CHAPTER VIII

MAN

1. As in the preceding lesson it was impossible to study the nature of God without including man, so in this lesson it will be impossible to consider man without a further study of God. The one presupposes the other and they are inseparable. It is impossible to have a king without a kingdom and it is impossible to have a kingdom without a king. It is inconceivable to imagine a creator without his creation and certainly there could be no creation without a creator. They are but the two aspects of a single thing and without the one there could not be the other. Man is therefore an indispensable part of the Universal
2. The Masters’ thought of man is that he is in his true estate, always active, and is that through which Principle works or comes into manifestation. As they often put it: “Man projecting God; Man becoming God; the very Ideal of all Perfection; God selective but completely universal.” Selection evidently came about through man’s thought entirely. The Masters’ thought is always that man must make the selection but in that he can never carry that selection of the Whole or out of complete Principle or Spirit. And that means, of course, that man never does get away from his true Being or true origin. Every man is his own determining factor and that factor is always absolutely one with Principle, never separated and never dependent upon anything but
3. Man as man can never be a completely independent organism for he is inseparably united with the whole. How could he remove himself out of infinity? He only imagines his isolation and that imagination is the sole source of his limitation. It is purely The extent of his free will, or right of selection, cannot be carried beyond his imagination for, in fact, he is always united in and with his source. He only needs to rid himself of his vain imaginings and accept the inevitable and he is at once in his rightful place with the Universal system. He is king only in the sense that he has the privilege of carrying out the laws of the Kingdom and any king who disregards the laws of his kingdom does not remain king for long. Kingship is subject to the laws of the kingdom just as are the subjects and they are all units in a single system with the law superseding at all times. Only through the binding influences of the law does the kingdom remain an harmonious unit.
4. Man is triune but that trinity is never separated; it is always one. You understand all the attributes of man if you understand Man. The Greeks knew this and expressed it in their statement: “Man, know thyself.” It is very evident that we have not begun to know ourselves, our importance, our Divinity; Divinity meaning, of course, that Man is a part of the whole and, as such, does know all and IS the All in manifestation.
5. There can be no triangle unless the three lines which form its sides are joined together in Unless they are joined, there are only three lines and not a trinity at all. The trinity is dependent upon unity and their unity is the trinity. Man’s business is not to dissect himself until he understands his trinity which would only be diversity. Man is progressing back to his Father’s house and his progress in this direction is to discover himself as a unit, the undifferentiated position which he occupies in the Universal scheme.
6. It is always possible for man to improve his consciousness to the point where he becomes God-like. That was the first thought in the Divine Right of Kings. It was not for the king to put himself up as the only Divine Ruler. All mankind should be Divine Rulers and rule as Kings but always with that expression of Love which is Service. Man stands One with his own Divinity and he is then of Service always. He never exalts himself above another. If he is an egotist, he destroys himself. He cannot be an egotist for long. Man’s kingship arises from his sense of oneness with the whole and egotism arises from the sense that he is a separate ego within and of himself. Therefore, egotism is the greatest violation of the natural law of his being and produces the most disastrous
7. The translation of the Bible is in error where it says that man was created in the image of God. The “in” should be left out so that it reads, “Man IS the image of God.” The word “in” does not appear in the original. And right here we find illustrated the major trouble with the orthodox conception. They all try to make God in the image of man and, in taking this attitude, they have created something that man cannot understand. Man can understand himself and, if he thinks of God as another personality like himself, only in larger proportions, he can never understand the true relationship that exists between himself and his source. But, if he understands that he is the universal individualized or that he is as an individual what God is universally, he has something which he can comprehend. If we leave out the “in,” then man is the image of God. “I am God” is the great statement. It belongs to man wholly. The image or likeness means the exactness in the old Sanskrit. The name and nature of cause and effect are always interchangeable for the one is essentially the counterpart of the other. The activity of cause is the life and form of the
8. Some people quite naturally ask that, if this be true, why did Jesus always say that “I am the son of God,” but never “I am God”? But this is only one of His statements. He said, “I and my Father are one.” Then the translators, failing to understand the next sentence: “You are God as you present God, therefore I present God to you,” left that completely Yet he said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father—God.”
9. It should be remembered also that the name “I am God” was the unspeakable name to the Ancients. The theory was that it was never to be made as an audible statement. Its utterances were in the silence of their own souls and the only way it was ever to be voiced was in the natural radiation of authority, perfection, and power that emanated from this inner secret acknowledgment. “The Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” is the thought. It is the Silent name of the Silent being of God, the inner and universal fact of all In a previous talk we noted that another meaning to the statement, “I am God,” is, “I am Silent.” The “I am God” is the silent witness within the nature of man to a Universal fact. It is the name hidden within the name Jesus Christ and the secret name of every man that hath breath, and that name is the Breath.

10. It was considered blasphemous to make this audible statement and the people of Christ’s time construed His statements as inferring that the unutterable NAME was applied to They condemned Him by their own inference regarding His statements. But He was true to the law of the mystics and, though many of His statements inferred the fact, He did not utter it. “Thou hast said,” “I am,” “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” all infer this same fact but, whatever He may have said in His heart, He is never credited with voicing the fact outwardly that, “I am God.” The theory is that man IS the word himself and his own presence in the Universe is the spoken evidence and needs no further utterance. In the beginning was the Word—the word became flesh and when man appears in creation he IS that word unspeakable in sounds or syllables for he is the completed word as he stands. If I AM anything, the living embodiment of it, it is self- apparent and needs no further projection. Everything spoken from this consciousness is the authority of the Universe speaking with all power in heaven and in earth.
11. This was included in his statement that, “before Abraham was, I am,” for man, as the formed aspect of God universal, always was and always will be God in evidence. He referred right back to the old Sanskrit law of Abraham: A-Brahm—light—a God. Then came David the Light-bearer, and one who bore the Light to all mankind, and Mary, the Preceptor of Creative Principle. You can bring it all down to the Ah Brahm, which means a Christ Child, the Union of all forces to present the Christ Ideal—man is God— to the
12. There should be no distinction made between Universal man and individual man. No more can such a distinction be made than you can make a distinction between the circumference and the center of a sphere. There is where most of the trouble has arisen. You cannot divide man. Man is One, One with God. “I and my Father are one,” was Jesus’ true statement and He carried it still further when He said: “When you pray, pray to the Christ of God; include yourself as the ”
13. The Masters do not talk of God and man. They are always one in their consideration. There is no separation whatever. There is no priest and a separate congregation. It is the congregation and the priest—all
14. Huxley and Darwin and their kind brought forth much evidence regarding mortal man and tried to establish his human or animal origin, hoping thereby to overthrow the creation theory. The Master’s attitude is that of the Divinity of man; that he is of Divine origin, never separated from his Divinity in any way. Darwin and Huxley and the others built up their evidence so that there was no Head whatever and that is the reason for their They failed completely to carry it through to Principle. The very last statement of Darwin was: “Beyond this which we have built up still remains Principle, which is a mystery to us.” There is no effect without a cause and it is impossible to understand the effect without consideration of the cause.
15. That is why Emil says, “You can do these things just as easily as I do them,” with true child-like simplicity. That was the reason for Jesus’ great accomplishments, leaving out all “These and greater things shall ye do.”
16. Man as a separate identity can do nothing. “I of myself can do nothing,” said Jesus. In his isolated sense man is like a street car with the trolly off the wire. He has lost contact with all motivating power, which is the great underlying cause of all manifestation. The activity that is cause not only is the motivating power which produces but also is the effect itself and the only way man can keep going is to keep contact with that which projected him in the first place. “It is the Father within me, He doeth the works.” Cause must always be the motivating force within the effect, for the effect could not propel itself.

17. On this trip to date we have seen many races very different in appearance and custom from each other. The Masters see it all in the light of one consciousness. If we think of them as differing phases of consciousness we are apt to establish for ourselves a separation from that One. The only difference is in the other for all are motivated by the same inner ideal, which is the Christ, or the I AM God of each one. We must evaluate all men from this point if we would escape the differences that appear outwardly. When this inner becomes the without then there can be no outward difference, hence no strife, no greed, no war. There are many seeds and bulbs but when each has fulfilled itself in outward form it is all one harmonious Nature.
18. It is from this point of view that the Masters look upon reincarnation. They say it is not It is a human hypothesis only. They say that if there is a light placed in the center of the room the best way to reach that light is to go straight to it. Why circle around it time after time? If you go directly to that light and pick it up and incorporate it, you are through with all reincarnation and karma completely. It is only man’s failure to go direct to the central point or fact of life that keeps him in the “wheel of incessant grind.” If he will accept that central fact, which is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, he will have arrived and all his going round and round will have ceased, it will have come to an end.
19. All of these great problems that afflict the minds of man are completely overcome when he lives the life of the Masters or the life of his own mastery, the true inner Self. Jesus’ firm statement was that the Truth makes you free. Man gets rid of the idea that he is not God by refusing to accept the negative statements. The statement, “I am God,” held habitually as the secret fact within his own nature, frees him from the negative statement that he is not It is always better to state the Truth than the untruth.
20. Even your ability to analyze the “I AM” is a direct spiritual evidence of Divinity. If it were not there to analyze you could not analyze it, nor would it occur to you to even attempt an analysis. It is only necessary to accept that Divinity with no negative thoughts or statements regarding it, to be One with it. Analysis and all efforts to confine it to formalities, keep you from it. Even in mechanics we produce a thing and then account for it afterwards. All attempts to analyze it first only indicate its impossibility. This is true of every progressive step even in our material advancement. How much more should this same procedure apply with things entirely beyond our present system of human reason. The airplane was never accepted as a possibility by the world until it actually flew. A first analysis said it could not fly. Now we have an infinite amount of explanation as to how and why it is so. Facts must always come first and they may be accounted for
21. If one is overly cautious and is not fully awake to himself, this may seem like laying hold of your Divinity by means of blind faith but that is not necessary. But, if you take it wholly on blind faith, you have made a separation again and would never get to the It is far better to say “I can” and then go right on to “I AM.” “I can” is the potential fact, but “I am” is its fulfillment in your consciousness. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” You can never be that which you are not nor can you be anything but what you ARE. If you can become anything, as you put it, you ARE that. It is really not a matter of becoming, it is a matter of Being. Because you accept the “I can’t” attitude in any condition or circumstance, you have accepted a division. Jesus said you could not compromise with sin, you cannot deviate from the fact and express that fact.

22. When Jesus considered the suggestion that He turn the stones into bread He realized that the stones were already in existence and in manifestation and He did not need to change the stones into bread as He could stretch forth His hand and the bread was there. “What ought to be IS,” is the teaching of the Masters. If He needed bread, He did not need to concern Himself with the stones. He knew that if there was a need for bread it was already in existence and all He needed to do was to give thanks for
23. It would be impossible for man to need anything if it were not already in existence. Could you need air if there were no such thing in existence? The need indicates the fact and all one needs to do is to let go the sense of need and accept the fact implied in the need that it is already in existence. That which ought to be IS. This is true of what we refer to as the limitation of the physical body. This is an hypnotic influence of the mind It has no basis in fact at all. Man brought the sense of material into existence and not the body. The “mortal” body is the hypnotic body and, when man wakes from this state of hypnosis, all this experience will be to him just a nightmare. He wakes to dream no more. If he feels the need of a radiant spiritual body, void of limitation and expressing the glorious Light Body that is his perpetual dream, this is the foreshadowing in his consciousness of his fully awakened state. The thought, the need, the desire is the evidence of the fact that such a state already exists for him and his only achievement is in accepting its existence. This IDEAL state IS the true estate of man.
24. This body does not need to be spiritualized. It is already spiritual but man’s false beliefs about it have shut his mind to its radiance and limitlessness. Spirit is always Man creates the materiality. There is but one body and that body is Spiritual. It is the Temple of the Living God and God is in the Temple; let all the earth rejoice before God. If you call the body material, it is denying God and profaning the Temple. If you call the body or any true condition material, you are denying God. You are worshiping a material condition more than you are worshiping God. That is how you get into hypnosis. The moment that you deny God you are in a hypnotic influence and the moment you see the body as material you are in a hypnotic influence wherein you deny God.

25. The body is an instrument through which to express God. It is the greatest known instrument to express Spirit. It is brought here definitely for you to present God every Not to present materiality, or hypnosis, or psychism; not to present phenomena, but to present Spirit. We are God. We cannot make a separation and, if we refuse completely all separation, we would be out of all material conditions and all psychic phenomena. This is how man comes to know and understand the One Presence and One power. It is all One, One Power, One Reality. And everything works and operates under that One Power and One presence according to its own law. It is not adulterated with any other notion but moves as Itself in its own complete field.
26. You cannot make any differentiation between the individual soul and the Universal Soul or the Over-Soul. That is, you cannot draw apart. As Jesus said: “That is putting asunder God’s Principle.” There is a generalization under which every human being works but that is an assembly of Universal Units. There is individual identity but you are one in an assembly of Universal units. So is every human being. All are one and the same, operating under the same harmonious conditions. Always in harmony. Not differentiating from harmony but assembling in harmony.
27. A God-man is a genius, Christ standing forth, man expressing God without reserve or The reason children are often found to express what we call unusual genius is only that they have not yet been hypnotized with the idea of limitation possessed by those about them. If they continue to escape this hypnotic spell they remain geniuses, or the Divine Self, throughout the earth experience. They do not experience the earth, they experience their universality and the Christ-Self always.

28. To be the Master, the Self, is our great work always. The Masters of the East never say anything less than that America contains 130,000,000 Masters. That means that everyone is a Master. That is, of course, true of the whole world. It is worldwide to Every individual IS a Master. Even man’s limitation is proof to them of his mastership for only a Master could make himself to appear that which he is not.
29. The greatest presentation of Principle is what the world commonly calls the appearance of an Avatar or Savior. The acclamation, “Behold the King,” means that man lives closely to Principle, not that a great personage is coming but one who lives closely to Others acclaim him the Avatar or genius. He is but one man standing forth in the character that is potentially the Kingship of every man. Only he had the courage and conviction to take himself for what he IS. “The King can do no wrong,” for the moment any wrongdoing enters in, the moment a man accepts himself as less than the King, less than his Divinity, he has thereby become less than his own Kingship. The King is the Master, the Genius. Expressing himself in his true nature, and therein is his Kingship. He rules himself, for he is in his own Kingdom. The Kingdom of heaven is within. This Kingship which he is is also his message to all men. Not that he is King but that every man is a King within his own kingdom, a master over himself and his own environment, for he lives in reality; he lives as he is and in a realm of things as they really are. This is the Path which He shows to others or the life He lives becomes the path of life for all mankind.
30. His appearance or reappearance upon the earth is not dependent upon any condition of spiritual unfoldment for He is that Thing in its fullness. He steps right through all unfoldment and lives one with Spirit always. The idea of unfoldment belongs to man and his own theories. The Master has only accepted the state in which he was created from the beginning, the Image and likeness of God, the embodied nature of Infinity or
31. These illumined souls or Masters or Avatars do not write books because of the utter simplicity of their teachings. There is nothing to be said or written about “I AM,” for it is complete within itself. The life they live is its own revelation, it is the book of life revealed, opened as a scroll and needs no testimony but itself. When you reach the top you pull the stairs up with you. Therefore, there is no teaching to give. There is but the fact of life, the Truth of life revealed as itself, as it always has been and always will be. Steps as man would teach and write about are but degrees to which he lets go of falsity. He had better let it all go at once for, to “think yourself there is to be there,” as the Masters say.

FOR THE TEACHER

Paragraphs 1 and 2 bring us back to the eternal Unity of all things and the inseparable relationship which exists between God and man. This point cannot be stressed too strongly for the illumined have always taught that there is not God and Man, there is only God. Man is a unit in and with the Infinite and, as such, contains within himself all the potentialities of Infinity and all of Infinity is accessible to him. Man is ONE in and with the Universe.

Paragraphs 3, 4 and 5. Man cannot be an independent organism in the Universe for his whole being is dependent upon the source from which he came and his mastership is wholly dependent upon taking his place in the Universe. This is the prodigal returning to his Father’s house, that point where he dwells and lives in relationship with his source. He can be nothing of himself.

Paragraph 6. The Divine right of Kings, the divinity of man, lies in exercising the power that his position in the Universe presents; not in controlling others but ruling within his own kingdom, himself, under the law that governs all things. “Greater is he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city.” Inward rulership is the Mastery of the Masters. The Master does not prate his mastership. Christ did not attempt to reveal his own divinity but to acquaint all men with their own divinity.

Paragraph 7. Man is the personification of the Divine Principle or the individuality of the Universe. Man is the personal God or the embodiment of the Universal and Impersonal.

Paragraphs 8, 9 and 10. The “I am God” does not belong to the sense which man has of himself but the projected and ideal man of the Over-soul. For this reason the wise never have proclaimed to the world that “I am God.” They knew it within themselves, acknowledged it before God, but before the world they became the expressed fact and let it stand for itself. This is the ark of the covenant, the silent acceptance of the secret relationship which exists between creator and created.

Paragraphs 11, 12 and 13. Brahm was one name for God and a Brahm means a God. Before I was God individual, I was God Universal, for the one is dependent upon the other. They are one and the same thing, always have been so and always will be so. “I am with you always.”

Paragraph 14. There can be no material accounting for man, for matter does not produce intelligence, nor intelligence attain to spirit. Spirit is cause and, as cause, it endows its creation with the power of thought and being or expression. There is no determination for anything except as the expression of Spirit or cause.

Paragraphs 15 and 16. The habit of attributing certain powers to others and denying them for oneself is the practice that forever keeps man from arrival at his own mastery. The thought should always be that “if he has achieved I also may achieve, for what is potential with one is potential within all. Man’s arrival at the height of achievement is only the revelation of myself.” “He has attained or manifested that which I AM” should always be the thought.

Paragraph 17. To see all men as the embodiment of the same potential character, to see all men as the Christ, is to instantly dissolve all differences for things equal to the same thing are always equal to each other. This is the secret of the new order of things where peace and goodwill will be established in the earth. Only in the sense of difference can greed and strife develop.

Paragraphs 18 and 19. Can we not see once and for all that this running to and fro in the earth is entirely beside the point and that it is all due to the fact that we avoid the main issue? To accept the central fact of life is to become entirely free from all those ideas and processes which are less than the fact. If one arrives, he is free from the processes of arriving, and man must learn to begin his life at the beginning, which is God.

Paragraph 20. “What man can conceive he can achieve,” is an old adage but it has a meaning even above that for what he can conceive, he IS. It is as impossible to conceive a thing that is not already a fact as it would be to breathe if there were no air. The function within the nature of man is indication of that fact with which the function deals. It would be impossible for the cry to originate in the nature of man if there were not already the supply, the completed fact in the nature of God. And the fact precedes the desire in man for the desire is the recognition of the fact and its existence.

Paragraph 21. Caution is the retardant; boldness is not presumptuous when dealing with facts. It is merely accepting that which has already been proved in the lives of others as equally true of yourself.

Paragraph 22. It is not necessary to convert one form into another for the other is already there just as truly. It is training the mind to know this, to work in the realm of reality, and not always to be trying to make something over into another form of reality. Two plus two equals four, and three plus three equals six, and it is not necessary to try to make one over into the other. They are both manifest facts already.

Paragraph 23. A continuation of the same truth.

Paragraph 24. You are not making your body over or changing your world, you are only recognizing reality and discarding all false notions about everything.

Paragraph 25. The body is already the temple of the living God. It needs to be freed of the money changers, dealers in comparative values, the ideas of individual profit. The Lord of Hosts and King of Kings must be admitted into the consciousness so it may express through the body what IT IS.

Paragraph 26 is obvious.

Paragraph 27. The Master, the Genius, the God man are all one and the same thing and this is but man being MAN, being Himself, void of the opinions of race experience.

Paragraph 28. There is no work for man but being the Self, for when the Self appears he enters the realm of completion. He is forever busy, however, for he has only then begun to work.

Paragraph 29. The Divine self of each man is the Avatar, the Savior of his own being, but he must accept his Savior, be that SELF.

Paragraph 30 is a continuation of Paragraph 29.

Paragraph 31. Man arriving at his divine estate is the book of life opened before all men as a scroll, the seals of the book are broken and man as he is appears.

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