In the Third Lesson, we went still further into this phase of the general subject, and showed you that the Creative Will—­that active principle of the Universal Life—­was ever at work, building up new forms, shapes and combinations, and then tearing them down for the purpose of rebuilding the material into new forms, shapes, and combinations.  The Creative Will is ever at work in its threefold function of creating, preserving and destroying forms—­the change, however, being merely in the shape and form or combination, the real substance remaining unchanged in its inner aspect, notwithstanding the countless apparent changes in its objective forms.  Like the great ocean the depths of which remain calm and undisturbed, and the real nature of which is unchanged in spite of the waves, and billows of surface manifestation, so does the great ocean of the Universal Life remain unchanged and unaltered in spite of the constant play of the Creative Will upon the surface.  In the same lesson we gave you many examples of the Will in action—­of its wondrous workings in the various forms of life and activity—­all of which went to show you that the One Power was at work everywhere and at all times.

In our next lesson—­the Fifth Lesson—­we shall endeavor to make plain to you the highest teachings of the Yogi Philosophy regarding the One Reality and the Many Manifestations—­the One and the Many—­how the One apparently becomes Many—­that great question and problem which lies at the bottom of the well of truth.  In that lesson we shall present for your consideration some fundamental and startling truths, but before we reach that point in our teachings, we must fasten upon your mind the basic truth that all the various manifestations of Life that we see on all hands in the Universe are but forms of manifestation of One Universal Life which is itself an emanation of the Absolute.

Speaking generally, we would say to you that the emanation of the Absolute is in the form of a grand manifestation of One Universal Life, in which the various apparent separate forms of Life are but centers of Energy or Consciousness, the separation being more apparent than real, there being a bond of unity and connection underlying all the apparently separated forms.  Unless the student gets this idea firmly fixed in his mind and consciousness, he will find it difficult to grasp the higher truths of the Yogi Philosophy.  That all Life is One, at the last,—­that all forms of manifestation of Life are in harmonious Unity, underlying—­is one of the great basic truths of the Yogi Teaching, and all the students of that philosophy must make this basic truth their own before they may progress further.  This grasping of the truth is more than a mere matter of intellectual conception, for the intellect reports that all forms of Life are separate and distinct from each other, and that there can be no unity amidst such diversity.  But from the higher parts of the mind comes the message of an