It is to correct this view, that we emphasize the distinction between the two words.

The cosmos is complete.  “As it was in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be, worlds without end.”

A circle is without beginning or end.  We, in our individual consciousness may traverse this circle, but our failure to realize its completeness does not change the fact that it is finished.

We can not add to the universal consciousness; nor take away therefrom.

But we can extend our own area of consciousness from the narrow limits of the personal self, into the heights and depths of the atman and who shall set limitations to the power of the atman, the higher Self, when it has attained at-one-ment with Om?

It is not the purpose of this book to trace the spiritual ascent of man further than to point out the wide gulf between the degrees of consciousness manifested in the lower animals and that of human consciousness; again tracing in the human, the ever-widening area of his cognition of the personal self, and its needs, to the awakening of the soul and its needs; which needs include the welfare of all living things as an absolute necessity to individual happiness.

Altruism, therefore, is not a virtue.  It is a means of self-preservation—­without this degree of initiation into the boundless area of universal, or cosmic consciousness, we may not escape the karmic law.

The revelations, therefore, upon which are founded the numerous religious systems, are comparable with the many and various degrees of initiation into THAT WHICH IS.

They represent the degree which the initiate has taken in the lodge.

It may be argued that this fact of individual initiation into the ever-present truth of Being, as into a lodge, offers no proof that this earth is to ultimately become a heaven.  It may be that this planet is the outer-most lodge room and that there will never be a sufficient number of initiates to make the earth a fit dwelling place for a higher order of beings than now inhabit it.  This may, indeed, be true.  But all evidence tends toward the hope that even the planet itself will come under the regenerating power of Illumination.

All prophecies embody this promise; all that we know of what materialists call “evolution” and occultists might well name “uncovering of consciousness,” points to a time when “God’s will,” “shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

All who have attained to cosmic consciousness in whatever degree, have prophecied a time, when this blessing would descend upon every one; but the difficulty in adequately explaining this great gift seems also to have been the burden of their cry.

Jesus sought repeatedly to describe to his hearers the wonders of the cosmic sense, but realized that he was too far in advance of the cyclic end; but even as at that time, a number of disciples were capable of receiving the Illumination, so to-day, a larger number are capable of attainment.  If this number is great enough to bring about the regeneration—­the perfecting—­of the earth conditions, then it must be accomplished.