Philosophy finds itself unable to do anything better than to bring us face to face with high paradoxes.  Science in its pursuit of Truth finds it cunningly avoiding it, and ever escaping its net.  And we believe that the Absolute purposely causes this to be, that in the end Man may be compelled to look for the Spirit within himself—­the only place where he can come in touch with it.  This, we think, is the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx—­“Look Within for that which Thou needest.”

But while the Spirit may be discerned only by looking within ourselves, we find that once the mind realizes that the Absolute Is, it will be able to see countless evidences of its action and presence by observing manifested Life without.  All Life is filled with the Life Power and Will of the Absolute.

To us Life is but One—­the Universe is a living Unity, throbbing, thrilling and pulsating with the Will-to-Live of the Absolute.  Back of all apparent shapes, forms, names, forces, elements, principles and substances, there is but One—­One Life, present everywhere, and manifesting in an infinitude of shapes, forms, and forces All individual lives are but centers of consciousness in the One Life underlying, depending upon it for degree of unfoldment, expression and manifestation.

This may sound like Pantheism to some, but it is very different from the Pantheism of the schools and cults.  Pantheism is defined as “the doctrine that God consists in the combined forces and laws manifested in the existing Universe,” or that “the Universe taken or conceived as a whole is God.”  These definitions do not fit the conception of the Absolute, of the Yogi Philosophy—­they seem to breathe but a refined materialism.  The Absolute is not “the combined forces and laws manifested in the universe,” nor “the universe conceived as a whole.”  Instead, the Universe, its forces and laws, even conceived as a whole, have no existence in themselves, but are mere manifestations of the Absolute.  Surely this is different from Pantheism.

We teach that the Absolute is immanent in, and abiding in all forms of Life in the Universe, as well as in its forces and laws—­all being but manifestations of the Will of the One.  And we teach that this One is superior to all forms of manifestations, and that Its existence and being does not depend upon the manifestations, which are but effects of the Cause.

The Pantheistic Universe—­God is but a thing of phenomenal appearance, but the Absolute is the very Spirit of Life—­a Living, Existing Reality, and would be so even if every manifestation were withdrawn from appearance and expression—­drawn back into the source from which it emanated.  The Absolute is more than Mountain or Ocean—­Electricity or Gravitation—­Monad or Man—­It is SPIRIT—­LIFE—­BEING—­REALITY—­the ONE THAT IS.  Omnipotent, Omnipresent; Omniscient; Eternal; Infinite; Absolute; these are Man’s greatest words, and yet they but feebly portray a shadow thrown by the One Itself.