The Hidden Power Part 8

The Bible lays emphatic stress upon "the glorious liberty of the sons of G.o.d," thus uniting in a single phrase the twofold idea of filial dependence and personal liberty. A careful study of the subject will show us that there is no opposition between these two ideas, but that they are necessary correlatives to each other, and that whether stated after the more concentrated method of the Bible, or after the more detailed method of the New Thought, the true teaching proclaims, not our independence of G.o.d, but our independence in G.o.d.

Such an enquiry naturally centres in an especial manner around the sayings of Jesus; for whatever may be our opinions as to the nature of the authority with which he spoke, we must all agree that a peculiar weight attaches to those utterances which have come down to us as the _ipsissima verba_ from which the entire New Testament has been developed; and if an ident.i.ty of conception in the New Thought movement can be traced here at the fountain-head, we may expect to find it in the lower streams also.

The Key to the Master's teaching is to be found in his discourse with the Woman of Samaria, and it is contained in the statement that "the Father" is Spirit, that is, Spirit in the absolute and unqualified sense of the word, as appears from the original Greek, and not "A Spirit" as it is rendered in the Authorised Version: and then as the natural correlative to "the Father" we find another term employed, "the Son."

The relation between these two forms the great subject of Jesus'

teaching, and, therefore, it is most important to have some definite idea of what he meant by these terms if we would understand what it was that he really taught.

Now if "the Father" be Spirit, "the Son" must be Spirit also; for a son must necessarily be of the same nature as his father. But since "the Father" is Spirit, Absolute and Universal, it is evident that "the Son"

cannot be Spirit, Absolute and Universal, because there cannot be two Universal Spirits, for then neither would be universal. We may, therefore, logically infer that because "the Father" is Universal Spirit, "the Son" is Spirit not universal; and the only definition of Spirit not-universal is Spirit individualised and particular. The Scripture tells us that "the Spirit is Life," and taking this as the definition of "Spirit," we find that "the Father" is Absolute, Originating, Undifferentiated Life, and "the Son" is the same Life differentiated into particular forms. Hence, in the widest sense of the expression, "the Son" stands for the whole creation, visible or invisible, and in this sense it is the mere differentiation of the universal Life into a multiplicity of particular modes. But if we have any adequate idea of the intelligent and responsive nature of Spirit[2]--if we realise that because it is Pure Being it must be Infinite Intelligence and Infinite Responsiveness--then we shall see that its reproduction in the particular admits of innumerable degrees, from mere expression as outward form up to the very fullest expression of the infinite intelligence and responsiveness that Spirit is.

[Footnote 2: _Intelligence_ and _Responsiveness_ is the Generic Nature of Spirit in _every_ Mode, and it is the _concentration_ of this into centres of consciousness that makes personality, i. e., _self_-conscious individuality.

This varies immensely in degree, from its first adumbration in the animal to its intense development in the Great Masters of Spiritual Science. Therefore it is called "The Power that Knows Itself"--It is the power of _Self_-recognition that makes _personality_, and as we grow to see that our personality is not all contained between our hat and our boots, as Walt Whitman says, but _expands_ away into the Infinite, which we then find to be _the Infinite of ourselves_, the _same_ I AM that I am, so _our personality_ expands and we become conscious of ever-increasing degrees of Life-in-ourselves.]

The teachings of Jesus were addressed to the hearts and intelligences of men, and therefore the grade of sons.h.i.+p of which he spoke has reference to the expression of Infinite Being in the human heart and intellect.

But this, again, may be conceived of in infinite degrees; in some men there is the bare potentiality of sons.h.i.+p entirely undeveloped as yet, in others the beginnings of its development, in others a fuller development, and so on, until we can suppose some supreme instance in which the absolutely perfect reproduction of the universal has been attained. Each of these stages const.i.tutes a fuller and fuller expression of sons.h.i.+p, until the supreme development reaches a point at which it can be described only as the perfect image of "the Father"; and this is the logical result of a process of steady growth from an inward principle of Life which const.i.tutes the ident.i.ty of each individual.

It is thus a necessary inference from Jesus' own explanation of "the Father" as Spirit or Infinite Being that "the Son" is the Scriptural phrase for the reproduction of Infinite Being in the individual, contemplated in that stage at which the individual does in some measure begin to recognise his ident.i.ty with his originating source, or, at any rate, where he has capacity for such a recognition, even though the actual recognition may not yet have taken place. It is very remarkable that, thus defining "the Son" on the direct statement of Jesus himself, we arrive exactly at the definition of Spirit as "that power which knows itself." In the capacity for thus recognising its ident.i.ty of nature with "the Father" is it that the potential fact of sons.h.i.+p consists, for the prodigal son was still a son even before he began to realise his relation to his "Father" in actual fact. It is the dawning of this recognition that const.i.tutes the spiritual "babe," or infant son; and by degrees this consciousness grows till he attains the full estate of spiritual manhood. This recognition by the individual of his own ident.i.ty with Universal Spirit is precisely what forms the basis of the New Thought; and thus at the outset the two systems radiate from a common centre.

But I suppose the feature of the New Thought which is the greatest stumbling-block to those who view the movement from the outside is the claim it makes for Thought-power as an active factor in the affairs of daily life. As a mere set of speculative opinions people might be willing to pigeon-hole it along with the philosophic systems of Kant or Hegel; but it is the practical element in it which causes the difficulty. It is not only a system of Thought based upon a conception of the Unity of Being, but it claims to follow out this conception to its legitimate consequences in the production of visible and tangible external results by the mere exercise of Thought-power. A ridiculous claim, a claim not to be tolerated by common sense, a trespa.s.sing upon the Divine prerogative, a claim of unparalleled audacity: thus the casual objector. But this claim is not without its parallel, for the same claim was put forward on the same ground by the Great Teacher Himself as the proper result of "the Son's" recognition of his relation to "the Father." "Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you"; "Whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive, and nothing shall be impossible unto you"; "All things are possible to him that believeth." These statements are absolutely without any note of limitation save that imposed by the seeker's want of faith in his own power to move the Infinite. This is as clear a declaration of the efficacy of mental power to produce outward and tangible results as any now made by the New Thought, and it is made on precisely the same ground, namely, the readiness of "the Father" or Spirit in the Universal to respond to the movement of Spirit in the individual.

In the Bible this movement of individualised Spirit is called "prayer,"

and it is synonymous with Thought, formulated with the intention of producing this response.

"Prayer is the heart's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed,"

and we must not let ourselves be misled by the a.s.sociation of particular forms with particular words, but should follow the sound advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and submit such words to a process of depolarisation, which brings out their real meaning. Whether we call our act "prayer" or "thought-concentration," we mean the same thing; it is the claim of the man to move the Infinite by the action of his own mind.

It may be objected, however, that this definition omits an important element of prayer, the question, namely, whether G.o.d will hear it. But this is the very element that Jesus most rigorously excludes from his description of the mental act. Prayer, according to the popular notion, is a most uncertain matter. Whether we shall be heard or not depends entirely upon another will, regarding whose action we are completely ignorant, and therefore, according to this notion, the very essence of prayer consists of utter uncertainty. Jesus' conception of prayer was the very opposite. He bids us believe that we have already in fact received what we ask for, and makes this the condition of receiving; in other words, he makes the essential factor in the mental action to consist in Absolute Certainty as to the corresponding response in the Infinite, which is exactly the condition that the New Thought lays down for the successful operation of Thought-power.

It may, however, be objected that if men have thus an indiscriminate power of projecting their thought to the accomplishment of anything they desire, they can do so for evil as easily as for good. But Jesus fully recognised this possibility, and worked the only destructive miracle recorded of him for the express purpose of emphasising the danger. The reason given by the compilers of the Gospel for the destruction of the fig-tree is clearly inadequate, for we certainly cannot suppose Jesus so unreasonable as to curse a tree for not bearing fruit out of season. But the record itself shows a very different purpose. Jesus answered the disciples' astonished questioning by telling them that it was in their own power, not only to do what was done to the fig-tree, but to produce effects upon a far grander scale; and he concludes the conversation by laying down the duty of a heart-searching forgiveness as a necessary preliminary to prayer. Why was this precept so particularly impressed in this particular connection? Obviously because the demonstration he had just given of the valency of thought-power in the hands of instructed persons laid bare the fact that this power can be used destructively as well as beneficially, and that, therefore, a thorough heart-searching for the eradication of any lurking ill-feeling became an imperative preliminary to its safe use; otherwise there was danger of noxious thought-currents being set in motion to the injury of others. The miracle of the fig-tree was an object-lesson to exhibit the need for the careful handling of that limitless power which Jesus a.s.sured his disciples existed as fully in them as in himself. I do not here attempt to go into this subject in detail, but enough has, I think, been shown to convince us that Jesus made exactly the same claim for the power of Thought as that made by the New Thought movement at the present day. It is a great claim, and it is, therefore, encouraging to find such an authority committed to the same a.s.sertion.

The general principle on which this claim is based by the exponents of the New Thought is the ident.i.ty of Spirit in the individual with spirit in the universal, and we shall find that this, also, is the basis of Jesus' teaching on the subject. He says that "the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do these things doeth the Son in like manner." It must now be sufficiently clear that "the Son" is a generic appellation, not restricted to a particular individual, but applicable to all; and this statement explains the manner of "the Son's"

working in relation to "the Father." The point this sentence particularly emphasises is that it is what he sees the Father doing that the Son does also. His doing corresponds to his seeing. If the seeing expands, the doing expands along with it. But we are all sufficiently familiar with this principle in other matters. What differentiates an Edison or a Marconi from the apprentice who knows only how to fit up an electric bell by rule of thumb? It is their capacity for seeing the universal principles of electricity and bringing them into particular application. The great painter is the one who sees the universal principles of form and colour where the smaller man sees only a particular combination; and so with the great surgeon, the great chemist, the great lawyer--in every line it is the power of insight that distinguishes the great man from the little one; it is the capacity for making wide generalisations and perceiving far-reaching laws that raises the exceptional mind above the ordinary level. The greater working always results from the greater seeing into the abstract principles from which any art or science is generated; and this same law carried up to the universal principles of Life is the law by which "the Son's" working is proportioned to his seeing the method of "the Father's" work. Thus the source of "the Son's" power lies in the contemplation of "the Father," the endeavour, that is, to realise the true nature of Being, whether in the abstract or in its generic forms of manifestation.[3]

This is Bacon's maxim, "Work as G.o.d works"; and similarly the New Thought consists before all things in the realisation of the laws of Being.

[Footnote 3: Everything depends on this principle of Reciprocity. By contemplation we come to realize the true nature of "Spirit" or "the father." We learn to disengage the _variable_ factors of particular _Modes_ from the _invariable_ factors which are the essential qualities of Spirit underlying _all_ Modes. Then when we realize these essential qualities we see that we can apply them under any mode that we will: in other words _we_ supply the _variable_ factor of the combination by the action of our Thought, as Desire or Will, and thus combine it with the _invariable_ factor or "constant" of the _essential_ law of spirit, thus producing what result we will. This is just what we do in respect to physical nature--e. g., the electrician supplies the _variable_ factor of the particular Mode of application, and the _constant_ laws of Electricity _respond_ to the nature of the invitation given to them. This _Responsiveness_ is _inherent_ in Spirit; otherwise Spirit would have no means of expansion into manifestation. Responsiveness is the principle of Spirit's Self-expression. We do not have to create responsive action on the part of electricity. We can safely take this Responsiveness for granted as pure natural law. Our desire first works on the Arupa level and thence concentrates itself through the various Rupa levels till it reaches complete external manifestation.]

And the result of the seeing is that "the Son" does the same things as "the Father" "in like manner." The Son's action is the reproduction of the universal principles in application to specific instances. The principles remain unaltered and work always in the same manner, and the office of "the Son" is to determine the particular field of their operation with regard to the specific object which he has in view; and therefore, so far as that object is concerned, the action of "the Son"

becomes the action of "the Father" also.

Again, there is no concealment on the part of "the Father." He has no secrets, for "the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth." There is perfect reciprocity between Spirit in the Universal and in Individualisation, resulting from the ident.i.ty of Being; and "the Son's" recognition of Love as the active principle of this Unity gives him an intuitive insight into all those inner workings of the Universal Life which we call the arcana of Nature. Love has a divine gift of insight which cannot be attained by intellect alone, and the old saying, "Love will find out the way," has greater depths of meaning than appear on the surface. Thus there is not only a seeing, but also a showing; and the three terms--"looking, seeing, showing"--combine to form a power of "working" to which it is impossible to a.s.sign any limit.

Here, again, the teaching of Jesus is in exact correspondence with that of the New Thought, which tells us that limitations exist only where we ourselves put them, and that to view ourselves as beings of limitless knowledge, power, and love is to become such in outward manifestation of visible fact. Any objection, therefore, to the New Thought teaching regarding the possibilities latent in Man apply with equal force to the teachings of Jesus. His teaching clearly was that the perfect individuality of Man is a Dual-Unity, the polarisation of the Infinite in the Manifest; and it requires only the recognition of this truth for the manifested element in this binary system to demonstrate its ident.i.ty with the corresponding element which is not externally visible. He said that He and his Father were One, that those who had seen him had seen the Father, that the words which he spoke were the Father's, and that it was the Father who did the works. Nothing could be more explicit.

Absolute unity of the manifested individuality with the Originating Infinite Spirit is a.s.serted or implied in every utterance attributed to Jesus, whether spoken of himself or of others. He recognises only one radical difference, the difference between those who know this truth and those who do not know it. The distinction between the disciple and the master is one only of degree, which will be effaced by the expansive power of growth; "the disciple, when he is perfected, shall be as his Master."

All that hinders the individual from exercising the full power of the Infinite for any purpose whatever is his lack of faith, his inability to realise to the full the stupendous truth that he himself is the very power which he seeks. This was the teaching of Jesus as it is that of the New Thought; and this truth of the Divine Sons.h.i.+p of Man once taken as the great foundation, a magnificent edifice of possibilities which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive," grows up logically upon it--a glorious heritage which each one may legitimately claim in right of his common humanity.

II

_The Great Affirmation_

I take it for granted that my readers are well acquainted with the part a.s.signed to the principle of Affirmation in the scheme of the New Thought. This is often a stumbling-block to beginners; and I feel sure that even those who are not beginners will welcome every aid to a deeper apprehension of this great central truth. I, therefore, purpose to examine the Bible teaching on this important subject.

The professed object of the Bible is to establish and extend "the Kingdom of G.o.d" throughout the world, and this can be done only by repeating the process from one individual to another, until the whole ma.s.s is leavened. It is thus an individual process; and, as we have seen in the last chapter, G.o.d is Spirit and Spirit is Life, and, therefore, the expansion of "the Kingdom of G.o.d" means the expansion of the principle of Life in each individual. Now Life, to be life at all, must be Affirmative. It is Life in virtue of what it is, and not in virtue of what it is not. The quant.i.ty of life in any particular case may be very small; but, however small the amount, the quality is always the same: it is the quality of Being, the quality of Livingness, and not its absence, that makes it what it is. The distinctive character of Life, therefore, is that it is Positive and not Negative; and every degree of negativeness, that is, every limitation, is ultimately traceable to deficiency of Life-power.

Limitations surround us because we believe in our inability to do what we desire. Whenever we say "I cannot" we are brought up sharp by a limitation, and we cease to exercise our thought-power in that direction because we believe ourselves stopped by a blank wall of impossibility; and whenever this occurs we are subjected to bondage. The ideal of perfect Liberty is the converse of all this, and follows a sequence which does not thus lead us into a _cul-de-sac_. This sequence consists of the three affirmations: I am--therefore I can--therefore I will; and this last affirmation results in the projection of our powers, whether interior or external, to the accomplishment of the desired object. But this last affirmation has its root in the first; and it is because we recognise the Affirmative nature of the Life that is in us, or rather of the Life which we are, that the power to will or to act positively has any existence; and, therefore, the extent of our power to will and to act positively and with effect, is exactly measured by our perception of the depth and livingness of our own Being. Hence the more fully we learn to affirm that, the greater power we are able to exercise.

Now the ideal of perfect Liberty is the entire absence of all limitation, and to have no limitation in Being is to be co-extensive with All-Being. We are all grammarians enough to know that the use of a predicate is to lead the mind to contemplate the subject as represented by that predicate; in other words, it limits our conception for the time being to that particular aspect of the subject. Hence every predicate, however extensive, implies some limitation of the subject. But the ideal subject, the absolutely free self, is, by the very hypothesis, without limitation; and, therefore, no predicate can be attached to it. It stands as a declaration of its own Being without any statement of what that Being consists in, and therefore it says of itself, not "I am this or that," but simply I am. No predicate can be added, because the only commensurate predicate would be the enumeration of Infinity. Therefore, both logically and grammatically, the only possible statement of a fully liberated being is made in the words I am.

I need hardly remind my readers of the frequency with which Jesus employed these emphatic words. In many cases the translators have added the word "He," but they have been careful, by putting it in italics, to show that it is not in the original. As grammarians and theologians they thought something more was wanted to complete the sense, and they supplied it accordingly; but if we would get at the very words as the Master himself spoke them, we must strike out this interpolation. And as soon as we have done so there flashes into light the ident.i.ty of his statement with that made to Moses at the burning bush, where the full significance of the words is so obvious that the translators were compelled to leave the place of the predicate in that seeming emptiness which comes from filling all things.

Seen thus, a marvellous light s.h.i.+nes forth from the instruction of the Great Teacher: for in whatever sense we may regard him as a Great Exception to the weak and limited aspect of humanity with which we are only too familiar, we must all agree that his mission was not to render mankind hopeless by declaring the path of advance barred against them, but "to give light to them that sit in darkness," and liberty to them that are bound, by proclaiming the unlimited possibilities that are in man waiting only to be called forth by knowledge of the Truth. And if we suppose any personal reference in his words, it can, therefore, be only as the Great Example of what man has it in him to become, and not as the example of something which man can never hope to be; an Exception, truly, to mankind as we see them now, but the Exception that proves the rule, and sets the standard of what each one may become as he attains to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

Let us, therefore, by striking out this interpolation, restore the Master's words as they stand in the original: "Except ye believe that I am, ye shall die in your sins." This is an epitome of his teaching.

"The last enemy that shall be overcome is death," and the "sting," or fatal power, of death is "sin." Remove that, and death has no longer any dominion over us; its power is at an end. And "the strength of sin is the Law": sin is every contradiction of the law of Being; and the law of Being is infinitude; for Being is Life, and Life in its innermost essence is the limitless I am. Dying in our sins is thus not a punishment for doubting a particular theological dogma, but it is the unavoidable natural consequence of not realising, not believing in, the I am. So long as we fail to realise its full infinitude in ourselves, we cut ourselves off from our conscious unity with the Infinite Life-Spirit which permeates all things. Without this principle we have no alternative but to die--and this because of our sin, that is, because of our failure to conform to the true Law of our Being, which is Life, and not Death. We affirm Death and Negation concerning ourselves, and therefore Death and Negation are externalised, and thus we pay the penalty of not believing in the central Law of our own Life, which is the Law of all Life. The Bible is the Book of Principles, and therefore by "dying" is meant the acceptance of the principle of the Negative which culminates in Death as the sum-total of all limitations, and which introduces at every step those restrictions which are of the nature of Death, because their tendency is to curtail the outflowing fulness of Life.

This, then, is the very essence of the teaching of Jesus, that unbelief in the limitless power of Life-in-ourselves--in each of us--is the one cause of Death and of all those evils which, in greater or lesser measure, reproduce the restrictive influences which deprive Life of its fulness and joy. If we would escape Death and enter into Life, we must each believe in the I am in ourselves. And the ground for this belief?

Simply that nothing else is conceivable. If our life is not a portion of the life of Universal Spirit, whence comes it? We are because that is.

No other explanation is possible. The unqualified affirmation of our own livingness is not an audacious self-a.s.sertion: it is the only logical outcome of the fact that there is any life anywhere, and that we are here to think about it. In the sense of Universal Being, there can be only One I am, and the understanding use of the words by the individual is the a.s.sertion of this fact. The forms of manifestation are infinite, but the Life which is manifested is One, and thus every thinker who recognises the truth regarding himself finds in the I am both himself and the totality of all things; and thus he comes to know that in utilising the interior nature of the things and persons about him, he is, in effect, employing the powers of his own life.

Sometimes the veil which Jesus drew over this great truth was very transparent. To the Samaritan woman he spoke of it as a spring of Life forever welling up in the innermost recesses of man's being; and again, to the mult.i.tude a.s.sembled at the Temple, he spoke of it as a river of Life forever gus.h.i.+ng from the secret sources of the spirit within us.

Life, to be ours at all, must be ourselves. An energy which only pa.s.sed through us, without being us, might produce a sort of galvanic activity, but it would not be Life. Life can never be a separate ent.i.ty from the individuality which manifests it; and therefore, even if we conceive the life-principle in a man so intensified as to pulsate with what might seem to us an absolutely divine vitality, it would still be no other than the man himself. Thus Jesus directs us to no external source of life, but ever teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and that what is wanted is to remove those barriers of ignorance and ill-will which prevent us from realising that the great I am, which is the innermost Spirit of Life throughout the universe, is the same I am that I am, whoever I may be.

On another memorable occasion Jesus declared again that the I am is the enduring principle of Life. It is this that is the Resurrection and the Life; not, as Martha supposed, a new principle to be infused from without at some future time, but an inherent core of vitality awaiting only its own recognition of itself to triumph over death and the grave.

And yet, again hear the Master's answer to the inquiring Thomas. How many of us, like him, desire to know the way! To hear of wonderful powers latent in man and requiring only development is beautiful and hopeful, if we could only find out the way to develop them; but who will show us the way? The answer comes with no uncertain note. The I am includes everything. It is at once "the Way, the Truth, and the Life": not the Life only, or the Truth only, but also the Way by which to reach them. Can words be plainer? It is by continually affirming and relying on the I am in ourselves as identical with the I am that is the One and Only Life, whether manifested or unmanifested, in all places of the universe, that we shall find the way to the attainment of all Truth and of all Life. Here we have the predicate which we are seeking to complete our affirmation regarding ourselves. I am--what? the Three things which include all things: Truth, which is all Knowledge and Wisdom; Life, which is all Power and Love; and the unfailing Way which will lead us step by step, if we follow it, to heights too sublime and environment too wide for our present juvenile imaginings to picture.

As the New Testament centres around Jesus, so the old Testament centres around Moses, and he also declares the Great Affirmation to be the same.[4] For him G.o.d has no name, but that intensely living universal Life which is all in all, and no name is sufficient to be its equivalent. The emphatic words I am are the only possible statement of the One-Power which exhibits itself as all worlds and all living beings.

It is the Great I am which forever unfolds itself in all the infinite evolutionary forces of the cosmic scheme, and which, in marvellous onward march, develops itself into higher and higher conscious intelligence in the successive races of mankind, unrolling the scroll of history as it moves on from age to age, working out with unerring precision the steady forward movement of the whole towards that ultimate perfection in which the work of G.o.d will be completed. But stupendous as is the scale on which this Providential Power reveals itself to Moses and the Prophets, it is still nothing else than the very same Power which Jesus bids us realise in ourselves.

[Footnote 4: The Old Testament and the New treat the I AM from its opposite poles. The Old Testament treats it from the relation of the _Whole to the Part_, while the New Testament treats it from the relation of the _Part to the Whole_. This is important as explaining the relation between the Old and New Testaments.

(a) "My Word shall not return unto me void but shall accomplish that whereunto I send it."

(b) The Principle here indicated is that of the Alternation and Equation between Absorption and Radiation--a taking-in before, and a giving-out.

(c) "_Order_"--Whatever betrays this is "Disorder."

(d) "_Conscious_"--It is the degree of _consciousness_ that always marks the transition from a lower to a higher Power of Life. The _Life_ of _All Seven_ Principles _must_ always be present in us, otherwise we should not exist at all; therefore it is the degree in which we learn to _consciously_ function in each of them that marks our advance into higher kingdoms within ourselves, and frequently outside ourselves also.

(e) The Central Radiating Point of our Individuality is _One_ with All-Being.

(f) _Equilibrium_--Note the difference between the Living Equilibrium of Alternate Rhythmic _Pulsation_ (the whole Pulsation Doctrine) and the dead equilibrium of merely _running down_ to a _dead level_. The former implies the Doctrine of the Return, the Upward Arc compensating the Downward Arc--The deadness of the latter results from the absence of any such compensation. The Upward Arc results from the contemplation of the Highest Ideal.

(g) Spirit cannot leave any portion of its Nature behind it.

It _must_ always have _all_ the qualities of Spirit in it, even though the lower parts of the individuality are not yet conscious of it.

(h) The Great Affirmation is The Guide to the whole Subject.]