What is Religion and who needs it? 3 of 4

Unless there is unity at the universal heart, we cannot understand variety. We are in essence one with God. He, who is the coloring in the wings of the butterfly, and the blossoming of the rose-bud, is the power that is in the plant and in the butterfly. He who gives us life is the power within us. Out of His fire comes life, and the direst death is also His power. He whose shadow is death, His shadow is immortality also.

Let’s take a still higher conception. See how we are running like hunted rabbits from all that which is terrible and thinking we are safe. See how the whole world is fleeing from everything terrible, if we are ever to gain freedom, it must be by conquering nature, never by running away. Cowards never win victories. We have to fight fear and troubles and ignorance if we expect them to flee before us.

What is death? What are terrors? Do we not see the Lord's face in them? Flee from evil and terror and misery, and they will follow us. Face them, and they will flee. The whole world worships ease and pleasure, and very few dare to worship that which is painful. To rise above both is the idea of freedom. Unless we pass through this gate we cannot be free. We all have to face these.

We strive to worship the Lord, but nature rises between Him and us and blinds our vision. We must learn how to worship and love Him in shame, in sorrow, and in sin. The entire world has ever been preaching the God of virtue. We have to come to the point where we preach about a God of virtue and a God of sin in one. The Ultimate Truth which we must realize is, that all is Oneness. Then will we give up the idea that one is greater than another. The nearer we approach the law of freedom, the more we shall come under the Lord, and troubles will vanish. Then we shall not differentiate the door of hell from the gate of heaven, nor differentiate between men and say, "I am greater than any being in the universe." Until we see nothing in the world but the Lord Himself, all these evils will be-set us and we shall make all these distinctions; because it is only in the Lord, in the Spirit, that we are all one; and until we see God everywhere, this unity will not exist for us.

We are in reality one with the Lord, but the reflection makes us seem many, as when the one sun reflects in a million dewdrops and seems a million tiny suns. The reflection must vanish if we are to identify ourselves with our real nature which is divine. The universe itself can never be the limit of our satisfaction. That is why the miser gathers more and more money that is why the robber robs, the sinner sins, that is why we are learning philosophy. All have one purpose. There is no other purpose in life, ecept to reach this freedom. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all striving for perfection. Every being must attain to it.

The one, who is groping through sin, through misery, the one who is choosing the path through hells, will reach it, but it will take time. We cannot save him. Some hard knocks will help us to turn to the Lord. The path of virtue, purity, unselfishness, spirituality, becomes known at last and what all are doing unconsciously, we are trying to do consciously. This is the lesson for the whole world to learn.

What have philosophies and theories of nature to do, if not to help us to attain to this one goal in life? Let us come to that consciousness of the identity of everything and let us see our self in everything. Let us be no more the worshippers of creeds or sects with small limited notions of God, but see Him in everything in the universe. If we are knowers of God, we will everywhere find the same worship as in our own heart.

In the first place we need to get rid of all our limited ideas and see God in every person, working through all hands, walking through all feet, and eating through every mouth. In every being He lives, through all minds He thinks. He is self-evident, nearer unto us than ourselves.

If we think, that the basis of religion is faith; may it please the Lord to give us this faith! When we shall feel that oneness, we shall be immortal. We are physically immortal even, one with the universe. As long as there is one that breathes throughout the universe, we live in that one. We are not this limited little being, we are the universal, I am, the life of all the sons of the past. I am the same soul that is of Jesus, of Buddha, of Mohammed. I am the same soul of the teachers, and all the robbers that robbed, and all the murderers that were hung, I am the universal. This is the highest worship. We are one with the universe. That only is humility, not crawling upon all fours and calling ourselves sinners. That is the highest evolution when this veil of differentiation is torn off. The highest creed is Oneness. I am so-and-so is a limited idea, not true of the real "I". I am the universal; stand upon that and ever worship the Highest through the highest form, for God is Spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

Through lower forms of worship, man's material thoughts rise to spiritual worship and the Universal Infinite One is at last worshipped in and through the spirit. That which is limited is material. The Spirit alone is infinite. God is Spirit, is Infinite;