of inquiry, the answer is the same—­“All Life is One.”  And this One Life includes Beings as much higher than ourselves, as we are higher than the creatures in the slime of the ocean-bed.  Included in it are beings who would seem as archangels or gods to us, and they inform that beyond them are still higher and more radiant creatures, and so on to infinity of infinities.  And yet all are but centers of Being in the One Life—­all but a part of the great Universal Life, which itself is but an emanation of The Absolute.

The mind of man shrinks back appalled from the contemplation of such wonders, and yet there are men who dare to attempt to speak authoritatively of the attributes and qualities of “God,” as if He, the Absolute, were but a magnified man.  Verily, indeed, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” as the poet hath said.

Those who will read our next lesson and thus gain an idea of the sublime conception of the Absolute held by the Yogi teachers may shudder at the presumption of those mortals who dare to think of the Absolute as possessing “attributes” and “qualities” like unto the meanest of things in this his emanated Universe.  But even these spiritual infants are doing well—­that is, they are beginning to think, and when man begins to think and question, he begins to progress.  It is not the fact of these people’s immature ideas that has caused these remarks on our part, but rather their tendency to set up their puny conceptions as the absolute truth, and then insisting upon forcing these views upon the outer world of men, whom they consider “poor ignorant heathen.”  Permit each man to think according to his light—­and help him by offering to share with him the best that you possess—­but do not attempt to force upon him your own views as absolute truth to be swallowed by him under threat of damnation or eternal punishment.  Who are you that dares to speak of punishment and damnation, when the smell of the smoke of the hell of materialism is still upon your robes.  When you realize just what spiritual infants you still are—­the best of you—­you will blush at these things.  Hold fast to the best that you know—­be generous to others who seem to wish to share your knowledge—­but give without blame or feeling of superiority—­for those whom you teach today may be your teachers tomorrow—­there are many surprises of this kind along The Path.  Be brave and confident, but when you begin to feel puffed up by your acquirement of some new bit of knowledge, let your prayer—­our prayer, for we too are infants—­be, “Lord, be merciful unto me, a fool!”