Chapter IV - Creation
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of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee." Personal man
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee." Personal man
is only an atom in immensity, therefore the impersonal
Life and Love, that embrace all things, cannot be found
in him; we must look outside of man for Life and
Love, for, "it is not in man that walketh to direct his
steps." Reckoning ourself from the standpoint of Soul,
instead of personal sense, we progress as spontaneously
as light emits light: but reversing this order of science,
in which man begins in the body, and looks there for
both pain and pleasure, yea, for Life and for death, he
retrogrades hourly, until he finally disappears in what
is termed death. The evidence of personal sense, or
Life in matter, is utterly reversed in science, wherein
we learn there is neither a personal God nor a personal
man. But here do you say, you "have taken away my
Lord," and "I know not where you have laid him," I
have lost my Maker and my own identity? Look away
then from your body, and you will find them; let go
the belief you live in matter, and you will grow as the
bird that bursts from the ovum; personality will be
swallowed up in the boundless Love that shadows forth
man; and beauty, immortality, and blessedness, be the
glorious proof of existence you recognize. This is not
losing man nor robbing God, but finding yourself more
blessed, as Principle than person, as God than man, as
Soul than sense, and yourself and neighbor one. This
science of being lessens not the dependence of man on
God, but heightens it; neither does it diminish the
high obligations of man towards God, but greatly in-
creases them; it deteriorates not in the least from
every possible perfection in God, because ascrib-
ing all to the impersonal Life, Love, and Truth.
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Personal love is little better than personal hate; both
Personal love is little better than personal hate; both
bringeth a snare, for their foundations are error, viz.,
Intelligence in matter, and we cling to them, only be-
cause we have not reached higher; not that God is
found in them, but that we are groping darkly for
Him where He is not, when there is no place where
His voice is not to be heard. Is there one individual
putting off the "old man" and "putting on the new,"
who has not felt the loss of personal pleasures and
pains? yea, and of personal friends, before he found
what belongs not to person, namely, the enlargement
of his being in Love and Wisdom that reaches beyond
personal pain or pleasure. The loss of a friend has,
perhaps, given you the explanation of this. Pain
quickly informs us that personal pleasure is mortal,
and that both are error.
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A sinner believes, momentarily, he is happier for
A sinner believes, momentarily, he is happier for
wrong-doing, and another man that he suffers for doing
right; the one is a belief of personal pleasure, and the
other of pain, but both are false. God is not the
author of personal sense, or discord. Would existence
seem blank without a personal friend? then the time
cometh when you will feel this solitariness, and when
this vacuum must be filled with Principle, instead of
person, and with the Love that is God. When this
hour for development arrives, you will suffer from per-
sonal enemies so severely it will cause you to approach
more readily the science that destroys all personal trust
and gives you higher joys, even as pain is salutary in
taking away a belief of pleasure in sense. These are
the footsteps of science, by which Truth amputates
error. Our individuality is never lost; but the belief