William Atkinson - The Complete Works of William Walker Atkinson

After you have beaten your wings against the cage of the Unknowable, and fall bruised and exhausted—after you have done all of which your Intellect is capable, and have thus learned your lesson—then listen to the Voice Within, see the tiny flame which burns steadily and cannot be extinguished, feel the pressure of the Something Within, and let it unfold. You will then begin to understand that as the mind of Man developed, by slow stages, from sensation to simple consciousness—from simple consciousness into self consciousness (in its lowest and highest degrees) so is there a consciousness in store for Man (and some few have attained it), higher than we have heretofore imagined, which is now beginning to manifest itself. You will then understand that there may be an Intelligent Faith which knows, not merely believes. These and other lessons you will learn in time.

As you progress along the lines of spiritual unfoldment you will find other sources of knowledge, seemingly apart from the Intellect, although, in reality, allied to it. You will find that there are regions of the Soul, heretofore unexplored, which you are invited to enter. You will find that you will be able to gain knowledge regarding these great questions which have defied your intellectual efforts, and although the information will not come to you through the door of the Intellect, yet it will not be repugnant to the Intellect. It will not be contrary to Intellect— but will be beyond Intellect. Instead of reaching the Ego through the portals of the Intellect, it will seem to come from a higher source—the Higher Reason—and will be then passed down to the Intellect, that the latter may assimilate it, and combine it with what it already has stored up. You will find that you have a new world of knowledge opened out before your mental gaze, and you will rejoice at the sight.

And, when you have reached the stage where you feel the promptings of the Higher Reason, and are able to live in accordance therewith, you will say with Edward Carpenter:

“Lo! the healing power descending from within, calming the enfevered mind, spreading peace among the grieving nerves. Lo! the eternal saviour, the sought after of all the world, dwelling hidden (to be disclosed) within each … O joy insuperable.”

Table of Content

God has begotten the Universe—The Universe has no boundaries or limits—God manifested in every atom—The Causeless Cause—The Intellect and its troubles—Man may spiritually know the reality of God—Man’s different concepts of God—God’s attributes, Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence, and their explanation—The Father-Mother—The apparently conflicting ideas regarding God, reconciled—God’s manifestations: Substance, Energy, and Spirit—All men really worshiping the one God, although apparently worshiping many—A Personal God without the limitations of personality—God manifesting in Infinite Spirit—In Infinite Energy—In Infinite Substance—Man growing in God-consciousness—Nearer, my God, to Thee—All are children of God, with a share of his attributes.

GOD HAS begotten and governs by Law that which we call the Universe. And that Universe is not the petty thing that many of us have been considering it to be. It is not the Earth as a centre, with Sun, Moon and Stars circling around it, all designed to contribute to the comfort, welfare and well-being of the inhabitants of that speck of dirt—the Earth. It is a Universe, the very idea of which cannot be grasped by the human mind. It is Infinite. It has no boundaries, no limits. All parts of Space are filled with manifestations of The Absolute. Countless Suns exist, each having their planetary systems. Worlds are coming into existence every day, and each day worlds are passing out of existence. Of course, when I say coming into existence, and going out of existence, I mean that they are changing form—being gathered together, or being dissolved. There is no destruction in Nature—only change of form. Man in his egotism has imagined himself to be the highest possible form of created life—has thought of this tiny grain of matter, the Earth, as the only bit of matter containing Life. When he realizes that there are millions upon millions of worlds containing Life in higher or lower forms— when he realizes that this old Earth is but as a grain of sand upon the sea-shore of the Universe—when he realizes that in other spheres there exist beings as much higher than Man as Man is higher than the amoeba—then he begins to realize the comparative insignificance of Man and the greatness of God.

And then, when he begins to realize these things, he will begin to acquire that spiritual consciousness that will make it evident to him that he is on a long journey, and that wonderful possibilities are ahead of him. He will realize that as he advances along the Path he will acquire new powers, new intelligence, new attributes, that will make him as a very god compared to his present state, although the grandest and highest state that he can imagine for himself will make him, as compared to God, only as a tiny speck of dust playing in the sunbeam as compared with the Sun itself.

God manifests himself in every atom of matter—in every atom of Energy—in every atom of Intelligence. His manifestations, although apparently innumerable, are all simply different manifestations of the same thing. There is really but One manifestation of God, taking upon itself countless forms and appearances. We are the expressions of God’s power, limited, it is true, but yet constantly growing, impelled upward by the attraction from above, and developing into a realization of our relation to all the other expressions of God, and to God himself.

God exists, has always existed, and will always exist. He is the only thing in the Universe that has no preceding cause. He is his own cause. He is the Cause of Causes. HE IS THE CAUSELESS CAUSE.

The human intellect, unaided, is incapable of grasping the idea of a thing without a cause, or of a cause without a preceding cause. The human intellect adheres closely to the doctrine of the universal law of cause and effect, and finds it impossible to discard it or to admit that there is a single exception to that law, as such exception would violate the law.

The intellect is forced to assume one of two things (1) that there is a first cause, or (2) that the chain of cause and effect is infinite. And either conclusion leaves the intellect in a poor position, because if it admits a first cause, its chain of cause and effect is broken; and if, on the contrary, it assumes that the chain of cause and effect is infinite, it is met with the fact that a thing that has no beginning can have no cause —that a beginningless thing is a causeless thing, besides which, as the Infinite cannot be grasped by the finite mind, it has, in its endeavor to avoid admitting that it could not explain things, given an explanation which it, itself, cannot grasp or understand. Poor intellect! It is the most valuable mental working instrument possessed by Man, yet when it makes the mistake of supposing that it is Man instead of one of his tools, it puts itself in a ridiculous position. It does not realize the wonderful possibilities before it, when, blended with the thought emanating from the higher planes of the Soul, it will produce results now scarcely dreamt of except by those who have reached the higher planes of consciousness.

Because the intellect has its limitations, we should not lose confidence in it, nor accept things told us by others which are contrary to intellect, merely because someone else claims these things as truth. Accept the decision of the intellect, unless you receive the truth from the higher consciousness, in which case it will not be contrary to Intellect, but will merely go beyond intellect, teaching that which intellect cannot grasp by itself, and then calling on intellect to do its part of the work in carrying out the mutual task. Blind belief is a very different thing from inspiration—do not confound them.