step. On other worlds in the Cosmos, there are beings as much higher than Man, as man is higher than the earthworm. Our planet is but one of millions upon millions of millions of worlds, in which Evolution is at work. We are away down low in the scale of worlds and being. There are beings as great as man's conceptions of the gods of old, dwelling on some of these planets and worlds. Some of us have dwelt on these brighter spheres, but have been sent back a grade or two in order to complete tasks left undone; or to gain experiences necessary; or because the fires of material desire had not yet died out in us, and we needed to "get enough of it" once more, in order to be free of the dross. There are planes of Life so transcendentally grand and exalted, that Man's wildest imagination cannot conceive of them. And, on the other hand, there are worlds lower in the scale so sunken in materiality and foulness, that the orthodox hell would be preferable to them. Man goes where his desires take him. He travels the road of his desires and thoughts. He makes his own route—he guides his own vessel. Man is his own Destiny.
The Many Lives are but Centres of Life in the great One Life. Separateness is but the "creative fiction" of the Cosmos—illusory and relative. All Life is but One, in its fundamental nature. The entire Cosmos is but One Life, in which we are parts or centres—in its Being we "live and move and have our being." The One Life is not far away, but is all around us, and immanent within us. While one phase of the Cosmic Paradox shows the individual to be but an infinitesimal unit in a stupendous whole, the other phase shows the individual to be identical with the Whole—connected with all by spiritual bonds and links—and sharing the infinite possibilities of the All. The life of the individual is not bounded by his personal limitations, but includes the life of the All. In this understanding and recognition there is found the reconciliation, unity and agreement between the contradictory phases of life and the universe. True spiritual advancement depends upon the increasing recognition and identification of the individual with the All.
An important point in the Arcane Teaching is that which holds that the Cosmos is, and can be, conscious only through and by means of the various centres of consciousness within itself. Without these centres of consciousness within itself—the consciousness of You and I and all the rest—the One Life would be unconscious. Just as the individual can be conscious only through his stream of units of consciousness, so can the One Life be conscious only through its stream of centres of consciousness. Destroy these centres of consciousness, and the Cosmos once more is resolved into its condition of Unconscious Nothingness. And, moreover, the One Life can live only through its centres of Life—the centres called You and I, and the rest. Will is the "lifeness" of Life—Consciousness is the "livingness" of Life—and the individual is the centre of both Will and Consciousness, and therefore of Life. As the Cosmos advances in the Cosmic Day, there is manifested a constantly increasing blending or unification of the various centres of Life—a constantly increasing identification of the individual with the All. And, thus is accomplished the approach to the Cosmic High Noon, when the One Life, as one life and consciousness, lives, wills and is conscious. Before that time comes, the illusion of Separateness is manifested—the "creative fiction" of the Cosmos operates in working out the approach to Cosmic Consciousness.
Thus it is seen that the Cosmos, or One Life, does not manifest as separate units of life in order to amuse itself, or to try experiments, or any of the various "explanations" hazarded by philosophy, metaphysics, or theology. It manifests through the centres, because it must do so in order to live and be conscious. Creation and the Universe is not a matter of whim, unreasoning desire, or arbitrary fiat of the One Life of the Cosmos. Far from that. It is the Cosmic Necessity. Just as you must live in order to be alive so must the Cosmos manifest Life in order to live and be conscious. Just as you find the imperative demand for life within yourself; so does the Cosmic Life find the imperative demand for Life within itself. The One Life is under the Law, just as you are under the Laws. The urge of "Must" is ever impelling it forward. It is not Free—it is under the Law and The Laws. The Law is ever over and above it—the Seven Laws are constantly in operation within it. The One Life is not a cruel, arbitrary master or ruler. It is your Greater Self, and subject to the same laws which govern you. It is doing the best it can, for itself, and therefore for you. When the individual realizes this fact—the fact that the One Life is doing the best it can; is bound by the Laws as much as is the individual; that there is no manifestation of arbitrary desire, or unreasoning whim in the Cosmic machinery; that One is All, and All is One; then there appears a reason and explanation for much in life which has hitherto defied explanation or reason; or theory of justice and equity. Then is there seen an explanation of that apparently arbitrary, despotic manifestation of power, which caused old Omar Khayyam to utter his rebellious protests, and cry aloud:
"Into this Universe, and ‘Why' not knowing,
Nor ‘Whence,' like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not ‘Whither,' willy-nilly blowing.
"What, without asking, hither hurried ‘Whence'?
And, without asking, ‘Whither' hurried hence!
Oh, many a cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence!
"A moment guessed—then back behind the Fold
Immerst of Darkness round the Drama rolled,
Which for the pastime of Eternity
He doth himself contrive, enact, behold.
"We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In midnight by the Master of the Show.
"But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon His Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and Thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that tossed you down into the Field,
He knows about it all—He knows—He knows."
Many daring thinkers who setting aside "the bribe of heaven and threat of hell" have dared to look Life in the face, have been overcome by a sense of impotent subjection to an arbitrary Being who, being able to remedy conditions, and knowing of the pains of mortal life in the universe, nevertheless has deliberately imposed such conditions upon living things. Such thinkers find it impossible to reconcile the claimed qualities of Love and Good in such a Being, with the manifestations of apparent injustice, inequity, pain and suffering which made pessimists of great souls like Buddha, Lao-tze, and the writer of the Koheleth or Ecclesiastes. Indeed, viewing Life from this viewpoint, one finds it hard to escape the conviction which inspired the bitter words of old Omar, when he cried:
"What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of everlasting Penalties, if broke!
"What! from his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd;
Sue for a debt we never did contract
