Now it is this power of inauguration that all the ancient systems of teaching attribute to the Divine Word.  It is the passing of the undifferentiated into differentiation, of the unmanifested into manifestation, of the unlocalized into localization.  It is the ushering in of what the Brahminical books call a “Manvantara” or world-period, and in like manner our Bible says that “In the beginning was the Word.”  The English word “word” is closely allied to the Latin word “verbum” which signifies both word and verb.  Grammarians tell us that the verb “to be” is a verb-substantive, that is, it does not indicate any action passing from the subject to the object.  Now this exactly describes the Spirit in its Eternity.  We cannot conceive of It except as always BEING; but the distribution of world-systems both in time and space shows that it is not always cosmically active.  In itself, apart from manifestation, it is Pure Beingness, if I may coin such a word; and it is for this reason that the Divine Name announced to Moses was “I AM.”  But the fact that Creation exists, shows that from this Substantive Pure Being there flows out a Verb Active, which reproduces in action, what the I AM is in essence.  It is just the same with ourselves.  We must first be before we can do, and we can do only to the extent to which we are.  We cannot express powers which we do not possess; so that our doing necessarily coincides with the quality of our being.  Therefore the Divine Verb reproduces the Divine Substantive by a natural sequence.  It is generated by the Divine “I AM,” and for this reason it is called “The Son of God.”  So we see that The Verb, The Word, and The Son of God, are all different expressions for the same Power.

Creative vibration in the Universal Substance can, therefore, only be conceived of, as being inaugurated by the “Word” which localizes the activity of the Spirit in particular centres.  This idea, of the localization of the Spirit through the “Word,” should be fully realized as the energizing principle on the scale of the Macrocosm or “Great World,” because, as we shall find later on, the same principle acts in the same way on the scale of the Microcosm or “Small World,” which is the individual man.  This is why these things have a personal interest for us, otherwise they would not be worth troubling about.  But a mistake to be avoided at this point, is that of supposing that the “Word” is something which dictates to the Spirit when and where to operate.  The “Word” is the word of the Spirit itself, and not that of some higher authority, for the Spirit being First Cause there can be nothing anterior to dictate to it; there can be nothing before that which is First.  The “Word” which centralizes the activity of the Spirit, is therefore that of the Spirit itself.  We have an analogy in our own case.  If I go to New York the first movement in that direction is that of my Thought or Desire.  It is true that