English
Any laws of the Universe must have been im- posed by It, for there is no other law-giver, and every manifestation of Energy, Force, or Power, perceived or evident in Nature must be a part of the Power of the Absolute working along lines laid down by it. In the Third Lesson, which will be entitled The Will- to-Live, we shall see this Power manifesting along the lines of Life as we know it. Next, the Intellect informs us that it is compelled to think of the Absolute as containing within Itself all possible Knowledge or Wisdom, because there can be no Knowledge or Wisdom outside of It, and therefore all the Wisdom and Knowledge possible must be within It. We see Mind, Wisdom, and Knowledge manifested by relative forms of Life, and such must emanate from the Absolute in accordance with cer- tain laws laid down by It, for otherwise there would be no such wisdom, etc., for there is nowhere outside of the All from whence it could come. The effect cannot be greater than the cause. If there is any- thing unknown to the Absolute, then it will never be known to finite minds. So, therefore, all knowl- edge that Is, Has Been, or Can Be, must be now vested in the One — the Absolute. This does not mean that the Absolute thinks, in any such sense~as does Man. The Absolute must Know, without Thinking. It does not have to gather Knowl- edge by the process of Thinking, as does Man — such THE ONE. 19 an Mea would be ridiculous, for from whence could the Knowledge come outside of itself. When man thinks he draws to himself Knowledge from the Uni- versal source by the action of the Mind, but the Absolute has only itself to draw on. So we cannot imagine the Absolute compelled to Think as we do. But, lest we be misunderstood regarding this phase of the subject, we may say here that the highest occult teachings inform us that the Absolute does manifest a quality somewhat akin to what we would call constructive thought, and that such "thoughts" manifest into objectivity and manifestation, and be- come Creation. Created Things, according to the Occult teachings are "Thoughts of God." Do not let this idea disturb you, and cause you to feel that you are nothing, because you have been called into being by a Thought of the Infinite One. Even a Thought of that One would be intensely real in the relative world — actually Real to all except the Absolute itself — and even the Absolute knows that the Real part of its Creations must be a part of itself manifested through its thought, for the Thought of the Infinite must be Real, and a part of Itself, for it cannot be anything else, and to call it Nothing is merely to juggle with words. The faintest Thought of the In- finite One would be far more real than anything man could create — as solid as the mountain — as hard as steel — as durable as the diamond — for, verily, even these are emanations of the Mind of the Infinite, and are things of but a day, while the higher Thoughts — 20 GNANI YOGA. the soul of Man — contains within itself a spark from the Divine Flame itself — the Spirit of the Infinite. But these things will appear in their own place, as we proceed with this series. We have merely given you a little food for thought at this point, in connec- tion with the Mind of the Absolute. So you see, good friends and students, that the In- tellect in its highest efforts, informs us that it finds itself compelled to report that the One — the Abso- lute — ¥hat which it is compelled to admit really exists — must be a One possessed of a nature so far transcending human experience that the human mind finds itself without the proper concepts, symbols, and words with which to think of It. But none the less, the Intellect finds itself bound by its own laws to postulate the existence of such an One. It is the veriest folly to try to think of the One as It is "in Itself" — for we have nothing but human attributes with which to measure it, and It so far transcends such measurements that the mental yard- sticks run out into infinity and are lost sight of. The highest minds of the race inform us that the most exalted efforts of their reason compels them to report that the One — in Itself — cannot be spoken of as pos- sessing attributes or qualities capable of being ex- pressed in human words employed to describe the Things of the relative world — and all of our words are such. All of our words originate from such ideas, and all of our ideas arise from our experience, directly or indirectly. So we are not equipped with THE ONE. 21 words with which to think of or speak of that which transcends experience, although our Intellect informs us that Reality lies back of our experience. jt Philosophy finds itself unable to do anything better than to bring us face to face with high paradoxes. Science in its pursuit of Truth finds it cunningly avoiding it, and ever escaping its net. And we be- lieve that the Absolute purposely causes this to be, that in the end Man may be compelled to look for the Spirit within himself — the only place where he can come in touch with it. This, we think, is the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx— "Look Within for that which Thou needest." But while the Spirit may be discerned only by look- ing within ourselves, we find that once the mind realizes that the Absolute Is, it will be able to see countless evidences of its action and presence by observing manifested Life without. All Life is filled with the Life Power and Will of the Absolute. To us Life is but One — the Universe is a living Unity, throbbing, thrilling and pulsating with the Will-to-Live of the Absolute. Back of all apparent shapes, forms, names, forces, elements, principles and substances, there is but One — One Life, present every- where, and manifesting in an infinitude of shapes, forms, and forces. All individual lives are but cen- ters of consciousness in the One Life underlying, de- pending upon it for degree of unfoldment, expression and manifestation. This may sound like Pantheism to some, but it 5s 22 GNANI YOGA. very different from the Pantheism of the schools and cults. Pantheism is defined as "the doctrine that God consists in the combined forces and laws manifested in the existing Universe," or that "the Universe taken or conceived as a whole is God." These definitions do not fit the conception of the Absolute, of the Yogi Philosophy — they seem to breathe but a refined ma- terialism. The Absolute is not "the combined forces and laws manifested in the universe," nor "the uni- verse conceived as a whole." Instead, the Universe, its forces and laws, even conceived as a whole, have no existence in themselves, but are mere manifestations of the Absolute. Surely this is different from Pan- theism. We teach that the Absolute is immanent in, and abiding in all forms of Life in the Universe, as well as in its forces and laws — all being but manifestations of the Will of the One. And we teach that this One is superior to all forms of manifestations, and that Its existence and being does not depend upon the mani- festations, which are but effects of the Cause. The Pantheistic Universe — God is but a thing of phenomenal appearance, but the Absolute is the very Spirit of Life — a Living, Existing Reality, and would be so even if every manifestation were withdrawn from appearance and expression — drawn back into the source from which it emanated. The Absolute is more than Mountain or Ocean — Electricity or Gravi- tation—Monad or Man— It is SPIRIT— LIFE— BE- THE ONE. 23 ING— REALITY— the ONE THAT IS. Omnipo- tent, Omnipresent ; Omniscient ; Eternal ; Infinite ; Ab- solute; these are Man's greatest words, and yet they but feebly portray a shadow thrown by the One Itself. The Absolute is not a far-away Being directing our affairs at long range — not an absentee Deity — but an Immanent Life in and about us all — manifesting in us and creating us into individual centers of conscious- ness, in pursuance with some great law of being. And, more than this, the Absolute instead of being an indiffrent and unmoved spectator to its own cre- ation, is a thriving, longing, active, suffering, re- joicing, feeling Spirit, partaking of the feelings of its manifestations, rather than callously witnessing them. It lives in us — with us — through us. Back of all the pain in the world may be found a great feeling and suffering love. The pain of the world is not punish- ment or evidence of divine wrath, but the incidents of the working out of some cosmic plan, in which the Absolute is the Actor, through the forms of Its mani- festations. The message of the Absolute to some of the Illumined has been, "All is being done in the best and only possible way — I am doing the best I can — all is well — and in the end will so appear." The Absolute is no personal Deity — yet in itself it contains all that goes to make up all personality and all human relations. Father, Mother, Child, Friend, Lover — all is in It. All forms of human love and 24 GNANI YOGA. craving for sympathy, understanding and companion- ship may find refuge in loving the Absolute. The Absolute is constantly in evidence in our lives, and yet we have been seeking it here and there in the outer world, asking it to show itself and prove Its ex- istence. Well may it say to us: "Hast thou been so long time with me, and hast thou not known me?" This is the great tragedy of Life, that the Spirit comes to us — Its own — and we know It not. We fail to hear Its words: "Oh, ye who mourn, I suffer with you and through you. Yea, it is I who grieve in you. Your pain is mine — to the last pang. I suffer all pain through you — and yet I rejoice beyond you, for I know that through you, and with you, I shall conquer.