Cosmic Consciousness | Page 5

in our individual
consciousness may traverse this circle, but our failure to realize its
completeness does not change the fact that it is finished.
We can not add to the universal consciousness; nor take away
therefrom.
But we can extend our own area of consciousness from the narrow
limits of the personal self, into the heights and depths of the atman and
who shall set limitations to the power of the atman, the higher Self,
when it has attained at-one-ment with Om?

It is not the purpose of this book to trace the spiritual ascent of man
further than to point out the wide gulf between the degrees of
consciousness manifested in the lower animals and that of human
consciousness; again tracing in the human, the ever-widening area of
his cognition of the personal self, and its needs, to the awakening of the
soul and its needs; which needs include the welfare of all living things
as an absolute necessity to individual happiness.
Altruism, therefore, is not a virtue. It is a means of
self-preservation--without this degree of initiation into the boundless
area of universal, or cosmic consciousness, we may not escape the
karmic law.
The revelations, therefore, upon which are founded the numerous
religious systems, are comparable with the many and various degrees of
initiation into THAT WHICH IS.
They represent the degree which the initiate has taken in the lodge.
It may be argued that this fact of individual initiation into the
ever-present truth of Being, as into a lodge, offers no proof that this
earth is to ultimately become a heaven. It may be that this planet is the
outer-most lodge room and that there will never be a sufficient number
of initiates to make the earth a fit dwelling place for a higher order of
beings than now inhabit it. This may, indeed, be true. But all evidence
tends toward the hope that even the planet itself will come under the
regenerating power of Illumination.
All prophecies embody this promise; all that we know of what
materialists call "evolution" and occultists might well name
"uncovering of consciousness," points to a time when "God's will,"
"shall be done on earth as it is in heaven."
All who have attained to cosmic consciousness in whatever degree,
have prophecied a time, when this blessing would descend upon every
one; but the difficulty in adequately explaining this great gift seems
also to have been the burden of their cry.
Jesus sought repeatedly to describe to his hearers the wonders of the
cosmic sense, but realized that he was too far in advance of the cyclic
end; but even as at that time, a number of disciples were capable of
receiving the Illumination, so to-day, a larger number are capable of
attainment. If this number is great enough to bring about the
regeneration--the perfecting--of the earth conditions, then it must be

accomplished.
We believe that it is. We make the claim that the Millenium _has
dawned_; and although it may be many years before the light of the
morning breaks into the full light of the day, yet the rays of the dawn
are dispelling the world's long night.
In his powerful and prophetic story "In the Days of the Comet," H.G.
Wells, tells of a great change that comes over the world following an
atmospheric phenomenon in which a "green vapor" is generated in the
clouds and falls upon the earth with instantaneous effect.
As this peculiar vapor descends, it has the effect of putting every one to
sleep; this sleep continues for three days and when people finally
awake, their interior nature has undergone a complete change.
Where before they "saw dimly," they now see clearly; the petty
differences and quarrels are perceived in their true perspective. Instead
of place, and power, and influence, and wealth, being all-important
goals of ambition as before the change, every one now strives to be of
service to the world. Love and kindness become greater factors than
commercial expediency and business success.
In many respects, Wells' description of the great change and its effect
upon people, corresponds with the effect of Illumination.
The sense of entering into the very heart of things; of growing plants;
the birds and the little wood animals; the intense sympathy and
understanding of life described by him, sounds like the effect of cosmic
consciousness, as related by nearly all who have attained it.
How the world's activities are resumed after the change, and under
what vastly different incentives people work, form a part of the story,
which is written as fiction, but which contains the seed of a great truth.
This truth is expressed in science, as human achievement, and in
religion as fulfilled prophecy, but the truth is the same.
Both religion and science point to a time when