The open door

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Part I

THE THEOSOPHY OF THE CHRIST DEFINED, DIFFER- ENTIATED, AND PRACTICALLY APPLIED.

I am the door : by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me :

And I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

I am the light of the world : he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater than these shall he do ; because I go unto the Father.— Jesus the Christ.

THE OPEN DOOR.

THE CHEISTIAN THEOSOPHY.

Theo-Sophia. — Divine Wisdom. — A distinguished authority in modern scientific philosophy affirms that " amid the mysteries that become the more mysterious the more they are thought about there will remain the one absolute certainty, that we are ever in the presence of an infinite and an eternal energy from which all things proceed."

The certainty of " an infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed " renders it equally certain that, whatever the nature and character of that original something may be, it must forever remain the one supreme factor in the universe of being and of becoming.

This original and infinite causative fount or spring of life, power, intelligence and goodness, men have ever intuitively personified and called God.

The purest and most exalted conception of the nature and character of God ever reached by the mind of man was formulated by Jesus when he said : " God is Spirit ; and they that worship him [recognize, love and adore] must worship in spirit and truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship him."

In this conception or understanding, God as Spirit is recognized not only as the animating principle or universal life-force of nature, but as Absolute Being, both immanent and transcendent; infinite in wisdom and goodness, power and providence ; " our Father in heaven," whose name should be hallowed to the thought and affection of all men as His children.

Theoretically, Theosophy is God-knowledge, or wise in the things of God. Practically defined, Theosophy is the understanding which men have of God in His relation to nature and man, and of man in his relation to God and to nature.

This understanding may be enlightened and perfect, or confused and imperfect. In either case it will exert a corresponding influence upon the personal life and character, and constitute the real basis of the individual faith and effort.

When perfect, it gives that practical wisdom which enables its possessor to so adjust himself to these relations that he shall live the true integral life, and thus normally unfold and increase in wisdom and power until he attain the perfect state of spiritual freedom, illumination and blessedness.

The perfect adjustment of man to all his relations is possible, therefore, only through the recognition of and conformity with the central co-ordinating law of his being, which secures its integral harmony and perfection. That co-ordinating law is the law of his moral and spiritual relation to God as the child of His love and providence — the supreme law of his moral nature and spiritual life.

THE CHRISTIAN THE0S0PHY. 5

This supremacy and co-ordinating power of the spiritual nature in man, when maintained, by securing the integral harmony of his own being adjusts him to the harmony of universal being, and makes him one with the divine order and economy. Being at one with God in his personal life, he is at one with Him in his personal relations with men, with Nature and his environments ; achieving and holding his personal supremacy in and over these relations by his unity with God in them.

This final adjustment of the personal life of man to the divine order and government — the kingdom of God — through the permanent supremacy of the spiritual nature, secures divine illumination, and gives him control, first of himself — the functions and powers of his own being — then of his environment, and ultimately of the forces of life and of death, making him practically master of the world.

Such is the sublime possibility of man through personal unity in spirit and purpose with God in all the relations of life and being. Unity of man in thought and will with the Divine Spirit, brings consciousness of God's unity with man in his personal activities and achievements.

Perfect conformity with the law of universal harmony, and so with the divine supremacy of being, makes man one with the law, and the law with him in that supremacy. He thus becomes the law incarnate, and so a law unto himself. This gives him the freedom of the universe ; since the spontaneous activities of his being are henceforth one with the divine supremacy in the uni-

6 TIIE OPEN DOOR.

versal order and harmony. This supreme attainment is the sublime aim of Theosophy.

Intuition. — Spiritual supremacy and illumination give the interior vision and direct insight into the properties and conditions of all things upon which the attention and legitimate desires are centred. This is intuition, or the grasping of knowledge at first hand, independent of external sources of information. Its perfected action embraces the immediate perception of the secret processes of nature and life in any specific field to which the attention is directed. "For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed ; neither hid that shall not be known." This gives corresponding ability to control and direct the occult forces to the full extent of the exact knowledge, thus acquired, of their nature and range of action.

As already intimated, there are degrees of attainment in this esoteric insight and wisdom, and according to the degree reached by each soul and corresponding adjustment of its activities to the divine law will be the completeness of results in personal experience.

The search for esoteric knowledge and wisdom in the supreme desire for spiritual realization, or unity with God and man in the harmony and supremacy of being, has given to Theosophy the name also of " The Wisdom Religion. "

Christian Theosophy Differentiated. — The perfect understanding of the nature of God and man, and of the law of divine attainment and realization, was first reached and practically demonstrated in personal experience — in the flesh — by Jesus, which made him the

Christ. Having first been attained and opened in its fulness to the world by Jesus as "the Christ," it is very properly termed The Christian Theosophy.

What before were but prophetic glimpses, partial illuminations, and incomplete experiences, attained through the inspired efforts of the seers, sages, and prophets of other times and peoples, were brought to perfection and fulfilled in him.

The full correlated truth concerning the nature and relations of God and the human soul, unperverted by sensuous misconceptions and misguided speculation, in the undimmed splendor of complete illumination, had not been reached by any seer prior to Jesus. If so, the evidence of it has not been preserved to us in the sacred literature of the world's great religions.

A high degree of enlightenment had come to many, and each great seer or prophet had grasped and emphasized some special principle of truth, which, without its correlation with other principles equally essential, would necessarily be misleading and give rise to misguided speculation.

Perfect illumination only can give the unbiassed perception of the full rounded truth in its correlated harmony, beauty and power, and this we claim was first attained and demonstrated in personal experience by Jesus, the Christ.

Every essential principle involved in the conceptions and spiritual experiences of those who had preceded him, was fully embraced and held in its true relations in I is full-orbed concept and perfect Theosophy.

And because, in the order of Providence, he was the first to attain the perfect life of divine illumination and spiritual supremacy in the flesh, he was justly called " the Christ," or God Anointed.

He became in the fullest sense " the sent of God." He came, therefore, not to destroy or supersede the law and the prophets, but to bring their spirit and purpose to full fruition and perfection in the universal experience of mankind. Having done this for himself as a representative man, he had demonstrated its possibility for all his race.

Having both by precept and example disclosed and demonstrated the perfect way of attainment for all, he completed the victorious life of spiritual supremacy by entering the shadow of death itself, to dispel its gloom and break its power over the thought and life of man. Wresting his body from the grasp of death and rising from the tomb he opened a pathway to the higher realms of light and blessedness, without death, through a glorious translation.

High prophecy declares that " the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. . . . For this corrupti ble must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."

The Lord Christ on putting the last enemy under his feet ascended to his throne of power and ministry in the spiritual heavens, where he henceforth lives to extend the help of his divine sympathy and ministration to all on earth or in the spheres, who truly seek to follow him. ,

Nor is he alone in this providential ministry of heaven to men. All who have lived, wrought and died for man, and risen into unity with Christ in the divine and perfect life — " the spirits of just men made perfect " — are one with him in this heavenly ministration. This ministry comes to earth " in His name " simply and justly because he was the first, and, as yet the only complete earthly realization and representative of the ideal life designed for man.

Millions have received the help and realized the power of this gracious ministry led by the ascended and glorified Christ, whose living sympathy and undying love for men makes their interest on& with his, and his one with theirs.

Whether the real nature and source of this help has ever been fully understood and appreciated since Apostolic times or not, it has never failed those who, whether blindly or intelligently, have opened themselves to it.

From out the luminous depths of the spiritual sphere that encircles the indestructible soul-life of humanity, the Master speaks to the hearts of men, saying, " Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I 'will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me."

In this utterance he speaks not for himself alone, but for the mighty Brotherhood of Spirit of which he is the living head and luminous centre. He speaks also for that ideal life on earth, once realized by him, which, through the faithful following of the great Captain, awaits the coronation of universal humanity.

When this living perpetual ministry of the Christ-life to men is truly understood, appreciated and co-operated with, its kindly help to needy souls will be vastly more immediate and effective. Universally applied, it will bring the Pentecostal baptism and power into universal experience.

Knowledge which Saves. — "Knowledge is power." There is a knowledge that saves and a knowledge that net only does not save, but destroys.

4 * We know the right and we approve it too ; We know the wrong and yet the wrong pursue.' '

"If ye continue in my words," said the Christ, "then shall ye be my disciples indeed $ and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." The knowledge which saves and brings to perfection is the experimental knowledge of God and of His Christ. " And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

To know and understand God as Jesus knew and understood Him, is to experimentally know Him as " our Father in heaven," through loving loyalty to and communion with His Spirit. It is to know Him by " the witness of the Spirit," His Spirit witnessing "with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ."

To know Jesus as the Christ or sent of God is to know him as the typical or model man, the divinely approved or representative Son of God and Brother of men, by rising into fellowship with him in the personal realization of the perfect life of divine Sonship and Brotherhood.

The experimental knowledge of God as Father and of the Christ as Brother, brings the personal realization of identity of nature with them, and enthrones the soul in the consciousness of spiritual supremacy and power.

Jesus as the Christ, claimed nothing for himself that he did not assure the world was possible to all men, through fidelity to the law of spiritual attainment so divinely exemplified in himself.

This sublime possibility for all men, he based upon the tremendous fact of their divine sonship and consequent divine heredity. The reality of this he had, as an illuminated Son of God and brother of men, demonstrated in his own experience.

In his personal exaltation as a member of the human race he could exemplify and demonstrate only the possibilities of our common humanity. Upon this sublime truth and supreme fact of experimental demonstration in himself, he laid the most positive and specific emphasis of his teaching. " Yerily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater than these shall he do ; because I go unto the Father."

Certitude of the Divine Possibility.— The first question that strikes a thinking mind on the presentation of this high claim and promise is, Is this ideal life of spiritual perfection and power represented in the story of the Christ, and by him promised to all his faithful followers, a mythical and delusive dream of romance, or is it indeed a possible reality ?

If the story of the Christ, in its essential features, is an historic verity, then certainly the divine attainment having been reached by one man and approximated by many, its possibility is practically demonstrated for all.

AYlrile we may not absolutely demonstrate historically the truth or falsity of the gospel narrative — though the balance of evidence is on the side of its probable truth — if true, the Christ himself has left us the means of its demonstration in personal experience, viz.: the faithful following of his example and instruction.

This verification in personal experience of the Christ promise was the practical evidence with which the Apostles substantiated their testimony of the transcendent life of their resurrected and ascended Lord.

This evidence is equally available to us, and remains the only possible evidence of practical value and positive demonstration to our age. It is, indeed, the very demonstration for which the age is waiting.

The Christian Church since Apostolic times has not in any marked degree given this kind of evidence to the world, because, as we shall show, it has has not, and does not to-day, make this claim and promise the basis of its faith and effort.

Speculative opinions and metaphysical reasonings, as such, are not demonstrations ; and have but little power over the life.

The Christ resorted to no metaphysical reasonings or speculative methods to convince his followers of the truth of his teaching ; he demanded no arbitrary acceptance of Ms word as authority. He simply urged them to test the truth of his teaching by the application of the principles and conditions he had opened to them, as-

THE CHRISTIAN THEOSOPIIY. 13^

suring them that they would thus find its demonstration in personal experience.

" He spake/' it is true, " as one having* authority " and " his word was with power." It was, however, the authority of insight and experience, and the power of truth exemplified, as he stood before them the living illustration of the gospel he was preaching.

The true followers of Christ in every age, speaking and acting in his name and power must, and will, present the same living demonstration for their time, as did the Apostles in their day. This kind of evidence is, we repeat, the practical demonstration for which the world is waiting, and which our age demands.

The actual Christ and Apostolic life, and its final realization in universal experience, but fulfils the noblest aspirations of humanity, as expressed in the foregleams and prophetic visions of its illuminated seers and prophets since human history began.

Assuming, then, the historic verity of the Christ life, and the trustworthiness of his teaching, we have a practical basis for their demonstration in personal experience. Surely on so reasonable a basis, it is worth the while of every one to seriously examine and test the truth of this high claim and promise for himself.

Basis of the Claim and Promise. — Under the Christ teaching every man is recognized as a son of God, and, therefore of necessity stands on an equality of privilege and opportunity before God with Jesus himself.

Jesus having first attained the perfect life of personal adjustment with the divine order and government, and thus demonstrated the law of this adjustment — the law of the perfect life and the perfect law of life — for all, became the Christ or God-anointed leader of men. From this high vantage-ground of prophetic insight and understanding, he assures us that the same God-approved and illuminated life is open to all and attainable by all.

To what else, indeed, could the Christ lead others but to that which he had himself attained. Every man, then, if a child of God as recognized by the Christ, is equally with him sent forth of the Father to do his own special work and achieve a destiny worthy of his divine parentage and heredity.

It will be hard for the mind biassed by the perverted traditional teaching, to accept this claim of equality for all men, in privilege and possibility with Jesus as the Christ. It is, nevertheless, the claim of the Lord Christ himself.

"When he says to his followers, " Ye therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," he bases that certain possibility upon the fact that God is their Father, and " therefore " they necessarily inherit this possibility as a divine heredity.

This demand for the perfection of their being as sons of God covers all that was possible to him, even as " the Son of God," in which he w r as and could be exceptional only in being the model man and perfect type of divine sonship.

As a divinely anointed teacher, he certainly would not demand of his followers anything beyond their power of attainment. That he claimed no relation with God as His Son, differing in any sense — save in degree of realization — from that held by or possible to all men, is evi~ dent from his own positive utterance after his resurrection and on the very eve of his ascension, giving this deliverance the importance and solemnity of last and final -words. " Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father ; and to my God and your God." Nothing could be more explicit, specific, comprehensive and authoritative on this question than these final words of the risen Christ in the very hour of his departure.

But One Divine Fatherhood. — There can be but one universal and Divine Fatherhood, and, therefore, but one relationship of that Fatherhood to men, and of men to each other as children of God. " Call no man your father upon the earth : for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters ; for one is your Master, even the Christ ; and all ye are brethren."

The leadership of Jesus rests wholly upon the fact that he was the first of our race to enter into the full and perfect life, in the realization of conscious union with God in the flesh. All others, therefore, who reach this state are necessarily his followers.

By following him, however, others may, through this attainment, go forward to some higher achievement than was reached by him on earth, as he himself promised. ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also ; and greater than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father."

The Key to this Attainment.— The astonished countrymen, of Jesus on witnessing his marvellous power and insight, questioned among themselves, saying, "Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works °i "

" How knoweth this man letters, having never learned ? " " Is not this the carpenter's son ? Is not his mother called Mary ? and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas *? And his sisters, are they not all with us J Whence then hath this man all these things ? "

Jesus, in answer to their perplexity, said unto them : " My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God or whether I speak from myself." "I can of mine own self do nothing; as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just ; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me."

In these words the Lord Christ disclosed the secret of his attainment, and the immediate source of his exceptional insight and power ; and at the same time assures us that through observance of the same law we may reach a like attainment and share with him his transcendent experience.

Why Misunderstood. — At this statement the question naturally arises, why, then, was not this great assurance of the Christ more fully recognized and acted upon at the time 1 why has it not been since ? and why is it not today ? For the simple reason that men in every age are so blinded by the bias of traditional impressions, preconceived opinions, and fixed habits of thinking, that new conceptions involving an entire change of ideals and methods make but slight impression upon them, and thus are misapprehended and often grossly misinterpreted.

For this reason the long habit of the Christian world regarding Jesus as in some way a supernatural being, so that the humanity he took on was exceptional and therefore impossible of realization by any "mere man," though false to fact and to the claim of the Christ for himself, stands in the way of realizing* the mighty import of these assuring words of Jesus, even by those who accept him as supreme authority.

On the other hand, the materialistic and agnostic bias of those who do not in any sense regard him as supernatural, leads either to the rejection of the so-called miraculous features of the gospel narratives, or accepting, perhaps in a modified form, the exceptional character of his life and works, attribute these to some special endowment or possibly abnormal condition, and thus not to be taken as a normal standard of attainment for all men.

Others, again, having imbibed somewhat of the Eastern philosophy, while accepting the probable truth of the Christ life, believe him to have been a reincarnated Avatar who had reached his marvellous attainment through the experiences and discipline of many previous lives or planetary incarnations, and, therefore, no standard for the possible immediate realization of others who have not passed through similar pre-existent experiences.

Still again, the modern spiritists, believing all inspiration to come from departed spirits, account for his ptional character and works on the basis of mediumsliij}, and believe him to have been a mere instrument in the hands of a class of spirits of perhaps an exceptionally high order of intelligence and power.

"With these, or any other sufficient bias, it is easy to see why the simple and direct words of Jesus, involving such stupendous results in their promise, should be misapprehended and fail to fully arrest the attention and enlist the profoundest interest of mankind.

The unbiassed reader, however, if such can be found, will observe that not one of the positions we have specified is borne out by the gospel narratives, nor by the claim of the Christ for himself, who certainly ought to be the best judge of the nature and source of his own inspiration and experience. In the simplest and most direct manner possible, he attributes his remarkable enlightenment and power directly to his personal recognition of, and co-operation with, the immediate indwelling life of " the Father " in his soul. In the same simplicity and directness of language he continually insisted that the same indwelling life of God " the Father " of all men awaited only personal recognition and co-operation, to effect a like result and experience in all. " Believest thou not," he said to the doubting Thomas, and so to all doubting Thomases, " Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me ? The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself ; but the Father that dwelleth in me doeth his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me ; or else believe me for the very works sake. Verily verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater than these shall he do ; because I go unto the Father." The psalmist in inspired thought had seen this possibility when he wrote : " With thee is the fountain of life ; and in thy light shall I see light." Jesus had realized its truth and could say, With

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tliee is the fountain of life; and in thy light I have found light.

The True Interpretation. — This testimony of Jesus of his own experience, reveals the fact that he had risen out of self and the limitations of the sense consciousness, and dwelt in and wrought from the impersonal plane of the spiritual consciousness — the consciousness of his life t in God; and of the spiritual nature and supremacy of } his own being as the child of God.

God, as universal Being, is necessarily impersonal and all-embracing in nature and character. Man, as an embodied personality, though the offspring of God, has the necessary external limitations of an individual, in nature and character. As such he holds specific personal relations toward other personalities, to his environment, and to the universal Father— the impersonal source of his being.

The limitations of the external individuality and sense-consciousness, however, do not apply to the inner spiritual nature, which necessarily partakes of the impersonal life and character of the Father. Hence the laying down of self and rising out of and above the limitations of the sense consciousness — which relate only to the external individuality — to the impersonal plane of the spiritual consciousness, does not imply the abolition of the personal identity or the personal consciousness of being. It is only the laying down of all bias of the external sense judgment and feeling, letting go of the clinging sense of the individuality and its limitations, which is the spirit of self, that the impersonal and impartial spirit of the Father may find embodiment and expression in all the

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personal activities and relations. It is rising to the consciousness of divine sonship and identity of nature with the Father, and seeking as his loyal children, the personal embodiment of His Spirit of impersonal, impartial and universal sympathy, charity and good-will toward all. It is, indeed, the transformation of the self-seeking individuality into an impersonal or unselfish personality; that is, a personality that has risen above all bias of personal considerations, predilections, discriminations and preferences, into the spirit of impartial sympathy and justice toward all.

It is entering into the spiritual supremacy of being, which is the personal consciousness of impersonal being, that i£, the consciousness of partaking of the essential nature of the impersonal, indestructible and divine quality of the Father.

The Practical Explanation. — This is not, after all, so difficult of apprehension if we think of the one universal life as the Effluence of God, who is pure spiritual Being, and that all living things and beings are partakers of this life, and exist only by virtue of it.

All that we know of life, per se, is as it is manifest in organism and function. In this manifestation its complete supremacy over the material elements is exhibited from the very first recognized motions of its activity.