CREATION
W.John Murray
The Astor
Lectures
Divine Science Publishing Assoc.
New York, 1917.
[109]
To create
Is greater than created to destroy.
Who can impair thee, mighty King, or
bound
Thy empire? Easily the proud
attempt
Of spirits apostate and their counsels
vain
Thou has repelled, while impiously they
thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee
withdraw
The number of thy worshippers. Who
seeks
To lessen thee, against his purpose
serves
To manifest the more thy might: his
evil
Thou usest, and from thence
creat’st more good.
Witness this new-made world, another
heaven
From Heaven-gate not far, founded in
view
On the clear hyaline, the glassy
sea;
Of amplitude almost immense, with
stars
Numerous, and every star perhaps a
world
Of destined habitation; but thou
know’st
Their seasons: among these the seat of
men,
Earth with her mother ocean
circumfused,
Their pleasant dwelling place. Thrice
happy men,
And sons of men, whom God hath thus
advanced,
Created in his image, there to
dwell
And worship him and in reward to
rule
Over his works on earth, in sea, or
air,
And multiply a race of worshippers
[110]
Holy and just; thrice happy if they
knew
Their happiness, and persevere upright!
--Milton.
”What a piece of worke is Man!
How Noble in Reason? How infinite in
faculty? In forme and moving? How express
and admirable? In Action how like an
Angel? In Apprehension how like a God?
The beauty of the world, the paragon of
Animals.” --Shakespeare.
In the
beginning was Mind. The universe came
into Being. Nothing can come from
nothing. The universe was made out of the
substance "which is substance in
itself"--the substance of Mind. Out of
Mind the heavens unfolded, the
Intelligence appeared in the form of
light. The light was unconscious of the
darkness even as intelligence is
unconscious of ignorance. This
unconsciousness was the firmament which
separated the ocean of intelligence from
the sea of ignorance which "divides the
waters from the waters." "Nature does not
grow alone, but as her temple waxes, the
inward service of the mind and soul grow
withal" and clothes with form the idea
which emanates from Mind. With the
creation of form a shadow appeared on the
deep. It was the shape of earth which is
the natural shadow of the spiritual
substance. Enlightenment unites the
shadow with substance.
Shape was
gathered together in one place, and
shadow as "dry land" appeared. As the
ideas [111] of Mind unfolded they
appeared as vegetation. The earth
conceived and brought forth grass and
herbs yielding seed and trees yielding
fruit whose seed was the idea. Two "great
lights" now emerge: the sun to rule the
day and the lesser to "silently shine
during the night over the profound sleep
of unconscious nature." Out of apparent
darkness and chaos, but in reality out of
Mind, the world rolled into light.
And the
world was fruitful and multiplied the
forms with which to personate the divine
individualities of Mind.
Aeons
passed. And then out of the whole
rational scheme of things a fuller
expression of Mind emerged "whose seed is
in itself upon the earth," but whose
identity is hid with Christ in God. This
is man who is destined to be God-like,
when the outer will becomes as the
inner.
Again aeons
passed. We see "like those who have
imperfect sight, the things that distant
are from us," and consequently no one yet
has seen Man and yet what has been seen
of that which he has achieved in his own
realm has been sufficient proof of his
potential divinity. Notwithstanding that
as yet he has not come into his
inheritance, man has within himself the
germ of a God to be, and although,
"Silent and weeping, coming at the
pace
Which in this world the Litanies
assume"
he yet is coming into his own.
So far
man’s progression has been hampered
[112] by the ignorance which has caused
him to look without for that which he can
find only within the recesses of his own
being. Men have ever dyed their robes red
in the blood of their fellows instead of
washing them white in the river of
Spirit. Unconsciously to himself, Man
wills to be like God. Dante says:
"The greatest gift that in his
largeness God
Creating made, and unto his own
goodness
Nearest conformed, and that which he
doth prize
Most highly, is the freedom of the
will
Wherewith the creatures of
intelligence
Both all and only were and are
endowed."
In that man wills to be like God and in
that,
"Will is never quenched unless it
will,
But operates as nature doth in
fire,
If violence a thousand times distort,
by
The force of will man is
destined,
That essence to behold, wherein is
seen
How God and our own nature were
united."
But until man unites his will to the
will that is divine, necessarily his
progression will be accomplished
through the fire of suffering rather
than by the divine art of
enlightenment. "Cord never shot an
arrow from itself," nor did man come
into being by his own volition; he is a
design in the divine project of which
God is the Author, the expression of
the highest idea in the Divine Mind.
[113]
"So from its Lord did the triform
effect
Pay forth into its being all
together
Without discrimination of beginning."
Hence man was "born, not of the blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God," and
therefore by right of birth he is heir
to the whole estate of the Divine Mind.
"All things whatever they be,
Have order among themselves, and this
is form
That makes the universe resemble God,"
in that God is the unity of which His
ideas are the multiplicity. From Mind,
Idea, and "form co-mingled and
conjoined" came perfect being without
defect. Thus man is Being, immortal and
eternal.
Every
diversity of operation which nature
mirrors has its eternal unity in the Mind
which is God, and every attribute of
nature is ordained of Spirit to assist in
the divine scheme of creation; it extends
from Man who is "a little lower than
God," even to the wandering winds and
wanton breeze, the least of things which
under the guidance of intelligence, bear
seeds of trees across sea and continent
on their ethereal wings, in their
invisible ministry on behalf of divine
unfoldment. The evolution of man from
Mind is no more mysterious than the
unfoldment of a flower from a seed. Man
is the completion of God; a rose is the
completion of the seed. Watch [114] the
evolution of a rose, how it appears as a
tiny bud, from which spring those petals
of exquisite loveliness, nestled mid
leaves of delicate green, and each leaf
veined in palest gold. It is the soul of
color, and its spirit exhales rare
perfume. A rose is a symbol of marvelous
unity in an inexpressible variety of
exquisite manifestations. If you
understand the evolution of the rose, you
will understand the "birth" of the
universe. They are designed by the same
Mind and are fashioned of the same
substance, in a like mold, which man has
called nature, and which is the matrix of
shape, the shadow of form. Perhaps you do
not understand this, but you will if you
will "apply your measure, not to
the appearance," but to the reality of
substance which is God.
Nature is
not a creator; instead she is the
auxiliary of Spirit and clothes ideas
with shape that they may be apprehended
by reason. When intelligence takes the
place of reason, she discloses the form
of the idea which is hidden from reason
who, because of her short sight, cannot
"traverse the illimitable way." And man,
who is guided alone by reason with his
mind fixed on earthly things,
"pluck’st darkness from the very
light" and believes the world to be made
of matter instead of framed by the word
of God. It is intelligence that assures
us "that things which are seen were not
made of things which do appear." Says
Dante, "Thou makest thyself so dull with
false imagining, that thou seest not what
thou wouldst see if thou hadst [115]
shaken it off." To conceive of the
trinity as three persons in one,
instead of a threefold expression
of one Divine Substance, is to imagine a
monster and so deprive ourselves of the
use of a vital Truth which is
indispensable to the realization of
Spirit as ever present and omnipotent.
Likewise to associate Spirit with
formlessness is a grave error.
Formlessness would indicate the absence
of qualities, and that which has no
qualities is not anything. The soul could
not exist apart from form, and in the
exact proportion that we throw off the
shape of materiality we are seen to be
clothed in the form of spirituality.
Man is the
image of God, in that he is a Spirit, and
he is like God in that he is individual;
he is the individual microcosm in which
the universal whole is mirrored. The
universe is unchangeable, but Truth is
sifting out thought from a finite to an
infinite conception of that which
constitutes the universe as a
manifestation of God. Goethe’s
dying request is being answered, and the
earnest seeker for Truth is receiving
constantly "more light" and clearer
light, the light which is changing the
chaos of mythical hypothesis concerning
creation into the order of divine
unfoldment.
The
manufacture of many gods, which was the
first tacit acknowledgment of man’s
lack of faith in his own ability, gave
rise to a belief in gods conceived in
man’s inefficiency and brought
forth in his imagination. Man’s
mistake in looking [116] outside of his
own divinity for that which could only be
found in the wealth of his own being,
gave rise to the theory of the "Fall of
man." Man fell from his divine
possibility in devising gods many, none
of which man was able to endow with the
intelligence of their maker.
Enlightenment has enthroned man as a
tabernacle of the Holy Ghost which is the
very God, in that it is the whole
manifestation of the Principle, Idea and
Expression which is God. It is because of
this, then, that no one can say that man
is God but by this complete understanding
of the triune nature of the attributes of
God coming to fruition in man, who may be
likened to the tree of which God is the
seed.
To seek aid
of the finite in trying to fathom
infinity is like dissecting a seed to
discover the nature of the fruit. Eye has
not discerned Spirit nor hath ear heard
His voice. But "when the mind of
man, a wanderer more from the flesh, and
less by thought imprisoned, almost
prophetic in its vision is," it hears
that voice like "the sound of many
waters," and the intellect reposing in
the Truth sees the "countenance as the
sun shining in its strength," symbolizing
the brightness of Truth.
The
substance of Spirit may not be measured
in the mold of matter, nor substance
found in its shadow, nor yet man in
corporeality, for man represents
divinity. Spiritual sense is the medium
by which man discerns the form of God to
be in "that motion which keeps quiet the
center, [117] and all the rest about it
moves, from hence begins as from its
starting point--the love that turns it,
and the power it rains."
Man, by
nature of his individuality, can never be
absorbed in the Infinite and thus lose
his identity. Man is the expression of
every attribute of divinity, and what God
is, man may become. To make ourselves
unto the likeness of God, however, we
must first have a perfect image of God.
To be present with the Lord is to be
absent from the body. By wrong thinking
we have made the body the hostelry of
grief. To redeem it we must assume our
spiritual control over it and think only
such thoughts as will reconstruct it in
its original likeness to the temple of
the Holy Ghost. Fix your eyes on the
verities of being, soar as a bird to your
mountain of Spirit, and when you return
to your earthly tabernacle let it be as
the swallow returns to her old haunts, to
reconstruct and beautify, that she may
consecrate them anew to the service of
her highest instincts. Use your body to
the glory of Spirit, for in no other way
can you keep it "wholly acceptable unto
God" which is your reasonable service.
Put off mortality by putting on spiritual
wisdom which is immortality. Live in your
body but do not vegetate in it. It is a
temple of usefulness, not a vault for
storing unexpressed divine faculties. If
your progress heavenward is made at a
snail’s pace, refrain from
discouragement, "for mortal man, by
passages diverse, uprise the
world’s [118] lamp." "Seek first
the kingdom"; everything else will seek
you.
"Unto the virtue
Apply thy measure, not to the
appearance.
Thou wilt behold a marvelous
agreement,
Of more to greater, and of less to
smaller,
In every heaven with its intelligence."
There is often more incentive toward
spiritual development in the shadow of
affliction than in the wrath of fame.
Crowns are blood-stained and sceptors
are bought with human lives.
We may lose
the field occasionally, but the knowledge
of our divinity should never permit us to
lose our hearts in the marsh of
discouragement. Jesus corrected by
example and refrained from faultfinding,
a method which acts more as an irritant
than a curative policy. Like a mortal
wound, the more it is treated and probed,
the more it hurts; and it is so with
faultfinding. It accomplishes little less
than to hurt and afflict the victim to
whom it is applied. It has well been said
that he who corrects "every fault he
spieth and judgeth all alike, doth all
amiss: for faults are greater thought or
less, as is the person’s self that
doth transgress," and perhaps the habit
of faultfinding is a greater evil than
that which calls it forth. Correction
does not require that its object be
harassed. The true method of education is
by constant example. To destroy the
orthodox devil and supply another bugbear
[119] to haunt the place heretofore
dedicated to the devil’s workship
is to chase out a chimera and breed a
tyrant in his stead. Fear of any sort is
fatal to health, and fear has no place in
God’s kingdom. All that is, is
fashioned out of the substance of Love,
and fear has no place in Love. Therefore
perfect Love casts out fear.
The loss of
a personal love often widens one’s
vision and increases his capacity to love
and labor universally. The destiny of man
demands dominion on his part and not
subjection. To depend for happiness upon
any earthly condition or any earthly
love, demands the removal of both, in
order that their place may be filled with
that love of God which never disappoints.
The only things we are permitted to keep
in this life are those we can enjoy in
God. These we may never lose, because if
a mist of sense should descend and
separate them from our vision for a time
we should still know that they are hid
with Christ in God, from whence they
shall again appear as the sun appears
when the cloud has passed.
There is
nothing other than Mind, and nothing can
be lost in God. If those whom we have
loved and in whom we have confided, turn
from us in the hour of our need or betray
our confidences, it will be God’s
opportunity to fill the place of these
shadows with His divine presence. If you
are betrayed, you are simply carrying a
part of Christ’s cross. He carried
the full weight. Remember that all the
works of man’s hands may, aye,
will come to naught, but the ideas
of God are eternal and not one of these
will ever be moved from the Divine Mind,
in whom man reposes co-existent and
eternal with His Maker.
Next: Divine
Mind and its Idea
* * * * *
The Astor Lectures
Table of
Contents
(Formerly at
Northwoods Divine Science Resource
Center)
