3. THE DEITY
When we lay down the existence of God as the first and greatest of our principles, it becomes necessary for us to define the sense in which we employ that much abused, yet mighty word. We try to redeem it from the narrow limits imposed on it by the ignorance of undeveloped men, and to restore to it the splendid conception – splendid, though so infinitely below the reality – given to it by the founders of religions. And we distinguish between God as the Infinite Existence, and the manifestation of this Supreme Existence as a revealed God, evolving and guiding our part of the universe.
Only to this limited manifestation should the term “a personal God” be applied. God in Himself is beyond the bounds of the personality, is “in all and through all”, and indeed is all; and of the Infinite, the Absolute, the All, we can only say “He is”.
For all practical purposes we need not go further than that marvellous and glorious manifestation of Him (a little less entirely beyond our comprehension) the great Guiding Force or deity of our own solar system, whom philosophers have called the Logos. Of Him is true all that we have ever heard predicted of God – all that is good, that is – not the blasphemous conceptions sometimes put forward, ascribing to Him human vices.
But all that has ever been said of the love, the wisdom, the power the patience and compassion, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the omnipotence –all of this, and much more, is true of the Logos of our system. Verily “in Him we live and move and have our being” [Acts, 17:28], not as a poetical expression, but (strange as it may seem ) as a definite scientific fact; and so when we speak of the deity our first thought is naturally of the Logos.
We do not vaguely hope that He may be; we do not even believe as a matter of faith that He is; we simply know it as we know that the sun shines, for to the trained and developed clairvoyant investigator this Mighty existence is a definite certainty.
Not that any merely human development can enable us directly to see Him, but that unmistakable evidence of His action and His purpose surrounds us on every side as we study the life of the unseen world, which is in reality only the higher part of this.
Here we meet the explanation of a dogma which is common to all religions – that of the Trinity. Incomprehensible as many of the statements made on this subject in our creeds may seem to the ordinary reader, they become significant and luminous when the truth is understood.
As He shows Himself to us in His work, the Solar Logos is undoubtedly triple – three yet one, as religion has long ago told us; and as much of the explanation of this apparent mystery as the intellect of man at its present stage can grasp will be found in the books presently to be mentioned.
That He is within us as well as without us, or, in other words, that man himself is in essence divine, is another great truth which, though those who are blind to all but the outer and lower world may still argue about it, is an absolute certainty to the student of the higher side of life.
Of the constitution of man’s soul and its various vehicles we shall speak under the heading of the second of truths; suffice it for the moment to note that the inherent divinity is a fact, and that in it resides the assurance of the ultimate return of every human being to the divine level.
The Divine Scheme
Perhaps none of our postulates will present greater difficulty to the average mind than the first corollary to the first great truth. Looking round us in daily life we see so much of the storm and stress, the sorrow and suffering, so much that looks like the triumph of evil over good, that it seems almost impossible to suppose that all this apparent confusion is in reality part of an ordered process.
Yet this is the truth, and can be seen to be the truth so soon as we escape from the dust-cloud raised by the struggle in the outer world, and look upon it all from the vantage ground of the fuller knowledge and the inner peace.
Then the real motion of the complex machinery becomes apparent. Then it is seen that what have seemed to be countercurrents of evil prevailing against the stream of progress are merely trifling eddies into which for the moment a little water may turn aside, or tiny whirlpools on the surface, in which part of the water appears for the moment to be running backwards.
But all the time the mighty river is sweeping steadily on its appointed course, bearing the superficial whirlpools along with it. Just so the great stream of evolution is moving evenly on its way, and what seems to us so terrible a tempest is the merest ruffling of its surface.
Truly, as our third great truth tells us, absolute justice is meted out to all, and so, in whatever circumstances a man finds himself, he knows that he himself and none other has provided them; but he may also know much more than this. He may rest assured that under the action of evolutionary law matters are so arranged as to give him the best possible opportunity for developing within himself those qualities which he most needs.
His circumstances are by no means necessarily those that he would have chosen for himself, but they are exactly what he deserved; and subject only to that consideration of his deserts ( which frequently impose serious limitations), they are those best adapted for his progress.
They may provide him with all sorts of difficulties, but these are offered only in order that he may learn to surmount them, and thereby develop within himself courage, determination, patience, perseverance, or whatever other quality he may lack.
Men often speak as though the forces of nature were conspiring against them, whereas as a matter of fact, if they would but understand it, everything about them is carefully calculated to assist them on their upward way.
That, since there is a Divine scheme, it is man’s part to try and understand it, is a proposition which surely needs no argument. Even were it only from motives of self-interest, those who have to live under a certain set of conditions would do well to familiarise themselves with them; and when a man’s objects in life become altruistic it is still more necessary for him to comprehend, in order that he may help the more effectually.
It is undoubtedly part of this plan for man’s evolution that he himself should intelligently co-operate in it as soon as he has developed sufficient intelligence to grasp it and sufficient good feeling to wish to aid. But indeed this Divine scheme is so wonderful and so beautiful that, when once a man sees it, nothing else is possible for him than to throw all his energies into the effort to become a worker in it, no matter how humble may be the part which he has to sustain.
For fuller information on the subjects of this chapter the reader is referred to Mrs. Besant’s Esoteric Christianity and Ancient Wisdom, and to my own little book on The Christian Creed. Much light is also thrown on these conceptions from the Greek standpoint in Mr. G.R.S. Mead’s Orpheus, and from the Gnostic-Christian in his fragments Fragments of a Faith Forgotten.
I know, as my life grows older
And mine eyes have clearer sight,
That under each rank wrong somewhere
There lies the root of right;
That each sorrow has its purpose,
By the sorrowing oft unguessed;
That, as sure as the sun brings morning,
Whatever is, is best.
I know that each sinful action,
As sure as the night brings shade,
Is somewhere, some time punished,
Though the hour be long delayed.
I know that the soul is aided
Sometimes by the heart’s unrest,
And to grow means oft to suffer;
But whatever is, is best.
I know that there are no errors
In the great eternal plan,
And all things work together
For the final good of man.
And I know when my soul speeds onward
In its grand eternal quest
I shall say, as I look back earthward,
Whatever is, is best.
[The above appeared anonymously in an American newspaper.]