Philosophy and religion -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- United States
“In the beginning was Self alone. Atman is the Self in all our
selves—the Divine Self concealed by his own qualities. This Self they
sometimes call the Undeveloped. . . . The generation of Brahma was
before all ages, unfolding himself evermore in a beautiful glory;
everything which is highest and everything which is deepest belongs to
him. Being and not being are unveiled through Brahma. . . . How can any
one teach concerning Brahma? He is neither the known nor the unknown.
That which cannot be expressed by words, but through which all
expression comes, this I know to be Brahma. That which cannot be thought
by the mind, but by which all thinking comes, this I know is Brahma.
That which cannot be seen by the eye, but by which the eye sees, is
Brahma.”
They liked this so well, and said it expressed their feelings so truly,
that I offered to copy it for each one of them. Marian said she did not
understand what was meant by “concealed by his own qualities.”
I answered: “We know God only because of the universe which we see and
feel.”
“Yes,” she said.
“But just that the universe,” I went on, “conceals God, is a mystery as
well as a revelation.”
“I don’t quite understand,” said Marian.
“It is like a great light,” I said, “which is so bright that it dazzles
you, and you cannot look at it.”
“Like the sun,” said Virginia.
“I think I see what you mean,” Marian answered.
I continued: “Moses spoke of God in that same way, as the vast Self:
‘And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am; and he said, Thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.’
“And so,” I went on, “myself and yourself, the self of every man and the
self of the universe, that is God.”
With delightful frankness they said that they liked it better as it was
put in “that thing on Brahma.”
“So do I,” I answered. “We know only self. Is it not so?”
“I don’t like the word ‘self,’” said Ruth; “it is too limited. I think
only of my little self.”
Marian agreed. Virginia said that to her it seemed the true word, that
she felt the whole as a vast self. “But isn’t it more?” she asked. “God
is feeling. When I ride in an open trolley, and the wind blows in my
face, and the trees blow, and the clouds move in the sky, then the
feeling that it gives me I call God.”
“Isn’t it self, within yourself?” I asked.
“Yes, it is,” she answered.
“Now,” I said, “we are little, incomplete, limited creatures, but we
need the whole universe to be complete. The whole universe is the rest
of self, the rest of myself. That is what I mean by God, and in that
sense I am a part of God.”
All the children agreed at once, as if this were the thing they had
wanted to hear said. This first definite statement that I made seemed to
us all unanswerably true.
Immediately they went on to speak of good and bad; but I stopped them,
thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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