CHAPTER 11.

The Self is God.
I AM. What am I ? Master of myself .? If so, I am master of my destiny, creator of my own weal and woe, my own maker and saviour.
Let us examine into this question, and see if the Self is supreme.
Motion, change, is a fundamental law of creation. That which moves not nor changes is space. This could not be a definite something if it were not limited, divided, and bounded by something differ- ent from itself. Objects move in space, therefore motion inheres in the object.
To say that '* I move " is absurd. I move this pen, this hand, this body ; that which belongs to me moves in response to my will. My mind moves, my brain throbs, and this body, this chariot in which I ride, carries me along while I sit motion- less. If I move at all, it is with the cosmic revo- lution, as one shut in in an absolutely closed car, where there is no rushing air, or jarring ma- chinery, or outlook whereby one may take note of the speed of passing objects. There is, thus, something within like space, which moves not; and
The Self is God. 23
that something is the soul, which remains motion- less in the center of motion. About it revolve all things.
I am a stationary center. Even time has no influence on me, for I am neither young nor old. When I forget the road I have trav^ersed, the pain- ful steps, these weary and stiffening muscles, which are reminders of time, I am conscious only of Space ; I am free in the Oversoul. How can I define myself when I am so much greater than my mind, this light that belongs to me, but is not me t
I am stationary : I do not advance nor retro- grade. Perhaps my memory fades, my mind be- coming misty like a cloudy day ; or, on the other hand, the mind may clarify, growing brighter and clearer with age, as the fire in the blood burns low and the tumultuous, jarring passions of youth are stilled. In either case, I sense the homogeneous quality of Being, and find myself of one stuff with all that lives, and thus I am conscious of the one- ness of God and humanity in myself.
Progress is soul-expansion, but in essence the soul is unchanged. While body and mind change, growing finer and more ethereal, and thus enabling the soul to radiate its influence, soul touches soul, and the smaller self in each of us blends and is fused in the self of the community, of the nation, and of the race. I, the soul, may destroy the external self, so I may create and recreate it.
24 Regetiei'ation.
Destruction is often the condition which precedes creation ; destroy the old, and lo, the new ap- pears. Isaiah says : '^ Lo, I am God, and / cJia7ige not.'' Power does not change, and the power I have is the same as that Infinite Power which is All. a drop of water is as really water as the ocean, and life is as unchangeable in one thing as in another.
The exotericand the esoteric are the same. ]\Iani- festation is the storm that follows and that flows from the calm. All motion, all change, ultimately finds rest, as bodily actinties are stilled in sleep. But that which moves not nor changes needs no rest. The soul, the ego, the I, is a sleepless force ; it is space without atmosphere ; it is a womb which is expansive, and from which life in many forms -is brought forth. Mind-life is born of the soul in the form of ideas innumerable. The large soul is pregnant with forms of life. Being of the same nature as the Oversoul, all that God is, is repre- sented in the soul and given to the mind, as sug- gestions that arouse it to active thought and to creation. Mind cannot be truly great without a large soul to give originality. It is a storehouse from which the mind draws sustenance, restoring in turn the residuum of its acquisitions. There are wombs in which are generated disease and death. In like manner, there are souls which are productive of abnormal life, developing the life
The Self is God. 2$
principle in many forms foreign to the one form which is immortal. From the normal womb chil- dren are born, creating the family which, in expan- sion, is society and the nation, and the perpetuation of the race. But small, mean, collapsed souls that hunger and thirst for wealth, dominion, and praise, are abnormal wombs which breed disease, crime, and disintegration, larvae of the soul, still infused with life.
Souls are prolific. The Oversoul contains in es- sence all forms that exist, and inventions come into the mind from the soul, as a child is born into the external world. In space, or the Oversoul, are the spirits of the dead ; we breathe and think their elements into our being, thus incorporating them into ourselves. To think is to inhale by the soul, as we draw the atmosphere into the lungs. All life, thought, intelligence, wisdom, charity, are in- haled by the mind, as are violence, fear, hatred, avarice, and kindred passions that belong to the animal nature. If we are candid and honest, earnestly desiring love or wisdom, or any quality, we imagine belongs to God, the little love or wis- dom we have will attract from the Oversoul the same qualities, thus reinforcing our littleness with the greatness of the All. All things, — our food, our drink, — being charged with, made up of God, minister to our higher natures, if called on to do so. The thought we have of God may give life
26 Regeneration.
and vitality, or it may poison and disintegrate every atom of our flesh. To think of anything is to draw its vital life, according to our thought of it, into our being. We are made up of the lower orders of life, whose spirits, coalescing in the higher order, are lost in man, as the bubbles break and are lost in the moving waters of the great deep ; but there remains in the nature the attractive force of each species, which continues to draw to us the spirit emanations of every species. It is difficult for the mind to grasp the truth that a plant and the seed of it are one and the same. In illustrating this, Jesus affirmed : " I and my Father are one," in the same sense as I speak of this body as "me." Animal life came into manifestation prior to man, and many animal lives are interwoven with the fabric of his being, each thread of which is essential to its perfection. Shall the cloth despise the threads of which it is woven } When we are able to say with the spirit and with the understanding, *' My brother, the beast ; my sister, the worm," we may sense the vibrations of all animal life, know its language and those mysteries of its being which we are now too preoccupied with our own little- ness to discover. The teeming life of sea and air and earth is immortal, for it is life ; it is immortal in man, as man is immortal in God.
Evolution is from one to many, but involution is a concentrating of the many into one of a higher
TJic Self is God.
order. So the genemtion of man is effected by coupling generation with dominion of the animal kingdom. Thus we perceive that the corruption necessary to generate the Adamic life is effected by the combination of the spirits of the lower or- ders, the aggregation of the individualized life of the air, earth, and water. In man are gathered the monsters of the deep ; from the poisonous slime come reptiles and nameless creatures the eye of man has never beheld ; tameless beasts from in- accessible jungles; spores from the ooze of swamps; microbes and microscopic monsters ; animalculae and germs which man as yet has never subdued. Plagues, epidemics, fevers, reveal the corruption of the flesh in which they are generated from these animal deposits.
A step beyond, and behold how the monsters of lower nature have entered into and become our spiritual nature! Crime and depravity crowd upon this higher realm for rebirth into a new plane of being. True, they lose individuality in merging into the human, but they retain the organic principles of animal spirit. Their souls rush together, as minute bubbles unite to form a larger one, and blend in groups, establishing propensities, antagonistic and harmonious, each group closely connected with the dominant species from which it emanated. This is the source of what Theosophy terms " Elementals." The elements are composed of the
28 Regeneration.
spirits below man, and the ferment incident to this mingUng of spirits forms the corrupt element nec- essary to generation. There can be no generation without a corrupt or complex element, and Regen- eration has its w^ork in and with the same elements.
" Self-preservation is the first law of nature." It is the voice of God speaking in language per- fectly understood by worm, bird, beast, or man. The object of creation seems to be the production of infinite varieties and their preservation and per- petuation in species, and above all other instincts the preservation of the self is dominant. We love ourselves, even when fully conscious of our defects. There is no evidence that a single man or woman of the race has fully outgrown the animal. It is tamed, modified, suppressed in many persons ; but slip the leash, and the fierce, cunning, crafty, or cowardly ancestors appear, showing clearly that we are of the family.
There can be but one Infinite All, and anything less is unworthy of reverence. Division is imper- fection and antagonism. Two Infinite Beings are impossible, and so long as the race recognizes two ruling powers, God and the Devil, there can be no unity of spirit, or effort. The natural love of the Self ought to show us where our reverence should center. ''I am," is sufficient. No other name is necessary ; no further search for a creator avails. To explore myself is the true work and worship,
The Self is God.
the only study which will satisfy and repay effort. I am aware of no self but my own, and I recognize that self in every other in existence. Here there can be no antagonisms, for as I judge myself I judge others. In exploring myself, I find other souls, and, as I cannot comprehend myself, so I am unable to measure and define another. We judge that which is inferior to, or beneath us ; in Equality there are neither judges nor verdicts. The God within us sees God everywhere, and the devil finds another devil lurking in every other soul. Man, being progressive, longs for improvement, and in his egoistic ignorance attempts to improve nature by going contrary to her methods of pro- gression, with the result that he travels in circles. If he had the instinct to follow her lead, there would be no inharmony or evil in the world; but, following his own conception of the better road, his history is a record, for the most part, of un- successful attempts to reach the goal of well-being. Taking a broad view of human history, we are forced to the conclusion that the race changes very little from age to age, with little improvement since the first known records were made. Ignorance and depravity remain about the same, emphasized by the small proportion of those who have evolved above their fellows, rising like mountain-peaks above the swamps, the valleys, plains, and seas, which still exceed the hill-tops in area and fruitful-
30 Regejicration.
ness, many thousand-fold. The gods to whom we build temples and offer oblations are admired, loved, and adored until the awakened reason discovers them to be myths, or vague memories of dead heroes, who after all, are only larger images of our- selves.
God is within, and every soul who will turn in- ward the search-light of desire and love may find him. And he will be found concealed in the self, the I, which is one with the Universal Conscious- ness. God is our Providence, and the noblest man- ifestation of the God-Self is in being the providence of the weak and ignorant, even as the mother-love is the providence of the babe. This is the true road to perfect manhood, the way of Regeneration, the conscious presence of the Divine Light of Illumi- nation.