The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-03-21
BY DIR. W. w. BAKER.

And so with many another Chris
tian dogma. You have difficulties over
the dogma of the Trinity, what II
means. the phrase that you meet. three
Persons and one God And yet, if you
! looked into your own nature, you
! would find the difficulty solved when
! il passed from the dogma to the fact
of human experience; for look at your
own consciousness, the image OF the
divine, realize your own nature, which
| is part of the nature of God. You
| find in yourself the power to will.
the power to know. the power to act.
! And your Trinity is the Father who
/ is Will the son who is the Wisdom.
! the Spirit who is the creative Ac-
! tiyity And, as ever in nature the
Spirit embodies himself. so the three
aspects become three persons, although
! but one divine consciousness showing
out in triple way. And by understand
ing yourself you begin to understand
! the Godhead: you shake off the
! shackles of the arithmetical state
( ment, and rise to the reality of the
! life that you see as the model on
/ which your own is formed: and you
know that where people see a diff
! Guilty there. IL is because they have
not vet sounded the depths of their
/ own nature. For just as the water re-
| fleets the planet that shines down upon
| il. SO does the consciousness in man
reflect the mighty consciousness which
! is God. Thus gradually you come to
| realize that what you need is spirit
| ual vision, the open eye of the Spirit
| that which is kin to Deity Himself
| But you may say: How shall the
Spirit be unfolded: how shall we be
: able to become the Mystic: how shall
we cast aside the letters of dogma
and rise into the liberty of the real
! lied sonship? There is but the one
way-the narrow. ancient path. Strait
/ is that gate. narrow is that way: for
! you can only pass that gate when
, you have thrown aside all that the
! world counts of value, and you can
! only tread that path in truth when
! the knowledge of God has become to
you the one thing of worth in life.
! Let us see how that path stretches
itself out: how we may approach the
| gateway that is so strait There are
two methOds-the preparatory. and the
actual The preparatory is the puri-
! fication of the life, of the heart, OF
1.-THE whole nature. In an ancient Scrip
ture il is written of the man who
would the Self: First. let him
cease from evil ways" without that
all else is useless; without that all
, else is futile: Interchangeable the law
And as long as one evil way is fol-
| lowed, you cannot tread that path
which leads TO life. But not only
must you cease from evil ways: you
must also actively pursue the good.
! Cease to do evil, learn to do well,'
is in the Scripture familiar to all OF
you; the same thought that | have
just quoted from the Upanishat, an
ancient Scripture. for after the evil
I side d
ing of the path begins. Publication,
then the first step, strenuous, perse-
vering. determined. And then what you
all know. by name at least-medita-
ton. There is no other way. For
| what is il that you are going to try
| to do? You are going to try TO raise
your consciousness into regions high
er than that in which il dwells and
works in your daily life; you are
going to lift your individuality. your
sense of H." above the mind with
! which you reason, above the mind
with which you go out into all your
business on earth and your pleasures
of life. That consciousness you know
and call ii Il" but you nave to rise
beyond il, to transcend II, to know
that il is not you. And how shall you
reach that higher CONSCIOUSNESS ana
realize il as Yourself, while your
minds are full of all the business and
the pleasures of earth. in which the
higher consciousness has no place and
no concern? So the next step is clear:
you must learn to control the emo
lions; you must learn TO control the
mind That whir. of emotion in which
many of you live-you cannot live in
that and in the calm spaces of the
Eternal where the Spirit abides who
is yourself Your mind that is full
of change. that is full of passing
moods, ever flying from one thing TO
another, taking up one thing and
throwing aside another day by day.
night by niCht-what has that in COM
mon with the serenity of the Spirit
whose eye is fixed on God who knows
the real from the unreal. the eternal
from the feeting? If you want TO
learn a science. you give some hours
a day to it: and yet you would learn