"Above all, examine yourself for what purpose you desire to know the mysteries of God, and whether you are prepared to employ that which will be received for the glorification of God and to the benefit of your neighbor. Are you ready to die entirely to your own selfish and earthly will, and do you earnestly desire to become one with the Spirit? He who has no such high purposes, and merely seeks for knowledge for the gratification of self, or that he may be looked upon as something great by the world, is not fit to receive such knowledge." (Clavis, ii. 3.)

Neither is such a state attained without a hard fight against the powers of darkness.

"If any one desires to follow me, let him not be intoxicated by terrestrial thoughts and desires, but girded with the sword of the Spirit, because he will have to descend into a terrible depth, even into the midst of the kingdom of hell. It indeed requires hard labor to fight with the devil between heaven and hell, as he is a powerful lord. During such battles I have often made many bitter experiences, which filled my heart with sorrow. Often the sun has disappeared from my sight, but then he rose again, and the oftener the sunset occurred, the more beautiful, clear, and magnificent was the sunrise." (Aurora, xiii. 20.)

He who desires nothing for himself, to him everything shall be given. The infinite cannot be made to contract, to be comprehended by the finite mind of man; but let the mind of man expand by the power of the Spirit, and become conscious of its infinity, and it will then conceive of infinite truth.

"Spiritual knowledge cannot be communicated from

No amount of torturing the brain for the purpose of finding out how it would be if one were to awaken spiritually, will enable any one to realize such an awakening, as long as it does not take place; and when it once has taken place, all speculations about it will be rendered unnecessary. That which hinders the grasping of the infinite is the illusive conception of a limited "self"; that which aids in the realization of the true self, is the comprehension that God is not only outside of us, but also within ourselves, and that although the world may be full of the principle of Life or Divinity, we cannot live or attain divine attributes, unless that principle becomes active and manifested in us, ourselves. Without this the attainment of immortality will be merely a theory.

one intellect to another, but must be sought for in the Spirit of God. Truly theosophical writings will even to the intellect convey here and there a ray of recognition; but if the reader is found worthy by God to have the divine light kindled within his own soul, then will the inexpressible words of God be heard by him." (Letters, Iv. 8.)

He who reads these writings and cannot understand them, should not throw them aside, imagining that they can never be understood. He should seek to change his will, and elevate his soul to God, asking Him for grace and understanding, and then read again. He will then perceive more truth than he did before, until at last the power of God will manifest itself in him, and he will be drawn down into the depths, into the supernatural foundation-that is to say, into the eternal unity of God. Then will he hear actual but inexpressible words of God, which will conduct him through the divine radiation of the celestial light, even within the grossest forms of terrestrial matter, and from thence back again unto God; and the Spirit of God will search all things in and with him.” * (Clavis, Preface, 5.)

*This may perhaps be also expressed in the following words :-It is not the mortal intellect, but the divinity in man, which is in possession of divine knowledge. A man knowing nothing of God, and having no faith in the power of anything divine, which may become revealed in him, cannot be in possession of divine self-knowledge; but if man, by being obedient to the law, enters into a state of harmony and union with God, then may God become revealed in him, and the mind being penetrated by the light of the divine Spirit, man may partake of the knowledge of divinity. In this way he may learn all about everything in the three kingdoms; for the Spirit of God pervades the All. Occult knowledge, therefore, does not consist in gathering information or opinions from books and authorities, but its foundation is the recognition of the divine will in man.

CHAPTER II.

THE UNITY OF THE ALL.

"Listen, O blind men! You live in God and God is in you. If you live holy, then will you yourselves be God, and wherever you look, there will be God." (Aurora, xxii. 46.)

"We are all one body in Christ, and have all the Spirit of Christ within our reach. If, then, we enter into the Christ, we may see and know everything by the power of His Spirit." (Forty Ques tions, xxvi. 5.)

THAT which is finite cannot conceive of the infinite; that which has a beginning cannot conceive of that which is without beginning and without an end. Who has measured space? Has it an end? and if so, what is there beyond the utmost limits of space? But if there is no end to space, does not thought lose itself in seeking to penetrate into its depths? We cannot conceive of infinite space, but we can conceive of limited forms, which are space rendered objective; and in describing a form we describe space in a certain state or condition. Likewise, we cannot describe that which exists eternally in God, nor the eternal processes continually taking place within the divine life, in any other way than by speaking of them as if they had a beginning in time, and by using terrestrial terms, all of which are necessarily inadequate to produce a conception of that which cannot be conceived by the terrestrial mind, because it is infinitely above all terrestrial things.*

*There seems to be a great deal of confusion regarding the question as to whether God is personal or impersonal, and nevertheless the answer seems to be plain. God as an infinite and not manifested Spirit cannot be regarded as a personality; but whenever the Divinity becomes manifested as a personality, then is He personal. In fact, every person, every flower, every thing, having a ray of the divine light, is a god, in a certain sense, but not in every being is God revealed in His Divinity. Thus that which constitutes

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"If I am to make comprehensible the eternal generation, unfolding, or evolution of God out of His own self, I cannot speak otherwise than in a devilish (knowingly erroneous) manner, making it appear as if the eternal Light had ignited itself in the darkness, and as if the Godhead had a beginning. In no other way can I instruct you, so that you may form an approximate conception of it. There is nothing first and nothing last in this generation and evolution, nevertheless in describing it I have to put one thing after another." (Aurora, xxiii. 17-33.)

"We do not mean to say that the Deity had a beginning, we merely wish to show the way in which the Godhead has revealed itself by means of nature. God has no beginning in time; He has an eternal beginning and an eternal end." (Signature, iii. 1.)

"The Godhead is an eternal band, which cannot perish. It generates itself from eternity to eternity, and the first therein is always the last, and the last the first." (Three Principles, vii. 14.)

That which is subject to the conditions of time may conceive of temporal things; only that which is eternal in man can realize the existence of the eternal.

"We cannot speak the language of the angels, and even if we were to speak it everything would appear to the inhabitants of this world as if it did refer to created beings, and before the terrestrial mind it would represent itself as terrestrial. We are ourselves only a rose is impersonal as long as it is unmanifested; but when it has become manifest as a rose, then will it be a personal or individual rose. The same may be said about every god, man, angel, and every created being.

*God is unchangeable, and has no beginning in time; the "beginning" refers only to the manifestation of His power in nature. Nature resembles a continually revolving wheel, wherein forms in which the power of God becomes manifest are born and die. The death of one form is the birth of another. Thus life is born out of death; but that which produces life and causes death is eternal.

of parts, but not of the whole." (Threefold Life, ií. 66.)

"I advise the reader, whenever I am speaking of the Godhead and its great mystery, not to conceive of what I say as if it were intended to be understood in a terrestrial sense, but to regard it from a higher point of view, in a supernatural aspect. I am often forced to give terrestrial names to that which is celestial, so that the reader may form a conception, and by meditating about it penetrate within the inner foundation." (Grace, iii. 19.)

God is self-existent, self-sufficient, infinite Will, having no origin. That Will, by conceiving of its own self, thereby creates a mirror within its own self. The same takes place in the microcosm of man. By conceiving of his own self man creates a mirror in which he "feels" his own self, and thereby he becomes selfconscious and realizes his existence as an individual being.

"Within the groundlessness* (that which by some writers is called the 'Non-Being'-a term without any meaning) there is nothing but eternal tranquillity, an eternal rest without beginning and without an end. It is true that even there God has a will, but this will can be no object of our investigation, as to attempt to investigate it would merely produce a confusion in our mind. We conceive of this will as constituting the foundation of the Godhead. It has no origin, but conceives itself within itself." (Menschwerdung, xxi. 1.)

"Divine Intelligence is a free will. It never originated from or by the power of anything. It is itself, and resides only and solely within itself, unaffected by

*The "groundlessness" or the "abyss" or "Parabrahmam" is the universal substratum of all existence. It is everywhere: within the heart of man no less than in every atom of "matter" and in all space. It is called the First Cause; but it becomes a first cause only when it begins to manifest itself at the beginning of a Manvantara (day of creation). Before such a manifestation takes place it is inconceivable and "nothingness" from our point of view; nevertheless it is the one essence of everything in the cosmos. (See Subba Row: "Discourses on the Bhagavad Gita.")

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