'. : 
 
ClassjiF <o3 9 
 
 Book.. 
 
 L2L_ 
 
 OojpghtN 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE IDEAL: 
 ITS REALIZATION 
 
THE IDEAL: 
 ITS REALIZATION 
 
 Lucy C. McGee 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 BOSTON 
 JAMES H. WEST COMPANY 
 
£fifeV* 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 0OHGRESS, 
 
 Two GottEe Received 
 
 NOV. 9 1901 
 
 OOPVRK3HT ENTRY 
 
 CLASS #-XXa Mo. 
 
 copy a 
 
 Copyright, 1901 
 By Lucy C. McGee 
 
PAULINE AGASSIZ SHAW 
 
 THIS RAY 
 
 WITH ITS POTENCY, PROMISE AND PROPHECY 
 
 IS 
 
 ^ffecttonatelg ©efcicatefc 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The movement known as the " New 
 Thought " deals with nothing new. It is 
 spiritualistic and leads to the dominion of 
 Spirit. The Spirit cannot be appropriated, 
 narrowed or limited by any sect reading into 
 it a personal or particular meaning. It is 
 the Universal, above name, number or sect. 
 
 The New Thought is, indeed, but the 
 revival and emphasis of the oldest and 
 rarest of the ages. It is held to be vital 
 and prophetic, not because it is old or new, 
 but because it is true. 
 
 The movement rests on the realization 
 and affirmation of soul -wisdom. That it 
 
 7 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 may fulfill its purpose, it uses willing and 
 cheerful vehicles of various degrees of large- 
 ness and finish. 
 
 There is but one Truth ; that is mystical ; 
 it is locked in man's sub, normal and super 
 consciousness. The rationale of existence, 
 health, well-being, cosmos, is found when the 
 revelation unveils the Soul's latent Light and 
 Power. 
 
 This book, the first of a promised series, 
 is a concise presentation of that truth as it 
 is realized in one sphere of consciousness. 
 It is intended to be an impelling suggestion 
 of the possibility of rendering the immanency 
 of the All-in-all a vivid realization. 
 
 l. c. M. 
 
 Boston, August 2Q, igoi. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 /. PAGE 
 
 Introduction . . 13 
 
 Realism : Its Relation to Idealism . . . . 15 
 
 The Ideal defined by a posteriori Psychology . 1 9 
 
 The Ideal defined by a priori Psychology . . 32 
 
 No Ideal in the Exoteric World 34 
 
 The Ideal and the Image Related . . . . 37 
 
 Are there Ideals ? 41 
 
 //. 
 The Initiative of the Ideal 46 
 
 ///. 
 The Content of the Ideal 49 
 
 The Light of the Sun. 
 
 Freedom. 
 
 Omnipotence. 
 
 Omniscience. 
 
 Omnipresence. 
 
 Omniconsciousness. 
 
 Omnilove. 
 
 C hrist-consciousness. 
 
 IV. 
 The Unfoldment of the Ideal ..... 61 
 
 V. 
 
 The Realization of the Ideal 66 
 
 VI. 
 
 Doing issues from Being 68 
 
 The Spiritual Brotherhood 71 
 
 The Identity of the Ideal and the Self . . . 74 
 
 9 
 
" The world is wise, for the world is old ; 
 Five thousand years their tale have told ; 
 Yet the world is not happy, as the world 
 
 might be : 
 Why is it ? Why is it ? Oh, answer me ! 
 
 " The world is strong, with an awful strength, 
 And full of life in its breadth and length ; 
 Yet the world is not happy, as the world 
 
 might be : 
 Why is it ? Why is it ? Oh, answer me ! 
 
 " Poor world ! if thou cravest a better day, 
 Remember that Christ must have His own 
 
 way. 
 I mourn thou art not as thou mightest be, 
 But the love of God would do all for thee." 
 
THE IDEAL: 
 ITS REALIZATION 
 
 "KNOW THYSELF" 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Declarations and affirmations relative to 
 the Ideal are as multitudinous as the leaves 
 of the forest. Every great man has con- 
 ceived of the Ideal, or of ideals, and given 
 forth, in literary form, or in the record of 
 his life, that conception. Every man, great 
 or small, who has lifted himself above the 
 sense-life, recognizes what he is pleased to 
 call ideals. From the Vedas to the Twen- 
 tieth Century psychology, from Plato to the 
 most recent popular writers and lecturers, 
 13 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 the way is literally strewn with so-called 
 ideals or their wrecks. 
 
 Wherever you are in intellectual develop- 
 ment, or in spiritual unfoldment, you will 
 find, along that pathway, something that 
 will correspond to your conception of the 
 Ideal. 
 
 14" 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 Realism : Its Relation to Idealism. 
 
 The modern movement of realism, which 
 has left various traces in philosophy, lit- 
 erature, art and science, did quite as much 
 to render cognizable the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of idealism as to set forth the data 
 upon which realism is based. Zola, for ex- 
 ample, is really an apostle of idealism, for 
 the bare and naked data of so-called realism 
 which he and his sympathetic co-laborers 
 amassed are a silent and irrefutable protest 
 against that which they endeavored to es- 
 tablish. Evil is its own objection ; sick- 
 ness, its own denial ; death, its own contra- 
 diction. 
 
 The discussion that accompanies the move- 
 ment is, however, to be considered rich and 
 fruitful if it does naught else than call 
 men's attention to the fact that there is 
 somewhat which thought, in one stage of its 
 development, recognizes as realism. The 
 emphasis of any abnormality of thought is 
 15 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 a safe indication that the normal will soon 
 obtain. Stress laid upon error will bring 
 its antithetical truth into the foreground of 
 consciousness. Living in the ground floor 
 of one's palace may be made to seem com- 
 fortable for a time, but as soon as a man is 
 conscious that he abides in the lowest story 
 he begins to unfold a deeper consciousness 
 that encompasses the upper and uppermost. 
 No man who is conscious of his capacity to 
 mount and soar will remain on the plane of 
 realism. The aspiration of his inner and 
 truer nature will lure him into the lucidity 
 of a rarer atmosphere. 
 
 A full presentation of the data of realism, 
 and their acceptance by school or sect, is a 
 declaration, although it may not be formally 
 expressed, of a readiness and need for a 
 flight of thought. One thinker or observer 
 who finds his life and love on the plane of 
 realism, and boldly sets forth the picture he 
 creates in his own mind, does more for the 
 16 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 cause of the higher idealism than a legion who 
 have life and love on intermediate and com- 
 promising grounds. 
 
 An incident occurring in a class in Eng- 
 lish Literature may be here recalled : 
 
 The idealistic and realistic novels were 
 being characterized. The prevailing dogma 
 was stated by the teacher, — that the real- 
 istic novel deals with experience ; with cross- 
 sections, as it were, of the ordinary sweep 
 of life : in short, it has to do with com- 
 mon things in existence ; it takes upon 
 itself an every-day sort of air, expressing, 
 in routine, evil, ignorance, disease, and other 
 commonplaces. The idealistic novel, on the 
 other hand, is engaged with psychological 
 problems. The inner life and soul are 
 brought under the perceiving and analytic 
 eye of the psychologist. A young woman, 
 demure and serious minded, with an expres- 
 sion of wounded astonishment upon her 
 face, asked : "Is not the soul as common 
 17 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 as anything ? " The maiden, church - bred 
 though she was, saw intuitively the larger 
 truth of soul, which the advocates of realism 
 failed to see intellectually. 
 
 18 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The Ideal defined by a posteriori Psychol- 
 ogy. 
 
 What is the Ideal ? Must not the eyes be 
 turned in the right direction before we may 
 hope to behold it ? Need we expect to under- 
 stand the deep, hidden things of life and 
 thought unless we know whether they are 
 subjective or objective, whether they are of 
 matter and existence or of spirit and being ? 
 Should we not have some sort of certainty 
 whether that which is dearest to us lies in 
 the plane of desire, of intellect, or in the 
 sphere of Soul ? Is it not imperative that 
 one should read the answer in these and 
 similar questions before one may consciously 
 unfold the depth and height of one's own 
 possibilities and realize the Ideal ? 
 
 According to one of the foremost psychol- 
 ogists of this or any other country, — 
 
 " An ideal must be something intellectually 
 conceived, something of which we are not un- 
 19 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 conscious if we have it ; and it must carry 
 with it that sort of outlook, uplift, bright- 
 ness that goes with all intellectual facts." 
 
 "There must be a novelty in an ideal, 
 novelty for him whom the ideal grasps." 
 
 " Ideals are relative to the life that enter- 
 tains them. This shows there is nothing 
 absolutely ideal." 
 
 " Taken naturally, abstractly, and individ- 
 ually, you see that some ideals are the cheap- 
 est things in life. Everybody has them in 
 some shape or other, personal or general, 
 sound or mistaken, high or low, and the 
 most worthless sentimentalists and dreamers, 
 drunkards, shirks and verse makers, who never 
 show a grain of effort or endeavor, possibly 
 have them on the most copious scale." 
 
 These brief, pointed quotations are here 
 
 presented for the most obvious reasons. The 
 
 quotations are from a master mind whose 
 
 philosophic insight is not gainsaid. They 
 
 20 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 are a beautifully clear and logical statement 
 of what the Ideal is not. No " soulless " psy- 
 chology could give a fairer formulation of the 
 Ideal's negation. 
 
 Viewed from the vantage ground of the 
 New Psychology, defined as "the science of 
 the Soul," the Ideal would remain forever 
 unknown and unknowable if it waited upon 
 being intellectually conceived. The New 
 Psychology holds it to be occult, but also 
 holds that it is your certain and indisputable 
 possession, just as you possess yourself 
 whether you are conscious of the self or 
 not. To become conscious that you possess 
 it is the aim of Being within experience. 
 
 " Intellectual facts," it may readily be 
 granted, do carry with them " a sort of out- 
 look, uplift, brightness.' ' This, all must con- 
 cede who have lived the intellectual life and 
 reveled joyously, though blind to higher 
 things, in its facts and hypotheses. 
 
 If there is no inlook, what glory can sur- 
 21 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 pass the " outlook " ? Facts and interest on 
 the plane of intellect uplift one and give a 
 certain freedom from the desire-plane. And 
 yet, if the intellectualist would but ask, in 
 the moments when he is alone with himself : 
 " Does not my thought rest with and serve 
 the lower self to the exclusion of the higher ? 
 Does not my intellectual endeavor pertain to 
 the purely personal and transient conditions 
 of thought and life?" — he would sigh for 
 an uplift that would place him fairly in the 
 realm of the Self that transcends desire, 
 intellect, problems and phases of personality 
 and existence. In no degree would we under- 
 estimate or undervalue the relative importance 
 and bearing of intellectual uplift, delight, 
 development. The evolution of mind pro- 
 vides for these on its own plane. But 
 intellectual development, however enjoyable 
 and necessary for a career of the personal 
 self, will never bring satisfaction — it is not 
 enough. 
 
 22 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The whole realm of intellectual facts bears 
 the same relation to spiritual realization that 
 desire bears to aspiration. The former leads 
 outward and downward ; the latter, inward 
 and upward. The former leads out to the 
 circumference ; the latter, in to the Center 
 of Being. 
 
 The brightness of the whole world of 
 intellect and objectivity is a shadow, aye, 
 darkness, when its values are measured by 
 the " Light that never was on sea or land." 
 The sort of uplift and brightness that intel- 
 lectual facts engender differs not only in 
 degree, but in kind, from that which accom- 
 panies realization of Spiritual truths of 
 Being. 
 
 Spiritually discerned, the Ideal is as eternal 
 as the everlasting hills, the same to-day, yes- 
 terday and forever; and therefore it is relative 
 neither to life nor thought, nor to the world. 
 The Ideal is as absolute as is the reality of 
 Divinity. The Old, or a posteriorly Psychol- 
 23 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 ogist may term ideals the cheapest things in 
 life ; but should he once realize that the Ideal 
 is his own divine and eternal Self he would 
 worship it as his dearest and divinest pos- 
 session. Let him be still and know that, 
 knowing which, he may know all things. 
 
 Instead of declaring with the "soulless" 
 psychology that " everybody has ideals," the 
 New Psychologist affirms that the heavenly 
 vision of the Ideal remains forever veiled 
 from the timorous, the frivolous and faint- 
 hearted. The Ideal is glorious in its radiance 
 and purity. Only those who are the pure in 
 heart, those who have overcome the flesh, the 
 world, and desire, are vouchsafed that Celes- 
 tial Vision. 
 
 The inadequacy of the method is apparent 
 when the Old Psychology seeks for truth but 
 pushes not beyond the plane of facts ; when 
 it holds, for the object of its endeavor, the 
 perception of reality, and then rivets its 
 attention upon phenomena. The psychologist 
 24 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 who declares his science "soulless/' — and 
 who, in the experimental school, does not 
 implicitly or explicitly so declare ? — and then 
 defines psychology as the "Science of the 
 Mind," need not hope to scale the heights of 
 truth with power so limited. One may know 
 mountains of facts observed in the laboratory, 
 in any and all of its departments, and yet not 
 realize the truth that substands all facts and 
 every observation. 
 
 Has empirical psychology, then, as a sci- 
 ence of the mind, a modus operandi for solv- 
 ing problems, even on its own plane ? 
 
 If it were possible to separate the problems 
 of mind, based on organism, coincident with 
 brain and nervous system, from those deeper 
 and diviner ones of Being, and if psychology 
 could solve the former, there would still be 
 an immeasurable void, a yawning chasm of 
 chaos, between the self and the Ideal. 
 
 How can psychology, the Science of the 
 Mind, even formulate the deep problems that 
 25 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 belong to the real nature of man ? Whence 
 its insight to penetrate into the hidden truth 
 of reality ? Being phenomenal, can it encom- 
 pass the real ? How can that which is tem- 
 poral reveal the concealed, the Eternal within 
 the transient ? 
 
 It is held by the a priori psychology that 
 all problems are soluble, all questions answer- 
 able : but that the solution and the answer 
 logically must be sought in the sphere of the 
 problems and questions, which is indeed the 
 sphere of Causality. The astronomer obtains 
 no very satisfactory knowledge of the comet 
 observed to shoot across his sky, only to 
 disappear below the horizon. He gazes stead- 
 fastly upon the ascendant star and learns its 
 place and nature. But the secret of the star 
 is occult ; the reality evades and eludes even 
 the wondrous eye of the telescope. Reality 
 is in the sphere of neither telescope nor 
 microscope. In consciousness alone is truth 
 perceived and realized. 
 26 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 If, then, the Ideal be not within the sphere 
 of the Science of the Mind, does not the 
 psychologist of the experimental school by 
 limitation, self-imposed, lock himself in the 
 outer court of his being ? 
 
 The modern philosopher and scientist oc- 
 cupy the ground of a hero. They stand 
 fearless. All bow to their heroic endeavor 
 to know Nature and human nature. An 
 imaginary foe confronts them, they would be 
 victorious. If they must surrender, they will 
 fall facing the enemy. 
 
 Have they not, however, so hedged them- 
 selves about with limitations, for the sake 
 of the modern delirious desire for fact and 
 observation, that experience and existence 
 have become the premise, the goal, the way ? 
 Let the philosopher and scientist but tran- 
 scend the illusion that the objective world is 
 the sphinx whose riddle they would solve, 
 and they would be the first to realize, when 
 released from their dream, the inordinate 
 27 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 worship they have given to phenomena and 
 the objective phase of Nature, thought and 
 humanity. 
 
 This reign of fact, mind, realism, activity, 
 may be a logical step in the development 
 of thought. But is there a need for the 
 bravest and best to engross themselves for 
 continuous decades in the treadmill of phe- 
 nomena ? There is no quarrel to make, 
 from any point of view, with either Being 
 or existence, soul or mind, aspiration or 
 desire, with truth or fact, — it is all wisely 
 ordained. 
 
 But Divinity does not want men to lose 
 themselves in the non-essential ; it inspires 
 them to find themselves in the essential. 
 Divinity does not hold men to the plane of 
 fact, but urges them into the sphere of truth. 
 Divinity does not enslave men with desire, 
 but implants within them the freedom of 
 Divine aspiration. Seek and seek ; think and 
 think: at last man must find that Divinity 
 28 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 does not appear, but is to be realized in 
 consciousness. 
 
 One day has the value of a life-long ex- 
 perience. One fact of Nature has written in 
 it the nature of the universe. The knowl- 
 edge that experience brings will never resolve 
 itself into the realization of truth and Being. 
 The seeker after truth who clings to exist- 
 ence may delve, doubt, endeavor, question, 
 through innumerable incarnations, over the 
 value of a quarter of a dollar. His day of 
 millennium will come when he awakens to 
 the deeper value of the dollar, and recognizes 
 that one-fourth has no absolute value in itself, 
 but that its relative value is derived from the 
 unit. 
 
 The day of joy will come when the search- 
 ers after hidden realities will awaken to them- 
 selves, the source of the highest wisdom, in 
 whom alone is the absolutely Eternal to be 
 found. Then just and righteous values will 
 be placed on experience and thought, and on 
 29 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 the soul. The fractions will be wisely related 
 to the whole only when the value of the One 
 is realized. 
 
 "A mere, base fraud " is what the frac- 
 tional, phenomenal world is, unless it leads to 
 a realization of the infinite and holy One. 
 Ten thousand incarnations will avail naught 
 as mere re-embodiments on the plane of gen- 
 eration. The fulfillment of one or a thousand 
 incarnations is not generation, but regenera- 
 tion. Experience that lures us away from the 
 subjective, where alone the Eternal is sov- 
 ereign, is the direst " fraud " that holds men 
 to the limitations and the perplexities of 
 finitude. 
 
 The intellectualist and moralist may sacri- 
 fice themselves on the altar of thought or 
 humanity, in its objective nature, and if they 
 come not into realization of the truth of con- 
 sciousness they have missed the goal of life 
 and the Ideal. As the Light of the truth of 
 Being dawns in consciousness, reason, argu- 
 30 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 ment, the hero, vanish ; they will find their 
 place. The imaginary foe disappears, the 
 struggle ceases. Spirit becomes conscious 
 of its own possessions, unfolds its powers, 
 and every lover of Truth with earnest 
 endeavor will then not only see, but per- 
 ceive : not only hear, but understand, the 
 things which the Spirit reveals. 
 
 3i 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 The Ideal defined by a priori Psychology, 
 
 The word " Idea " comes from the Greek ; 
 it means " to see." The Idea is that which 
 is seen, not without, but within. It does not 
 belong to the world of outlook, but to the 
 world of inlook. Turn the vision within, and 
 you will perceive the Idea. It is, therefore, 
 not of the earth, nor of matter, nor of objec- 
 tivity. It is mystical, spiritual, subjective, 
 and transcendent in height. 
 
 The word "image/' on the other hand, is 
 derived from the Latin, imitari, to imitate. 
 Look without for the image : it is a creation 
 under the law that operates through Nature 
 and the phenomenal world. The image is 
 synchronous with the physical eye ; the Idea, 
 with the spiritual. 
 
 The significance of the Idea is therefore 
 universal or spiritual. Should Spirit become 
 particular, it would lose both its universality 
 and spirituality. The Idea is of the realm 
 of the subjective consciousness, and it touches 
 32 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 the individual just where he is in spiritual 
 unfoldment. 
 
 When Plato or Emerson perceives the Idea 
 and gives it forth, we recognize it as belong- 
 ing neither to Plato nor to Emerson. The 
 Idea, passing from the sphere of Being into 
 that of the mind, following the same law that 
 governs the objectification of the Subject, the 
 materialization of Spirit, the specialization of 
 Power, the phenomenalization of Being, takes 
 upon itself form. The thought, the idea, 
 insphered in form, then becomes Platonic, 
 Emersonian. 
 
 Following the same a priori principle, 
 Ideation is the faculty or capacity of recog- 
 nizing or bringing Ideas into consciousness. 
 Ideation is, therefore, inner, in the subjective 
 consciousness, in the sphere where form is 
 not. The Imagination, on the other hand, 
 is the power to call up mental images ; it is 
 outer, in the sphere of mind, where form is. 
 
 33 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 No Ideal in the Exoteric World. 
 
 The Ideal is, therefore, never external; 
 and yet professional men, for example, talk 
 of ideals. What do they mean ? Evidently, 
 nothing more than goals. The lawyer places 
 yonder a goal, the creation of his own imag- 
 ination. He reaches out toward it, but by 
 and by the direction of the race-track changes, 
 the lawyer leaves his profession and enters, 
 it may be, the field of medicine. Then 
 another goal is erected, another ambition is 
 conceived. 
 
 A young man has an ambition for political 
 honors. He exclaims : " Gladstone is my 
 ideal ! " But Gladstone can be nothing more, 
 to any man, than a pattern, a model. 
 
 The military commander talks of Caesar 
 as his ideal. If any commander whatsoever 
 considers the great Caesar more than a model, 
 or if he endeavors to realize the model instead 
 of himself, he will not say with the world's 
 greatest commander, "Veni, vidi> vici y " but, 
 34 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 instead, " I came, I saw, I was conquered." 
 Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
 but unto the Ideal what is the Ideal's. 
 
 The student of literature who desires to 
 identify himself with the literati will study 
 models, patterns, masterpieces, as helps and 
 props, until he finds himself. When he is 
 conscious of the power within, which is as 
 universal as spirit, he no longer looks with- 
 out for model, method or material. He is 
 grasped by the inner power, and becomes its 
 medium, — then goals, ambitions, plans, pat- 
 terns, models, designs fall away, and he 
 stands alone with himself, with the power 
 which is focused within. When a man 
 thinks, acts, realizes from the depth and fire 
 of his own life and center, he ceases not only 
 to have an active interest in, but to be aware 
 of, objective standards and measuring-rods. 
 A consciousness of that power in its fullness 
 and unlimited nature is the prerogative of 
 the Soul. 
 
 35 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 Commanders, statesmen, professional men 
 work upon foreign material while they en- 
 deavor to make themselves like a model. 
 No man conceives of greatness till he sets 
 about realizing the Ideal. He then turns 
 his thought backward upon the Self, ceases 
 to dwell in personal thought and activity. 
 The Ideal is not a copy, it is the original ; 
 it is not an image, it is that which is 
 imaged. 
 
 To be great is to realize that Ideal ; to 
 be pure is to abide in its lucid and trans- 
 parent Light. 
 
 36 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The Ideal and the Image Related. 
 
 The nature of the Ideal renders it esoteric ; 
 while the image is exoteric. The Ideal is 
 formless, in the sphere of Being ; the image 
 has to do with form, in the sphere of the 
 Beautiful. The former obtains in conscious- 
 ness, the latter exploits the field of mind. 
 Consciousness, therefore, polarizes in Ideation ; 
 the mind in the imagination. Ideation is, 
 then, the power of the soul that recognizes 
 the sublime in Being. The imagination is 
 the power of the mind that creates form 
 beautiful in existence. 
 
 Ideation is in the sphere of the perfect 
 and the Absolute ; the imagination is rampant 
 in the midst of the imperfect and the relative. 
 The latter may scale the heights of intellect 
 and the depths of desire; the former is op- 
 erative alone in the sphere of the pure in 
 heart. 
 
 The imagination is a creative power operat- 
 ing under the same law that creates external 
 37 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 Nature and the world of form. The Ideal 
 is not that which is created under the law ; 
 it is the law, supreme. It is causal and 
 final. It is a leading of the Spirit which 
 becomes law unto itself. 
 
 Does the artist, then, merely reproduce 
 what the creative power has produced ? No ! 
 but the artist's creation is identical with 
 Nature's, though on a different plane. Both 
 creations are under the dominion of the law 
 of existence. It is the creative power that 
 produces form, whether on the plane of con- 
 scious Nature, or on the plane of self-conscious 
 mind. Wherever it may appear, form is 
 phenomenal ; it is exoteric and relative. In 
 the sphere of the Beautiful, form is the acme 
 of objective excellence, the apotheosis of exist- 
 ence. The deep significance of this teaching 
 may be perceived, when it is applied, on all 
 planes of life and art, in Nature and human 
 nature. 
 
 Take for example, a plant. When it estab- 
 
 38 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 lishes an affinity for the Idea of the tree, for 
 the Ideal, its form will be evolved, perfect. 
 The Idea, involved, is always perfect. To 
 build the evolved (form) identical with the 
 involved (Ideal), the form must be held to 
 the Idea, not the Idea to the form. The 
 process is one of upbuilding, uplifting. Exalt 
 the form to the level of the Ideal and it 
 will proclaim what manner of content it 
 vehicles. 
 
 The Ideal is valuable, then, only as it is 
 beheld in its pure and perfect absoluteness. 
 Then, by the power that is ours, not by the 
 mere asking, but by unfolding and conserving, 
 we may build the form and color it, according 
 to the content immanent in consciousness. 
 
 The Christs have been typical illustrations 
 of this divine truth of the supremacy of the 
 Ideal over form and phenomenon. 
 
 The Eternal, which is from everlasting to 
 everlasting, is uncreate. It is within every 
 object, manifestation, thought and emotion ; 
 39 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 but it is not contained by them. The form 
 is fleeting, relative ; look not there for Divin- 
 ity. A transient thing, — how can it express 
 the permanent ? Can the shadow express 
 the substance, or the relative the Absolute ? 
 
 Causality of form is from above and within. 
 Within is Being; it is forever unmanifest. 
 Look within. The spiritually unfolded will 
 perceive Spirit in bird, stone, mind ; in tone, 
 flower and man. Awaken the everlasting 
 fountain of eternal life and power within, and 
 Spirit will discern Spirit, even as Divinity 
 realizes Divinity. 
 
 40 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 Are there Ideals? 
 
 Not unfrequently, thinkers, philosophic, eth- 
 ical, write in a charming and lucid manner of 
 growing ideals, developing ideals. They find 
 ideals, Greek, Christian ; medieval, modern ; 
 positive, negative ; particular and individual. 
 Such writers seem to grasp intellectually 
 and esthetically ideals, without a realization 
 of the Ideal. 
 
 A popular author writes of an " ideal of 
 natural prosperity dominating men's minds." 
 In what sphere of his Being, or what plane 
 of his life, does he find an ideal that dom- 
 inates ? True, men are dominated by some- 
 thing they call natural prosperity; but what 
 is the spiritual relation between material pros- 
 perity and the Ideal ? Men are dominated 
 by many things ; but how can an Ideal 
 assume so ignoble a relation to man ? Only 
 an influence which comes from man's lower 
 self, such as evil tendency taking a thought- 
 form on the plane of desire, can dominate. 
 4i 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 Ideal faultlessless inspires and glorifies the 
 son of man. 
 
 When one reads in a New Thought mag- 
 azine of "a man who chooses the accumula- 
 tion of poverty as his ideal " ; of elevating or 
 uplifting the popular ideals ; or when one 
 reads, even in a book, that "half the evils 
 of life depend upon our following wrong 
 ideals," one is impelled to ask, What sort of 
 erratic things are ideals, with so pliant and 
 yet so untrustworthy a nature ? 
 
 They who have caught a glimpse of the 
 Heavenly Vision, and believe, are ready to 
 exclaim : Hosanna ! altogether lovely, perfect, 
 holy ! the source only of divine inspiration 
 and exaltation of Soul. 
 
 The spiritually discerning cannot give 
 assent to the teaching of a much-read author 
 when he says, — 
 
 " The basis of the highest life possible to 
 us is perhaps the Greek ideal rather than the 
 42 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 Christian. If the Christian is higher, the 
 Greek is the larger and the saner one." 
 
 And yet, in another breath, he declares 
 the Christian ideal to be " the saving ideal." 
 
 The attitude of many scientific, ethical, 
 and esthetic minds to the Teachings of the 
 Nazarene is that they are founded on self- 
 abnegation, and that to follow the Christ- 
 teachings would destroy all that the world 
 values in civilization. The Nazarene did not 
 come to destroy but to fulfill. Not only did 
 he not disregard any valuable phase of life 
 or experience, but, on the contrary, empha- 
 sized with every thought, act and breath the 
 eternal importance of attending to the essen- 
 tial. He healed the sick, cleansed the leper, 
 fed the hungry multitudes, cast out devils, 
 raised the dead. If self-abnegation means 
 abiding in the consciousness of the Power of 
 the Infinite and the significance of the Eter- 
 nal ; in the realization of health, harmony, 
 43 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 poise, — and is this not the Christ-conscious- 
 ness which avails ? — shall we then compare 
 "the saving ideal" with Greek or with any- 
 other ? Shall we not rather embrace it as 
 the only Ideal that can save us from sickness, 
 hunger, blindness, obsession, death ? 
 
 If the unfoldment of the Christ-conscious- 
 ness should destroy civilization, with all its 
 inventions, discoveries, social and govern- 
 mental institutions; its culture and intellect- 
 ual development ; its desires and wants which 
 can never be gratified ; its exaggerated and 
 erroneous views of life ; its wars and diplo- 
 macies, — would not humanity be exalted 
 rather than degraded ; blest rather than 
 cursed ; freed rather than enslaved ? 
 
 The Ideal is a standard of perfection. 
 
 In the Temple of Being is the Ideal. In 
 the sacred arcana of that temple are its 
 initiative, unfoldment, realization. 
 
 44 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 " Within the silent center of the earth 
 
 My mansion is : where I have lived insphered 
 
 From the beginning, and around my sleep 
 
 Have woven all the wondrous imagery 
 
 Of this dim spot which mortals call the 
 
 world, — 
 Infinite depths of unknown elements 
 Massed into one impenetrable mask, 
 Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins 
 Of gold and stones and adamantine iron. 
 And as a veil in which I walk through heaven 
 I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, 
 
 and clouds, 
 And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns 
 In the dark space of interstellar air." 
 
 — Shelley, 
 
 45 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 The Initiative of the Ideal. 
 
 The initiative of the Ideal is heavenly. It 
 is with the birth of the Soul. By the birth 
 of the Soul we do not refer to its clothing 
 itself and coming into manifestation ; for the 
 Soul may come into manifestation many 
 times after it is born. By the birth of the 
 Soul we refer to its crossing the line that 
 separates consciousness in Nature from self- 
 consciousness in man. 
 
 In the mighty sweep of time and tide 
 there comes a form, on the plane of evolution, 
 in which the involved has awakened to know 
 itself — the Soul is born. It has completed 
 degrees enough of the circle of existence 
 to be able to recognize itself as distinct 
 from form. It is born to a recognition of 
 itself in the sphere of involution. It then 
 constitutes a link, as it were ; and this is 
 or may be a conscious realization between 
 the conscious animal and the self-conscious 
 God. 
 
 46 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The birth of the Soul is not, therefore, 
 on the plane of evolution. The Soul is not 
 created, but begotten ; it is the involved. 
 The Ideal, having a celestial initiative, is 
 occult within the Soul, and when the Self 
 awakens to itself, it finds the Ideal as one 
 with itself. 
 
 47 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 " Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise 
 From outward things whate'er you may believe. 
 There is an inmost center in us all, 
 Where truth abides in fullness ; . . . 
 
 and to know 
 
 Rather consists in opening out a way 
 Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape 
 Than in effecting entry for a light 
 Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly 
 The demonstration of a truth, its birth, 
 And you trace back the influence to its spring 
 And source within us, where broods a radiance 
 
 vast, 
 To be elicited ray by ray as chance shall 
 
 favor." 
 
 — Browning. 
 
 48 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The Content of the Ideal. 
 
 By the spiritual insight, the content of the 
 Ideal is found to be identical with that of the 
 Self. It cannot be greater, it is not less. 
 The content of the Ideal does not appear to 
 the spiritual perception to be intellectual 
 development, nor culture, nor refinement, nor 
 yet a rich sense-life, nor all of these com- 
 bined. These are the loves and necessities, 
 not of the Self in its absolute, but of the 
 Self in its relative nature. These belong 
 to the phenomenal aspect of the Self. 
 Mental development, culture, a life in the 
 senses, are necessary collaterals and adjuncts 
 of the purely human relationships in the 
 State, society, school, church, family. But 
 they form no part of the content of the 
 subjective, eternal Self. Neither does the 
 Ideal depend upon these corollaries of exist- 
 ence to enable it to unfold and realize its 
 own perfection. That which is in part 
 passes away when the perfect comes. 
 49 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 The Light of the Sun. 
 
 Has there not been a ray of light — a 
 flash of intuition, a gleam of soul-wisdom ? 
 one ray as clear and pure as a gem of the 
 deep ? Did you, at such a moment, stop to 
 ask whence ? whence that ray ? And, from 
 the depths of the realm from which and in 
 which that ray appeared, did there not come 
 a certainty, which needed no reason nor logic 
 to enforce, that that ray was but a promise, 
 and that the perception of one intuitive truth 
 is a prophecy that the Soul encompasses the 
 Light of all truth ! The content of the 
 Soul, then, is not the intuition merely of a 
 ray of light. 
 
 Light, a flood of Light, the Light of the 
 Sun, is the content of the Ideal. 
 
 Freedom. 
 
 Has there not been a time, even though 
 it were as brief as a robin's flight from the 
 tree-top to the margin of the stream which 
 5o 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 mirrored it, when the earth, body, discord, 
 experience, were left far in the valley below, 
 and the Soul floated in the atmosphere of 
 its own freedom — free from Maya's chang- 
 ing sands, Sansara's vortices of Life ? In 
 the depth of the Soul, where that freedom's 
 flight was born, was there not a perfect 
 assurance that the moment's escape into 
 liberation was a prophecy of absolute and 
 eternal bliss and freedom, the true heritage 
 of the Soul from the foundation of the world ? 
 To be in existence, yet realizing liberation 
 from gravitation and limitation of every 
 nature, is the significance of that momentary 
 flight of freedom. 
 
 Freedom is the content of the Ideal. 
 
 Omnipotence, 
 
 Desire overcome, fear vanquished ! Who 
 
 has not felt a wave of power rise and swell 
 
 through his being? Power to Be, power to 
 
 withstand. You are conscious of power ? 
 
 5i 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 To what degree ? To overcome, and to 
 stand secure in that consciousness. Then 
 comes a deeper realization ; namely, that 
 power is limitless ; and that the infinity of 
 power is the source of supply. And this 
 deepened realization is the gateway to the 
 yet diviner consciousness that the finite- 
 Infinite supply of all power cannot be ex- 
 hausted. Drink freely from the source of 
 all, from the fullness of God! — you cannot 
 exhaust the opulence of Divinity. 
 
 Omnipotence is the content of the Ideal. 
 
 Omniscience, 
 
 Yes ! the Soul is conscious of its own 
 nature. It realizes its own sovereignty in 
 the sphere of Being. There is a deep soul- 
 realization — My redeemer liveth ; my Soul 
 is immortal ; Divinity is all in all. Such 
 divine realization, gathering certainty and 
 definiteness from the halo of its own Being, 
 sweeps the Soul into the realm of ecstasy. 
 52 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The Soul is translated into its own heaven 
 of wisdom, into the sphere of causality, 
 where evil, error and darkness are forever 
 disintegrated. 
 
 Omniscience is the content of the Ideal. 
 
 Omnipresence. 
 
 When the Soul transcends all conscious- 
 ness of things and life phenomenal, and 
 loses touch with the conditions and rela- 
 tions of experience, it is indrawn into the 
 holy of holies not made with hands, and 
 melts away as an influx of the immanent 
 Presence. 
 
 Like a cloud of fragrance, a mist of glory, 
 an inverted bowl of etheric light, whose 
 zenith transcends that of the blue sky as 
 the Light of Spirit transcends the light of 
 the sun, that Presence hovers and permeates 
 and suffuses ! It lifts and expands, until it 
 embraces, touches, encompasses all within 
 itself. 
 
 53 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 That Presence sinks into the Omnipres- 
 ence, Cosmos leaps forth from the night of 
 chaos, and the Omnipresence is in all and 
 through all and above all. In the cosmos 
 of things, space is not only filled with it, 
 but is swallowed up in its glorious embrace. 
 The dense and opaque earth is made the 
 transparent and lucid abode of Omnipresent 
 Being. 
 
 Omnipresence is the content of the Ideal. 
 
 Omniconsciousness. 
 
 The Soul, indrawn, abides in the sanctum 
 of its own Being, where its ever deepening 
 consciousness of the Omnipresence emerges 
 into the cosmic-consciousness. No bounds, 
 no height, no depth, no birth, no death ; no 
 time, no space, — all forms of Being are 
 indrawn, and held at the center, uncreate. 
 A glory surpassing the brightness of the 
 thought illumines the subject ; it emanates, 
 reaching all things on the side of their 
 54 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 involution, bringing them to the occult per- 
 ception that the oneness of all is realized 
 in and through their participating in and 
 reflecting Being. 
 
 The lucidity of the reflecting and reflected 
 becomes the luminosity of the reflection. 
 The object then becomes the reflection 
 through the media and solvent of the re- 
 flector. 
 
 The Light breaks down all barriers be- 
 tween the form or object and the content 
 or subject. The consciousness of limitation, 
 separateness, merges into the deeper and 
 diviner consciousness of Being, Oneness, 
 Unity. The reflection is thrown back to 
 the reflected, and the law of the One is no 
 longer merely formulated on the tablet of 
 stone, but is spoken forth by the word in- 
 carnate, aglow with Light. This is omni- 
 consciousness ; it is the resolvent of evil, 
 struggle, fear, desire ; it is the mystic seal 
 of peace, unity and realization. 
 55 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 Omniconsciousness is the content of the 
 Ideal. 
 
 Omnilove. 
 
 In the deep and sacred silence, the Spirit 
 of freedom severs the last fetter that binds 
 the Soul to the earth. The Soul, absolved, 
 floats in ecstatic bliss in the supernal 
 sphere of omniconsciousness, and drinks 
 from the everlasting fountain of unspeak- 
 able love. 
 
 O Love Divine of the Omniconsciousness ! 
 Eternal compassion reaches up, from the 
 horizon that links the earth and sea, to the 
 zenith in the blue, and then descends like 
 a beatitude and benediction, alike upon the 
 just and unjust. 
 
 O thou supernal love ! — a gleam, a glow ; 
 a flash, a flame. A consciousness of thy 
 Light is a realization of the eternity of the 
 now. Love, celestial, divine, ineffable ! 
 
 Omnilove is the content of the Ideal. 
 
 56 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 Christ-consciousness. 
 
 Insphered thus in love, at once transcend- 
 ent and immanent, sustaining all in unity, the 
 Self hears the voice speak from the depths 
 of the unutterable silence, from that sphere 
 where the everlasting fire glows in the heart 
 of the All. The voiceless voice sayeth : — 
 
 O child of the Infinite, thou art worthy 
 and efficient. Oh, consecrate thyself to the 
 Soul-life. Naught else is worthy of thee, O 
 child of the Infinite ! Within thee is the 
 One ; thou art omnipotent, omniscient, omni- 
 conscious. Consecration will bring thee to 
 the full realization that thou and the Father 
 are one, and in the fullness and fruition of 
 time there will blossom in thee the con- 
 sciousness of the Christ. 
 
 The Indwelling God, the Christ-conscious- 
 ness, is the content of the Ideal. 
 
 All that Divinity is, that man is ; but 
 man is to realize Divinity, and Divinity is 
 57 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 to be realized in man. The kingdom of 
 heaven is within you. 
 
 If man were not potentially God, God 
 could not be man apotheosized. Man's 
 possession and celestial heritage is power, 
 light, wisdom, love, together with a con- 
 sciousness that Divinity has placed no limit- 
 ation upon the capacity and degree of his 
 realization. Otherwise, man is not man, but 
 of the lower kingdom. When unfolded and 
 realized, the content of the Ideal is Light, 
 freedom, omnipotence, omniscience, omni- 
 consciousness, omnilove, consecration. 
 
 For ages and eons the Soul may place 
 limitations and shackles upon itself. But 
 while it is thus submerged in the relative 
 and finite, it can neither unfold nor realize 
 itself. It is not Divinity that places limita- 
 tions upon the Self ; they are imposed and 
 maintained only by the finite. 
 
 The content of the Ideal is, therefore, 
 the whole of what one is, lifted into con- 
 58 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 sciousness. You, perfect, unfolded, are re- 
 flected in the Divine mirror. Divinity sees 
 the pure, white lily blossoming even in the 
 seed. The ideated man insphered in a lucid 
 and transparent halo of his own Divinity 
 stands perfect, finished in the consciousness 
 of God. 
 
 Doubt not, falter not, deny not. The 
 Infinite is enthroned within the finite. There 
 may be a vague, unrealized Presence of the 
 Ideal. That half-conscious void leads to the 
 unfoldment and realization of the Divinity- 
 consciousness in man. 
 
 For this consummation devoutly to be 
 wished, the worlds were whirled into space ; 
 the evolution of fauna and flora was ordained ; 
 the Logos, begotten, not created, came forth 
 from the heart of the All, bearing with it 
 the potency, promise and prophecy of the 
 Absolute. It speaks the word of peace to the 
 hosts of humanity that men may thus know 
 they, too, are not created but begotten. 
 59 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 f Great are the symbols of Being, 
 But that which is symboled is greater. 
 Vast the create and beheld, 
 But vaster the inward Creator." 
 
 60 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The Unfoldment of the Ideal. 
 
 The unfoldment of the Ideal ! What 
 words may set it forth ? The more the 
 unfoldment of the spirit, the less the need 
 of words for its expression. It brings a 
 deep, rich satisfaction, too sacred to utter 
 to ears that hear and understand not. 
 
 There are moments which for blessedness 
 and glory one would not exchange for eons 
 of ordinary life. It is not life, but realiza- 
 tion, which renders the Immanency a reality. 
 Only when one is ready and worthy of the 
 vision ; only when one would rather behold 
 that vision than to think or to live ; only 
 when no other inspiration will meet the 
 need of the Soul's aspiration, do such 
 moments come. Before the vision comes, 
 there is overcoming, self-abnegation ; tears, 
 despair — then the flood of Light that dis- 
 pels all darkness. That vision is ineffable. 
 It comes when you are alone. You cannot 
 show it to any one, you cannot translate its 
 61 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 glory into language of earth. Another can- 
 not tell what came to him in the sacred 
 hush when the veil was rent and Isis ap- 
 peared in a heaven of splendor. 
 
 The voice of the unfolded spirit — is not 
 that the Word which is heard and under- 
 stood by those who have ears to hear and 
 eyes to see ? " Let him deny himself, and 
 take up the cross, and follow me," were the 
 golden words of Him who had lived in the 
 heart of the Central Flame. 
 
 The cross, we take it, is not found in 
 serving Divinity. It is not service that con- 
 stitutes the cross ; the service is love. He 
 who declares there is no cross will yet find 
 it. Each makes his own and carries it for 
 his own crucifixion. What Soul has not 
 groaned in agony when it awakened to it- 
 self and fully realized how it had lived and 
 thought literally engulfed in phenomena which 
 blinded it to reality; engrossed in attach- 
 ments which enshrouded it in the shadow 
 62 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 of its own dark desires, shutting out from 
 its gaze the Vision of the Soul ? Oh ! the 
 heart-ren dings and mental revulsions, when 
 the awakened Soul sees clearly that the 
 relationships of life, held most sacred, are 
 for the most part matters of desire and 
 selfishness. We look and behold the prints 
 of the chains of desire upon the flesh — the 
 same chains we called duty, love, service ; 
 the enlightened and awakened Soul now 
 sees them as they are, of the earth, earthly 
 and earthy. Oh ! for freedom from the 
 past, freedom from attachment and enthrall- 
 ment, that the Soul may sing, soar, untram- 
 meled, on the wings of Aspiration. 
 
 "To be attached to material things/' it 
 is written in the Vedas, "is to be chained. 
 To be without attachment is to be free." 
 
 It is desire that leads the self out into 
 objectivity and imprisons it in diversity, 
 multiplicity. Fix to the cross the sense- 
 life, and the Soul will rise with aspiration 
 
 63 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 into the realm of subjectivity, liberated by- 
 unity and oneness. 
 
 Dante's unfoldment of spirit began when 
 Beatrice unveiled her divine countenance to 
 him ; with steadfastness he gazed upon that 
 celestial vision, and he was transformed. 
 This is the Law. As he was transformed 
 into her likeness, gravitation lost its force, 
 levitation wafted him through the celestial 
 realms of Paradise, until finally he beheld 
 his Beatrice enthroned in the " heart of the 
 Holy White Rose of the Empyrean." A 
 glimpse of the unveiled Soul is the key to 
 realization. Seek that vision ; love it, con- 
 secrate yourself to it, and it will exalt you 
 into a Paradise of the profoundest and divin- 
 est realizations. 
 
 6 4 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 " ' Let the visions of the night or of the day 
 Come, as they will ; and many a time they 
 
 come, 
 Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, 
 This light that strikes his eye-ball is not light, 
 This air that smites his forehead is not air 
 But vision — aye, his very hand and foot — 
 In moments when he feels he cannot die, 
 And knows himself no vision to himself, 
 Nor to the high God a vision, nor to that One 
 Who rose again ; ye have seen what ye have 
 
 seen/ 
 
 " So spake the king : I knew not all he 
 meant.' ' 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 65 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 The Realization of the Ideal, 
 
 Self-realization, the realization of the Ideal, 
 is not self-abnegation. The unfolding Soul 
 does not hold before itself the mirror of 
 self-abnegation. That is not its conscious 
 purpose ; and yet, the realized self abstains 
 from the sense-life. All that is on the 
 lower plane is uplifted, the crude is trans- 
 muted into the fine, gross into gold, and all 
 is consecrated to the Most High. 
 
 Jesus took his three best-beloved disciples 
 upon the high mountain apart, and was 
 there transfigured before them, and his face 
 shone as the sun, and his raiment was white 
 as the Light. When the Son of man stands 
 upon the mountain-top apart, has he not 
 carried the valley to the summit ? Is there 
 anything left below ? 
 
 The Son of man becomes the Son of God. 
 
 The consciousness of the particular is sunk 
 
 in the consciousness of the universal ; the 
 
 consciousness of Divinity absolves him from 
 
 66 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 the consciousness of man. This is the 
 Christ-consciousness. It is the fullness of 
 eternality, ideality ; consecration to the Father 
 which is in Heaven. There is nothing below, 
 without or beyond ; it is all in all. The 
 Son of man transfigured is the sum-total — 
 unity and unison of God and man. To the 
 Christ, God is ; God alone is. 
 
 Realization is not in doing, but in being; 
 not in activity, but in rest. It is not found 
 in the turmoil of phenomenal Nature and 
 human nature, but in the stillness of the 
 Silence. It is not the result of evolution 
 and development, but involution and unfold- 
 ment. Realize the Ideal by being it. 
 
 67 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 Doing issues from Being. 
 
 Doing issues from Being, as conduct 
 from the Ideal realized, as sunlight from 
 the sun. Beneficence and loving-kindness 
 descend from the sphere of Causality; they 
 are not creatures on the plane of effects. 
 Doing will be pure, holy, God-like, only when 
 it emanates from the Ideal. The love of the 
 Highest comprehends, as its metaphysical 
 and spiritual content, the love of all that the 
 highest encompasses. If love of the Highest 
 rules supreme, there is harmony and heavenly 
 good-will. If there is love for the good and 
 true in all and everywhere, there will be 
 peace in both the inner and outer worlds. 
 
 The Love of Divinity includes both the 
 love of man and peace. But is not the 
 love for and of humanity, per se, attachment 
 to the perishable, the transient ? Is not the 
 love of form idolatrous ? Can such attach- 
 ment bring peace either in the spiritual or 
 material worlds ? 
 
 68 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 Spiritual love — and there is no other, 
 for " love " on the earth -plane is a mis- 
 nomer — brings a sweet peace " which passeth 
 all understanding,'' and it reigns from the 
 Center to the circumference of Being. It 
 issues forth from the highest and encircles 
 all things and beings, because they and it 
 are divine. A consciousness that love is 
 not personal but universal liberates the Soul 
 from all attachments, and that liberation is 
 peace ; it is a benediction from the sky. 
 
 The hush of peace silences the clamor 
 of desire, which expresses through dispute, 
 argument, war. This peace liberates man 
 from the valley - conditions, and gives him 
 possession of the heights. Man must be free 
 not only from himself, but from all selves. 
 Liberation gained, freedom is granted to 
 every flower, fish, bird, animal, man. 
 
 Divinity places no limitation anywhere in 
 the cosmos or in the universe. Every tiny 
 atom of protoplasm is free to realize its 
 
 6 9 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 own ordained destiny. The law of its being 
 may however, for a time, be opposed or 
 thwarted by the external impositions of force 
 or influence of chaos; but finally, when the 
 speck of protoplasm has finished with desire 
 and dispute, and overcomes and awakes to 
 itself, it will find that the path of freedom 
 lies within its own sanctuary. It outworks 
 its destined end by releasing itself from the 
 bondage, not of humanity, but of the self 
 and external influences. 
 
 70 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 The Spiritual Brotherhood. 
 
 The peace which drops down from heaven 
 lulls to sleep evil and separateness. In the 
 awakened consciousness there prevails loving- 
 kindness, and a brotherhood obtains. 
 
 This brotherhood rests on the conscious- 
 ness that peace and love have a heavenly 
 initiative and that the true brotherhood is 
 of Divinity. That brotherhood neglects no 
 human kind, except the insincere, who are 
 already dead. Only the earnest live, and 
 they alone may become initiates. In that 
 brotherhood, based on the realization of 
 Divinity, no man manipulates his brother 
 for personal ends or gain. The all-seeing 
 eye of his realized self sees in his brother 
 not merely the human but the divine ; and 
 he cherishes and holds sacred man because 
 he is the embodiment of Divinity. In the 
 brotherhood, universal peace reigns. The 
 sword of personal criticism, the deadliest 
 weapon in the hand of man, the weapon 
 71 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 that rebounds from the slain and destroys 
 the slayer, is forever sheathed in its scab- 
 bard. 
 
 The soothsayers walked about the Forum 
 and streets of Rome smiling into one 
 another's eyes, each silently recognizing in 
 the other his own hollow pretenses and gross 
 hypocrisies. Poor soothsayers ! they were the 
 product of that ancient idolatrous and heathen 
 civilization. But are not the insincere and 
 hypocritical of this time, even though they 
 be the product of Christian culture in the 
 gala-day of the world's civilization, on a 
 level with the Roman soothsayer in his 
 decadence ? Has the insincere ever caught 
 even a glimpse of the Ideal, the standard 
 of perfection ? 
 
 The earnest alone are alive to truth and 
 love and Divinity ; they alone are true and 
 worthy to speak the truth to friend and 
 foe, in storm and in sunshine. So akin is 
 the earnest soul to the fire of the Central 
 72 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 Flame that its glow is the illumination from 
 the Center shining through the shadow of 
 earth. Oh, to be the Ideal ! then we should 
 stand face to face, with the truth unveiled 
 between us. " Whatever ye do, do it heartily, 
 as to the Lord, and not unto men." 
 
 73 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 The Identity of the Ideal and the Self. 
 
 The Voice of the Spirit affirms from the 
 circumference that the deeps of you and 
 the heights of you are implicit in the Ideal. 
 The Voice of the Spirit affirms from the 
 center that the depths and heights of the 
 Ideal are implicit in you. There is not 
 only a correspondence between the Self and 
 the Ideal, but an identity. Consciousness, 
 sub, normal and super, is all-inclusive in 
 capacity and implication. The finite and 
 the Infinite, the relative and the Absolute, 
 the created and the Begotten, existence and 
 Being, are united in the everlasting and 
 eternal One, at the Center. The Ideal is 
 the all of what was, is, and is to come in 
 the sphere of Involution. 
 
 A love for that Ideal will bind you to 
 it, as the magnet holds what its two-fold 
 polarity draws. 
 
 Is the attraction still for the earth and 
 the physical ? — or is the affinity for the 
 74 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 heavenly and celestial ? Spiritual affinity 
 will keep the Soul true to its beloved. 
 
 Stop in the wild career of Maya. Wait, 
 listen. Be conscious of the over-shadowing 
 peace. Know that when affinity draws you 
 upward, Eros, abiding in the dwelling-place 
 of perfection, will speak from the upper air, 
 and you will hear the resounding echo of 
 that Word through all the spheres of the 
 Self. That Word will be the definition of 
 Love; it will exclude magnetic and hypnotic 
 influence of personality and all attachments 
 on the plane of Kama Rupa. 
 
 In the perfect and imperishable, Love is 
 centered. That Love shall abide forever 
 and forever. 
 
 There is a vast universal orchestra. Every 
 musician has in his possession an instrument 
 perfect and infinite in possibility. Shall 
 each player take his key-note from his 
 brother ? Or shall they all go clamoring 
 to the first-violonist for his key-note ? No. 
 75 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 There is a Great Tone, symbolized by the 
 tuning-fork ; with it every instrument is to 
 be made to vibrate in unison with the one 
 tone. Then a symphony of harmony, with- 
 out a discordant sound, will fill the world. 
 
 Every child of the Infinite has in his 
 possession a harp with a thousand strings. 
 Let each instrument be keyed to harmonize 
 with the Infinite Tone ; each consciousness 
 be tuned in unison with Omniconsciousness : 
 let the finite strike the key-note of the 
 Infinite, — then discord, which grows out of 
 the futile endeavor to disregard the Great 
 Tone, will be dissipated, as darkness before 
 the light, and there will be peace on earth 
 and good-will to all men. 
 
 When one is ready to give one's life for 
 the beloved, when one is ready to love the 
 beloved for its sake and not for the sake 
 of one's own pleasure, happiness, health, 
 prosperity, the Vision will appear in the 
 upper realm, and the Voice from the clouds 
 76 
 
ITS REALIZATION 
 
 will speak : — " This is my beloved Son, in 
 whom I am well pleased." 
 
 In the Empyrean is Beatrice enthroned ; 
 but Dante drank first from the river Lethe, 
 and forgot evil, error, mistakes and all 
 estrangement from the Ideal ; and then 
 from the Eunoe, a branch of the Lethe, 
 which " revived in memory his fainting 
 virtue " and all pure thought of love and 
 true aspirations. Only then was his vision 
 sufficiently chaste and holy to behold her 
 divine countenance, and he himself "made 
 pure and apt enough for mounting to the 
 stars." 
 
 The unveiled vision, with naught between 
 consciousness and Divinity, is the Ideal. 
 In Paradise it is ; there it is nurtured and 
 realized. That is the apotheosis of the 
 Soul. 
 
 Think madly ; hope exultantly ; love celes- 
 tially ; trust divinely. Time shall be when 
 all shall be revealed and fulfilled. Clad in 
 77 LofC. 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 the royal robes of purity and aspiration, 
 encircled in love wise and holy, not only 
 approach confidently the outer, but enter 
 fearlessly the innermost court of your Being. 
 There, in the adytum of the Soul, is the 
 Ideal supremely sovereign. 
 
 Be still and know that thou art God. 
 
 78 
 
jfor 
 
NOV 9 1901 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111