The Doré Lectures: Being Sunday addresses at the Doré Gallery, London, given in connection with the Higher Thought CentreTroward, T. (Thomas)
Religion
The Doré Lectures: Being Sunday addresses at the Doré Gallery, London, given in connection with the Higher Thought Centre
Troward, T. (Thomas)
New Thought
Now the change from Baali to Ishi indicates an important
alteration in the relation between the Divine Being and the
worshipper; but since the Divine Being cannot change, the altered
relation must result from a change in the stand-point of the
worshipper: and this can only come from a new mode of looking at
the Divine, that is, from a new order of thought regarding it.
Baali means Lord, and Ishi means husband, and so the change in
relation is that of a female slave who is liberated and married
to her former master. We could not have a more perfect analogy.
Relatively to the Universal Spirit the individual soul is
esoterically feminine, as I have pointed out in "Bible Mystery
and Bible Meaning," because its function is that of the receptive
and formative. This is necessarily inherent in the nature of the
creative process. But the individual's development as the
specializing medium of the Universal Spirit will depend entirely
upon his own conception of his relation to it. So long as he only
regards it as an arbitrary power, a sort of slave owner, he will
find himself in the position of a slave driven by an inscrutable
force, he knows not whither or for what purpose. He may worship
such a God, but his worship is only the worship of fear and
ignorance, and there is no personal interest in the matter except
to escape some dreaded punishment. Such a worshipper would gladly
escape from his divinity, and his worship, when analyzed, will be
found to be little else than disguised hatred. This is the
natural result of a worship based upon UNEXPLAINED traditions
instead of intelligible principles, and is the very opposite of
that worship in Spirit and in truth which Jesus speaks of as the
true worship.
But when the light begins to break in upon us, all this becomes
changed. We see that a system of terrorism cannot give expression
to the Divine Spirit, and we realize the truth of St. Paul's
words, "He hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power,
and of love, and of a sound mind." As the true nature of the
relation between the individual mind and the Universal Mind
becomes clearer, we find it to be one of mutual action and
re-action, a perfect reciprocity which cannot be better
symbolized than by the relation between an affectionate husband
and wife. Everything is done from love and nothing from
compulsion, there is perfect confidence on both sides, and both
are equally indispensable to each other. It is simply the
carrying out of the fundamental maxim that the Universal cannot
act on the plane of the Particular except through the Particular;
only this philosophical axiom develops into a warm living
intercourse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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