The
enlightened in every age have taught that back of all things there
is One Unseen Cause. This teaching of Unity . . . "The Lord our
God is one God . . ." is the chief cornerstone of the sacred
scriptures of the East, as well as our own sacred writings. It is
the mainspring of the teachings of modern spiritual philosophies,
such as Unity Teachings,
the New Thought Movement,
the Occult Teachings, the Esoteric or Inner Teachings, our own Religious
Science, and even much that is taught under the name of Psychology.
Science has found nothing to contradict this unity, for it is self-evident.
An entire chapter in our textbook is available for further elucidation
of this subject.
There
is One Life of which we are a part; One Intelligence, which we use;
One Substance, which takes manifold forms. "That they all may
be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us."
In
the Bible we find these passages: "Now there
are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." "Whither
shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell,
behold, thou art there . . . If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover
me; even the night shall be light about me." "We all, with
open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image . . . by the Spirit of the Lord." "I
shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness."
"Know
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in
you?" "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
"The Lord our God is one God . . . He is God in heaven above
and upon the earth beneath. There is none else." ". . .
His word is in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones."
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . ."
". . . I will put my words in his mouth . . . the word is very
nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do
it."
All
sacred scriptures have proclaimed the unity of life; that every man
is a center of God Consciousness. This is the meaning of the mystical
marriage, or the union of the soul with its Source. Jesus boldly proclaimed
that he was one with the Father. This is the basis for all New Thought
teaching, the spiritual union of all life.
The
Qabbalah
states that "every existence tends toward the higher, the first
unity . . . the whole universe is one, complex. The lower emanates
from the Higher and is Its image. The Divine is active in each."
Unity
is a symbol of the soul's oneness with the Higher Nature, implying
complete freedom from bondage to anything less than itself. All positive
religions have taught that the supreme end of humanity is a union
of the soul with God.
"The
Atman, which is the substratum of the ego in man, is One." The
Hermetic Teaching tells us that "this Oneness,
being source and root of all, is in all." And the Gita
explains that "when he (man) perceiveth the diversified existence
of beings as rooted in One, and spreading forth from It, then he reacheth
the eternal."
Again
the Bible tells us: "thus saith the Lord . .
. I am the first and I am the last . . ." "I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the ending . . . which was and which is to
come . . ."
From
The Awakening
of Faith: "In the essence (of Reality) there
is neither anything which has to be included, nor anything which has
to be added."
In
one of the Upanishads we find this quotation: "The
One God who is concealed in all beings, who is the inner soul of all
beings, the ruler of all actions . . ." "All is the effect
of all, One Universal Essence." And again in Ephesians,
"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all,
and in you all."
In
Echoes From
Gnosis we find: "Oh Primal Origin of my origination;
Thou Primal Substance of my substance; Breath of my breath, the breath
that is in me."
From
the Bible: "To us there is but one God, the
Father, of whom are all things, and we in him . . ." And from
another Bible, "All this universe has the Deity for its life.
That Deity is Truth, who is the Universal Soul"
From
the Apocrypha: "He is Lord of Heaven, sovereign
of earth, the One existence." And the Upanishads
tell us, "He who is the Ear of the ear, the Mind of the mind,
the Speech of the speech, is verily the Life of life, the Eye of the
eye."
Religious
Science teaches an absolute union of man with his Source. So complete
is this union that the slightest act of human consciousness manifests
some degree of man's divinity. Man is not God, but he has no life
separate from the Divine; he has no existence apart from his Source.
He thinks God's thoughts after Him. He is divine neither by will nor
through choice, but by necessity. The whole process of evolution is
a continual process of awakening. It is an understanding of this indwelling
union which constitutes the Spirit of Christ.
Our
textbook defines Christ as "the Word of God manifest in and through
man. In a liberal sense, the Christ means the Entire Manifestation
of God and is, therefore, the Second Person of the Trinity. Christ
is Universal Idea, and each one 'puts on the Christ' to the degree
that he surrenders a limited sense of Life to the Divine Realization
of wholeness and unity with Good, Spirit, God."
Christ
is the Higher Self, the Divine Life proceeding from the Father. This
Christ enters the world of manifestation and animates all things.
Christ is in everything; we are rooted and centered in Him who is
"the way, the truth, and the life."
Christ
is the supreme ideal which Jesus made manifest through the power of
his word. Christ is the Divine Nature of all being and the Supreme
Goal of Union toward which all individuals and collective evolution
moves.
The
realization of this union gives birth to the consciousness of Christ
in the individual, and has been called "the light of the world."
When Peter said to Jesus, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the
living God," Jesus answered by telling Peter that no man had
revealed this to him but that it was a direct revelation of the Spirit.
This is in accord with our statement that . . . (continued on next
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