found that the ecstasy mingles personal and
emotional reaction to the awareness of the divine presence with the presence
itself.
87
Philosophy is more modest in its claim than
mysticism. It makes no arrogant claim to lead man to identify himself with God.
If the identity is a complete one, then reason alone tells us that an absurd
situation will immediately arise. If it is only a partial one, then no mystic
has ever been specific enough to tell us which part of God he has become nor
competent enough to distinguish the parts. The fact is that no man has ever done
so, no man could ever do so.
88
Those mystics who talk of becoming united with God
have fallen into the dualistic fallacy. They talk as though God were separate
and apart from themselves. The truth is that they already exist within God and
do not need to become united with Him. What they need is to become conscious of
Him - which is a different matter.
89
Man is not God, God is not man, despite all
Vedantic self-drugging; but there exists an unbreakable relation between the
two.
90
Vedanta is unsatisfying partly because it is too
jerky. It jumps abruptly from the finite and physical individual to the
ineffable and unutterable Absolute Itself. It swings from one extreme to
another. It fails to recognize that there is and must be an intermediary - the
Overself.
91
The pantheist who is so intoxicated by his
discovery of the truth that God is everywhere present and consequently in
himself too, that he goes on to the pseudo-discovery that he and God are one, is
simply a man who is too vain to acquiesce in his own limitations.
92
This danger of misinterpreting his own experience
besets the mystic at this stage. Because he feels himself to be in the presence
of Deity, he believes that he is Deity. But the finite can never contain the
Infinite. Deity transcends man.
93
The danger of men's deifying themselves afflicts
the mystic path. This mind-madness must first be frankly admitted as a danger,
for then only can it be guarded against.(P)
94
Agnostic Mysticism - The error of pantheism
is so common in the Orient only because there is a base of truth in it. It
regards a part of man as divine when it is only linked with the divine.
95
An error of mysticism which must make the
penetrative seeker turn to philosophy was the deification of man implicit in its
claim that the mystic can attain to union with God. There was some truth in this
claim but there was also some falsehood and certainly much confusion.
96
When they speak of "union with God," it would be
useful if they defined their conception of what they mean by such a union.
97
Man is but a small token of the greater Mind which
spawned him. He is but the merest hint of That which is behind him in the
present, was in the past, and shall be in the future.
98
The true explanation of mystical ecstasy is not
union with God but union with the Soul.
99
When consciousness is successfully turned in on
its own deepest state, which is serene, impersonal, and unchanging, it receives
the experience of the divine Soul, not of the Godhead. It brings us nearer to
the Godhead but does not transform us into it. We discover the divine ray
within, we do not become the sun itself.
100
The mystic attains knowledge and experience of
his own soul. This is not the same as knowledge of the ultimate Reality. The two
are akin, of course - much more closely than the little ego and the Real are
akin. But the Godhead is the Flame of which the soul is only a spark; to claim
complete union with it seems blasphemous.
101
When a man says that he has communed with God,
be he a great prophet in trance or a humble layman in prayer, the truth is that
he has really communed with something within himself which is so closely related
to God that he may perhaps be pardoned for his error. But still it is not God.
It is his soul, the Overself.
102
When he believes he is communing with God he is
actually communing with his own inner reality. The enlightenment that seems to
come from outside actually comes from inside himself.
103
In his great ecstasy he feels himself to be a
supernormal, super-powerful, and super-wise being. He is to be pardoned if he
rashly declares that he is God.
104
The human being cannot go farther in its
pilgrimage than the discovery of his own origin, his Overself.
105
The soul constitutes both the connection between
man and God and the ultimate attainment of man.
106
The best a man can hope for, in rising above the
ego and the world, is to rise into awareness of his true soul. This is valuable
enough but it is not the same as looking into God's mind or becoming united with
God's being. Those theologians who describe the mind merely show us the capacity
or quality of their speculations and imaginations. Those mystics who describe
the being, really describe their own souls.
107
The realization of the Overself enables us to
taste something of the flavour of World-Mind's life but it is only the flavour,
not the full life itself. Flint says, "Man is made in the image of God, but man
is not the measure of God."
108
His discovery of being born out of, and still
remaining rooted in, the Infinite Mind of God, is a tremendous one but it does
not make him identical with God.
109
It makes the mystic a channel only for the
cosmic mind, not one with it. He touches the cosmic and does not become entirely
transformed into it.
110
Human beings can only hope to realize the
Overself which is a ray or intermediary, but not the World-Mind itself. For the
latter is too vast and infinite and remote. Hence when mystics talk of knowing
God or feeling God, this is only partly true for they can never know or feel God
in his fullness.
111
The soul is as close as we can approach to that
Mind, but surely it is enough. For it reflects something of the Mind's nature.
This is why the seers who wrote the Hindu bible called it a "Spark of the One
Divine Flame" and the prophets who wrote the Christian bible declared it to be
"created in the image of God."
112
The finite minds which are the offspring of the
One Mind may not hope to rise in power or understanding to its attitude.
Nevertheless, because they are inseparable from it, they may find hints of both
these attributes within themselves. The Divine Essence is undiscoverable by
human sense and intellect but not by human intuition and insight.
113
We may, however, attain to partial knowledge of
the transcendent Absolute by and through its emanation in us, the higher self.
114
The Real is wholly nothing to the five senses
and wholly unthinkable to the human intellect. Therefore and to this extent only
it is also called the Unknowable. But there is a faculty latent in man which is
subtler than the senses, more penetrative than the intellect. If he succeeds in
evoking it, the Real, the unknowable, will then come within the range of his
perception, knowledge, and experience.
115
But although the Absolute in its passive state
is unknowable, the Overself as representative of its active aspect, of the
World-Mind, is knowable.
116
If the pure essence of Godhead is too
inaccessible, for man, nevertheless he has not been left bereft of all divine
communion. For there is a hidden element within himself which has emanated from
the Godhead. It is really his higher, better self, his soul.
117
The Infinite Mind is beyond human perception but
its presence and operation are not. The point in human consciousness where these
become known is the Overself.
118
But although the Absolute is imperceptible to
human powers, It has not left us utterly bereft of all means of communion. We
are linked to It by something that lies hidden in the very deeps of our own
being, by Its deputy to man, the divine Overself. Human power can penetrate to
those deeps and discover the hidden treasure.
119
This higher self is what the successful mystics
of all religions have really achieved union with, despite the widely different
names from "God" downwards, which they have given it.
120
We can not ever know the Divine which is
Transcendent but we can acknowledge that it IS. We may however know the Divine
which is Immanent, recognize, perceive, and feel its presence.
121
He may know that God is here even though he is
incapable of knowing what God is like.
122
If we cannot know the all of God because we do
not have the equipment of God, we can at least know something of God and the way
we are related through the Overself.
123
An important warning is needed here. Wherever
the idea of agnostic mysticism has been supported, the idea that there is no
possibility of knowing the Absolute and so no communication of such knowledge,
the reference is to ordinary human intellect. No positive result can come of its
investigation into that which transcends it. But what intellect unaided cannot
know, intuition - a higher faculty - can. It can discover its point of contact
with the Absolute - its higher individuality, the Overself, even though it can
go no farther and penetrate the Absolute. When intuition becomes active in this
matter, it may or may not take the shape of a mystical experience. When it is
developed by philosophic training, it expands into insight.
124
Agnosticism, the belief that we cannot know
ultimate truth, applies only to the attempts of the intellectual faculty. It
does not apply to those of the intuitive faculty. But even then limitations are
imposed upon us. No man can come to know God as God is in Himself, for that is
impossible, but all men can come to know God as He is in relation to man. This
is because the Overself is all men's contact-point with the World-Mind.
125
I am not God but rather an emanation from God. I
am still a man but there is something Godlike in the centre of my being. The
Deity is inaccessible but that centre is not.
126
When it is said that the Infinite Being cannot
be known by the finite mind it is not meant that the Infinite Being is forever
unknowable by human beings. For there is in every one of us a link between the
two, and if a man is willing to let go of his worldly concerns long enough to
find his way to that link - whether by reflection or by meditation - he will
discover that this link - intuition - can lead him into the Infinite Presence.
At that sacred moment he becomes IT because he forgets the personal self. It
exists whether he exists or not, but he exists only in dependence upon it. If
the very interesting question be asked, "How did the first man come to discover
this Presence?" I suggest that the questioner read a little book, quite a short
book called The Awakening of the Soul, written some hundreds of years ago
in Arabic and translated first by an Englishman, Edward Pococke. (Since then
there has been a better and fuller translation made by Dr. Paul Bronnle,
published in the Wisdom of the East series.) The author of the book was
called Ibn Tufail. It is in the nature of a story, a sort of Robinson Crusoe
story, but it is much more than that. I ought to mention that Pococke's
translation, made in the seventeenth century, was from the Latin into which the
Arabic itself had been translated.
127
We may draw near to the holy of Holies yet never
enter it, feel its eternal atmosphere yet never understand it.
128
God alone knows why this manifestation should
be. Even the mystic never attains God in its fullness but only that ray of God
within himself, which is the soul. Although such an attainment is imperfect in
the conventional mystic, the philosophic one can hope to attain perfection.
However, neither can cross the Overself's farthest boundary - but that is
another matter.
129
That which he finds deep within himself is, he
understands intuitively, a reflected ray from that which exists behind the whole
universe but it is still only a ray.
130
Men may know the soul but not God. They may not
see the face, or understand the nature, of the final essential reality - and
live. He who claims such experience practises self-deception and is caught in
illusion.
131
When they assert that they have united with God,
they have, if truly attained, united with God's deputy, their higher self, their
own divine soul - which is the not the same. And if they have deceived
themselves then they have united only with their conception of God. That is,
they have never gone outside the enclosing circle of their own thought.
132
The five senses cannot perceive It and the
thinking faculties cannot conceive It. It cannot be brought down to the level of
man nor can man raise himself to its height. Whoever believes that he
experiences the Absolute at any time, experiences only an imagination of his own
brain.
133
The Overself is so close to God, so akin to the
World-Mind, that no man need look farther, or aspire higher.
134
Our finite minds cannot lift more than the
smallest corner of the smallest corner of the infinite veil behind which the
Ultimate Mind eludes us.
135
No one overwhelmed by the experience of
Enlightenment has yet said the last word about Absolute Truth; for no words can
either exhaust it or even touch it.
136
No teaching can be a final complete and
exhaustive one. The universe may yield its secret but man's mind is not the
World-Mind; it cannot put into finite words what is greater than itself.
137
If a man claims to know what God is in the same
way that God knows it, he is talking nonsense, and falling into the sin of
spiritual pride. No one can penetrate this irreducible mystery except in his own
imagination, speculation, or psychic fantasy. No human effort can plumb the
depth of the ultimate power. No human being has found the truth in all its
angles, nor uttered the last word upon it.
138
Whatever knowledge a mystic may acquire through
trance or intuition, it will always be limited. The World-Mind's knowledge is
always absolute. The circumference of these two circles can never coincide.
139
The statement of high truth made by any
prophet or sage will always remain an individual interpretation - this is a
point that is too often unnoticed or unknown or unacceptable. All history
authenticates it.
140
The highest authority by which any mystic can
speak is really his higher self's. His revelation and communication cannot
therefore be valid for, or binding upon, other men. If, however, they do accept
his pronouncements as such, they do so as a venture of faith. When a mystic
takes his inner voice to be nothing less than God's, his inner experience to be
nothing else than the uttermost union with God, and then proceeds to use them as
justification for imposing his commands on other men, he is no longer a true
mystic. He has introduced an "other." He no longer touches the perfect unity of
his own innermost being but has returned to the world of duality. And because no
finite man can really become the infinite God, that "other" reduces itself to
being a figment of his imagination at best or a lying, possessing spirit at
worst.
141
Full enlightenment is not attainable, except in
the exuberant emotional fancy of over-enthused followers, for the gulf between
man and God is too deep and too wide to be crossed. But partial enlightenment is
attainable, for something godlike has been reflected into the human
being's heart.
142
But if it is impossible to become a part of God,
it is possible to become a "son of God" - that is, a man inspired and
guided by God.
143
In time his relation to the higher self becomes
more intimate than any earthly friendship, closer than any human union could
ever be. Yet it always remains a relation, never becomes an absorption; always a
nearness, never a merger.(P)
144
We never become God. We only become a channel
for part of God's light, wisdom, and power.
145
If perfect union, in the Indian sense, is not
attainable, what is attainable is the intimate presence of, and mental communion
with, God in our heart, which brings peace and truth.
146
Is a tiny spark the same as a great fire? Can it
destroy a house as a fire can? No - although the two are of the same nature,
they are not of the same identity. For any man to say "I am God" is incorrect,
unless he understands the statement to refer only to the nature of his innermost
being and only in this way, that he is but an insignificant spark of God, with
all the limitations that belong to a spark.
147
We have to find our own self before we can find
that of God's. Hence there is real need of the higher self tenet.
148
We are not entitled to aspire towards union with
the wholeness of God so long as we still have not attained union with the
godlikeness in man.
149
Agnostic Mysticism - The mystical quest
does not open the inner mysteries of God to our gaze. It opens the inner
mysteries of man. It leads him to his own divinity, not to God's.
150
Philosophy rejects decisively all those Vedantic
pantheistic notions and Western mystical naïveties which would deify man and
identify him with God. It asserts that the phrases in which these beliefs are
embodied, such as the Indian "That thou art," the Persian "I am God," and the
medieval European "union with God," are exaggerations of the truth, which is
that God is immanent in us, that through realization of our higher self we
become more like God, but that God never ceases to be the Unattainable,
the Incomprehensible.(P)
151
The individual is as inseparable from the
Infinite as the ray from the Sun. Nevertheless he differs from it in degree and
in attribute.
152
Just as a little child may be closely intimate
with its mother but not with its mother's mind, so the human being may be
closely intimate with the World-Mind but not with Its full consciousness.
153
The higher kingdoms of Nature cannot be
understood by denizens of lower ones. Just as a plant can grow but cannot move
about, just as an animal can both grow and move but cannot reflect hence cannot
enter into human consciousness, so man can grow move and reflect but cannot
enter into God's infinitely mysterious consciousness.
154
The mystic's endeavour to unite with God - much
more his claim to achieve it - is without meaning if God is the Ultimate and the
Unique. No finite limited human intelligence could ever directly communicate
with the infinite and illimitable Mystery or give and receive love from it. All
this has meaning only when the concept of the Overself is introduced.
155
The teaching of a higher individuality needs to
be correctly understood. It is not that a separate one exists for each physical
body. The consciousness which normally identifies itself with the body - that
is, the ego - when looking upward in highest devotion or inward in deepest
meditation, comes to the point of contact with universal being, World-Mind. This
point is its own higher self, the divine deputy within its own being. But if
devotion or meditation are carried still further, to the very utmost possible
stretch of consciousness, the point itself merges into its source. At this
moment the man is his source. But - "Man shall not see My face and live!" He
returns eventually to earth-consciousness, where he must follow out its
requirements. Yet the knowledge of what he is in essence remains. The
presence of the deputy is always there meanwhile, always felt. It may fittingly
be called his higher individuality.(P)
156
Being itself infinite, the World-Mind is able to
express itself in an infinite number of individual souls.
157
The uniqueness of each person, his difference
from every other person, may be metaphysically explained as due to the effort of
Infinite Mind to express itself infinitely within the finite limitation of time
and space, form and appearance.
158
Whenever I have written that the higher
individuality is a part of the divine World-Mind, this is so only from the
ordinary human standpoint looking upwards. But from the ultimate one, it is not
so, for the World-Mind is not the sum total of a number of parts. It cannot be
divided into them. This is why I prefer to use the phrase "rooted in the
World-Mind."
159
It is true that the subject in consciousness
cannot make an object of itself, cannot perceive itself, but there is in man
another self which knows the subject, is aware of the subject although the
subject is not aware of it. But there is an important difference to be noted
here. First, the transcendental self does not know in the same way that the
thinking self knows (by thinking self I mean the subject) for its knowledge is
immediate, swifter than the swiftest computing machine. Secondly, it is part of
the universal mind, the World Mind, yet mysteriously connected with a limited
human mind.
160
Union with the Overself is not the ultimate end
but a penultimate one. What we look up to as the Overself looks up in its own
turn to another and higher entity.(P)
161
An illumined being would better describe his
inner status by the phrase "God am I" than by "I am God," as his first thought
is not "I" but "THAT."
162
Agnostic Mysticism: Let us not match our
petty and limited minds against the infinite and incomprehensible World-Mind,
and let us not say with some foolish mystic that we are God. Let us say rather
what we can truly say, which is that there is something of God in us.
163
It is not for the philosopher to inflate himself
with the arrogance of such pompous self-deification. He remains always the
humble adorer, the meek suppliant.
164
It is humbly truer to admit, with Muhammed, "I
am the servant of God, I am but a man like you," than arrogantly to assert with
the Advaitin, "I am the infinite Brahman!" It is better to say modestly with
Jesus, "The father is greater than I," than to announce with the Sufi Mansur: "I
am God."
165
The declaration "I am God" is true in a certain
qualified sense but false in a literal one. The declaration "God within me" is
true in every sense.
166
Although the mystic's claim to become one with
God is, in the full sense of the term, an unquestionable exaggeration, a
splendid illusion, he can certainly claim to have entered into a conscious
relationship with God.
167
The mystic proudly declares, "I have attained
union with God." The philosopher mostly says, "I have obtained union with my
soul and to that extent drawn nearer to God."
168
The falsity of claims of
self-deification: Jami, the Sufi, very beautifully distinguishes the
doctrine of annihilation in God from that of identification with God in the
following verse:
169
Philosophy displaces the belief in Divine
Incarnations by belief in divinely inspired men. Although it refuses to deify
any man into being fully representative of the Infinite Consciousness, it
affirms that any man may approach nearer to and be uplifted by that
Consciousness.
170
God is never identified with any man, nor
incarnated in him. For God alone is uniquely the Unindividuated whereas all men
are individualized creatures. Even the highest type of man, the sage-saviour, is
a particular light, whereas God is the light itself.
171
That the Divine has descended into a holy man's
mind and heart is philosophically tenable. That the Divine has actually and
specifically incarnated in him is not.
172
The belief among Christians and Hindus that God
incarnates in human form through Christ or Krishna is not held by Muhammedans or
Buddhists. That God may use a human channel at times is more rational.
But this God is World-Mind, not the Unapproachable.
173
The popular Hindu belief that God reincarnates
himself periodically as an Avatar is a Puranic one, which means that taken
literally it is sheer superstition. If it is to be correctly understood, it must
be taken as really being an oversimplification of psychological truth for the
benefit of simple minds. Hence it is inevitably misleading if its surface
interpretation is taken to exhaust its entire significance.
174
There is a danger to truth and a fanaticism of
mind in the belief that only some one historic person, whether dead or alive,
some particular man, was or is the only true Guide, the only Sufficient Helper.
175
To say that God was more incarnate in any one
man than all others since the human race began, is to say that God was less
infinitely active at that time than at any other - which contradicts the meaning
of the word God. Such deification of any mortal is always exploited by the
vested interests of religions because it appeals to the superstitious.
176
If the Divine Essence could really subject
itself to the limitations of human existence, this could only be achieved at the
cost of impairing its own infinitude and absoluteness. But even to comprehend
the hint of a hint about it, which is all that we may hope to do, is enough to
show how utterly impossible such subjection would be. The notion that the
infinitude of Deity can be compressed and contained within a special human
organism is unphilosophical. Whether such an avatar be Krishna in India, Horus
in Egypt, or Jesus in Palestine, there has never been any ground for raising one
above the others, for the simple reason that there have never been any avatars
at all. And if the doctrine of divine incarnations is irrational, the sister
doctrine of predicted and messianic second advent is partly a wish-fulfilment
and partly a miscomprehension. If a divinely inspired being first appears
visibly in the flesh of his own body, his second appearance is invisibly in the
heart of his own worshippers.
177
The downfall of every faith began when the
worship of God as Spirit was displaced by the worship of Man as God. No visible
prophet, saint, or saviour has the right to demand that which should be offered
to the Unseen alone. It is not true reverence but ignorant blasphemy which could
believe that the unattainable Absolute has put itself into mortal human form
however beneficent the purpose may be. The idea that God can enter the flesh as
a man was originally given to most religions as a chief feature for the benefit
of the populace. It was very helpful both in their mental and in their practical
life. But it was true only on the religious level, which after all is the
elementary one. It was not quite true on the philosophical level. Those few who
were initiated into the advanced teaching were able to interpret this notion in
a mystical or metaphysical way which, whilst remote from popular comprehension,
was closer to divine actuality. They will never degrade the Godhead in their
thought of it by accepting the popular belief in personification, incarnation,
or avatarhood. It is a sign of primitive ignorance when the humanity of these
inspired men is unrecognized or even denied, when they are put on a pedestal of
special deification. The teaching that Godhead can voluntarily descend into
man's body is a misunderstanding of truth. The irony is that those who try to
displace the gross misunderstanding by the pure truth itself are called
blasphemous. The real blasphemy is to lower the infinite Godhead to being
directly an active agent in the finite world.
Nothing can contain the divine essence although everything can be and is permeated by it. No one can personify it, although every man bears its ray within him. To place a limitation upon it is to utter a blasphemy against it. The infinite Mind cannot be localized to take birth in any particular land. The absolute existence cannot be personified in a human form. The eternal Godhead cannot be identified with a special fleshly body. The inscrutable Reality has no name and address. It cannot be turned into an historical person, however exalted, with a body of bones nerves muscle and skin. To think otherwise is to think materialistically. The notion which would place the Deity as a human colossus amongst millions of human midgets and billions of lesser creatures shows little true reverence and less critical intelligence.
We must acknowledge the ever-existence of Absolute mind, even though it is incomprehensible to the senses and inconceivable to the thoughts. We must deny that it can ever manifest itself within time and space and consequently deny also that it can ever show itself under a human form. We must deny that any man is right in arrogating to himself the sole channel through whom worship must be performed, communion achieved, or belief given.
The time has come to repudiate all this foolish worship of human beings and to transfer our reverence and obedience to the pure divine Being alone. The more metaphysical comprehension we develop, the less we shall look to the person of a teacher. We shall then regard the Teaching itself as the essential thing.(P)
178
It was always a profitable game for the
priesthood of various religions to maintain superstitions like that of a chosen
race or fallacies like that of a divine incarnation.
179
This wrong idea of incarnate Godhood is,
however, not a smoke without some fire within it. For it is the corruption of a
true idea.
180
The REAL is unique and indivisible, sole and
unadulterable. It never becomes less than it is, never descends to become human,
never mixes with what is mere phenomena.
181
The theological dogma that God can take on the
nature of man constitutes a mystery beyond human understanding. It is
unintelligible and unacceptable to philosophy, which can limit God's unbounded
being to no particular place, no "here" or "there."
182
The moment we give to finite human beings that
which we should give to infinite God alone, in that moment we place earthen
idols in the sacred shrine.
183
We must not give to any individual man the
attributes of Divinity as we must not give to Divinity the attributes of
individual men.
184
There is metaphysically no such thing as a human
appearance of God, as the Infinite Mind brought down into finite flesh. This
error is taught as a sacred truth by the Bahais in their Manifestation doctrine,
by the Christians in the Incarnation doctrine, and by the Hindus in their Avatar
doctrine. God cannot be born in the flesh, cannot take a human incarnation. If
He could so confine Himself, He would cease to be God. For how could the
Perfect, the Incomprehensible, and the Inconceivable become the imperfect, the
comprehensible, and the conceivable?
Yet there is some fire behind this smoke. From time to time, someone is born predestined to give a spiritual impulse to a particular people, area, or age. He is charged with a special mission of teaching and redemption and is imbued with special power from the universal intelligence to enable him to carry it out. He must plant seeds which grow slowly into trees to carry fruit that will feed millions of unborn people. In this sense he is different from and, if you like, superior to anyone else who is also inspired by the Overself. But this difference or superiority does not alter his human status, does not make him more than a man still, however divinely used and power-charged he may be. Such a man will claim no essential superiority over other men; on the contrary, he will plainly admit that they, too, may attain the same state of inspiration which he possesses. Hence Muhammed confessed, repeatedly: "I am only a human being like unto yourselves. But revelations are made to me." And the tenth Sikh guru declared, "Those who call me the Supreme Lord, will go to hell." No human temple can receive the Infinite Essence within its confining walls. No mortal man has ever been or could ever be the Incarnation of the all-transcending Godhead. No earthly flesh or human intelligence has the right to identify itself with the unknowable principle. Only minds untrained in the metaphysics of truth could accept the contrary belief. The widespread character of this belief evidences how few have ever had such a training, and the widespread character of the corruptions and troubles which have always followed in the train of such man-worship, evidences it as a fallacy.(P)
185
To turn any man of uncommon spiritual insight
into the Deity is neither really to honour nor rightly to revere him. On the
contrary, it is to misunderstand him and blaspheme against Deity. But those who
do this do so in ignorance and are not to blame. Those alone are blameworthy who
have become their spiritual guides without having become qualified by divine
inspirations, rather than human institutions, to lead them aright.
186
Such a one is not God incarnate. He is a man
still, but a man with unusual awakening to his higher consciousness, unusual
intimacy with the Source.