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THE THOUGHT OF THE MONTH THE DIVINITY OF MAN By THE IMPERATOR [H. Spencer Lewis] [From The Rosicrucian Digest June 1938] WE, AS human beings, should not develop--either consciously or unconsciously--that strange attitude and that strange mental idea that we are superior to all other beings on the face of the earth. There is nothing that will interfere with the progress in life of the average individual so much as a degree of the superiority complex, unless perhaps it is the development of a degree of the inferiority complex. But there is no reason why we should not understand, frankly and honestly, the real facts. Man is the highest form and highest development of the creative forces of the universe. Man was gradually evolved and created to be "the living image of God". This does not mean the image of a personal God, and it does not mean having the form and figure and body of a God, but having the spiritual image, the spiritual qualities, the spiritual properties of the God Consciousness in our own physical organisms and in our minds and souls. Man possesses by birth and by divine right and divine gift, more highly evolved abilities and powers than any other of God's creatures on earth. The fact that he can talk, think, and analyze, and that he can do things with his fingers and hands and with his body that other animal creatures cannot do, easily demonstrates man's highest development. But there are so many other qualities that man possess that are just lying dormant, that are not fully awakened, and that are not often used, that the average individual is not more than forty-five per cent efficient as compared with what he could be if he wanted to be. All of us are surprised at times with the strange abilities, powers and antics of my little pet dog. We casually remark, sometimes, that the things he does and the way in which he does them would indicate that he is "almost human". And yet, that is not a fair statement because that dog, with all of his wonderful abilities, and the best trained dog and the most developed dog or cat or horse or other animal that ever lived could not begin to approach a human being in the special faculties and special abilities which human beings possess. It is true that all animals, all living creatures, have some degree of an unevolved soul. Man is not the only living creature that has a soul, but he is the only living creature that has a fully developed soul, and with the utmost of divine wisdom and intelligence associated with that soul. My little dog has learned to do things which a child might do, with the same understanding and the same joy of doing them, and with the same good motives and purposes. And he has some faculties that the average human being has not even tried to develop. My little dog senses very quickly and very efficiently when anyone in the home is worried or deeply concerned about something or perplexed or tired, and he can quickly show his sympathy and reveal that he senses a strange condition. I know that if anyone in my home were to be stricken with some illness and would be lying in bed, with transition very close at hand, that that little dog would quickly sense the approach of transition and would begin to cry and wail. He would sense a gradual reduction in the aura of the sick person and he would know instinctively and intuitively that a strange Cosmic and physical condition was manifesting. Very few human beings have developed that degree of sensitivity. And of course he can sense many other things which we might sense also if we had taken the time or the trouble to develop the faculties with which we were born. But with all of his intellect, and with all of his cooperation in being trained and developed by me, he still is far from possessing even the slightest degree of the divine intelligence and understanding that a human being possesses. It is just as though every human being owned and possessed one of the largest libraries of knowledge and wisdom in the world but kept this library of books and information closed in a vault beneath the cellar of his home, and never entered it, never allowed anyone to look at it, never consulted it in any way. Each one of us is born with such a library, with such a storehouse of divine wisdom, and each one of us is born with certain abilities and powers that are like sparks waiting to be fanned into flames. But we go on our way through life without developing these abilities, or awakening these qualities, and without consulting the great storehouse of wisdom, until some day we find a necessity for doing so. Then we have to join with some movement or come under some instructor and start an intense campaign of serious study and practice. We try to do in eight or ten years what we should have been doing for twenty or twenty-five years previously. We try to crowd into a few years of life all of the development and study that should have been gradual, and which should have been helping us in our development. It is this divine quality, this God Consciousness side of us, that distinguishes human beings from all other creatures of the animal kingdom. It is what God intended in the beginning, when, after He created all the other things in the universe and all the living creatures, He decided then that man should be created in His own divine image. Man was the last, the highest product of the creative consciousness of God, and throughout all the ages man has continued to be the special concern of God in His processes of evolution. No matter what else God may do, and what else He may create in the universe, whatever is good and helpful and powerful, He has reserved for man and continues to confer upon man His most beneficent and most bountiful blessings. That is why man has evolved and brought about what we call civilization. Man may attribute to himself and to his thinking and to his mental capacity many of the great improvements in his life, but back of his own ability lies the divine inspiration which God has placed there, and continues to place there. Man today has attained only a small degree of what he will become through the passage of eons of time. But, right now, our highly evolved race of man represents the most learned, the most powerful, the most developed qualities of the God Consciousness. Yet, it requires man's cooperation, man's understanding, man's willingness, to complete what God has started. As long as man continues to ignore the divine side of himself and the divine wisdom and highly specialized faculties and abilities he has, as long as he refuses to use them or exercise them, he remains in all of his mental and worldly affairs nothing more than a creature of the animal kingdom. Man can raise himself consciously to the degree of development that he has inwardly, but he must strive to do so, and he must understand and comprehend his own being. With all the worlds that man is trying to explore, in the heavens and throughout the universe, with all of the unknown lands of the sea that man seeks to explore and excavate, with all of the planets and starry clusters that man wants to investigate and become familiar with, he continues to ignore the greatest field, the greatest world of exploration that exists, and that is the inner self and the divine self. Throughout the world today the changing conditions in the material world are forcing upon men and women the necessity of finding relief and protection, of finding salvation and strength and power in something that is not of the earthly element. More and more the advanced and evolved human being is turning his thoughts inwardly and as he develops his divine consciousness he becomes a better master of his own affairs and a better master of his life. For too many centuries man has pinned his faith in the material things of life. The religion of the churches says that man should put his faith in God, but we as Rosicrucians say that man should put his faith in the God Consciousness and the God wisdom and the God-given powers that he possesses and which remain more or less undeveloped in all human beings. We have seen the worldly elements and the worldly qualities and worldly valuations depleted and ruined and destroyed and made of no value. But the one thing that survives and the one thing that comes to the rescue of man is his spiritual and mental powers and abilities. Until man comes to recognize this to a greater degree and makes himself in every sense "a living image of God" he will be a slave to the worldly elements and a victim of worldly circumstances. | ||
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