CHAPTER VIII

TRANSFERRING THE BURDEN

The more we grow into a clear perception of what is really meant by “Squaring the Circle,” the freer we shall find ourselves from the burden of anxiety.  We shall rise to a larger generalization of the Law of Cause and Effect.  We shall learn in all things to reach out to First Cause as operating through the channels of secondary causation,—­“causa causas” as producing, and therefore controlling “causa causata”—­and so we cease to worry about secondary causes.  On the plane of the lower personality we see certain facts, and argue that they are bound to produce certain results, which would be quite true if we really saw all the facts; or, again, allowing that in any particular case we actually did see all the facts as they now exist, we can either deny the operation of First Cause, or recognize its infinite capacity for creating new facts.  Therefore, whatever may be the nature of our anxiety, we should endeavour to dispel it by the consideration that there may be already existing other facts we do not know of, which will produce a different result from the one we fear, and that in any case there is a power which can produce new facts in answer to our appeal to it.

But I can imagine some one saying to us, “You bumptious little midget, do you think First Cause is going to trouble Itself about you and your petty concerns?  Do you not know that First Cause works by universal Law, and makes no exceptions?” Well, I would not have written this book if I did not suppose that First Cause works by universal Law, and it is just because It does so that I believe It will work for me and my concerns.  The Law makes no exceptions, but it can be specialized through the power of the Word.  Then our sceptic says, “What, do you think your word can do that?” To which I reply, “It is not my word because I am not using it in my lower personality, as John Smith or Mary Jones, but in that higher personality which recognizes only one all-embracing Personality and itself as included in that.”

Which comes first, the Law or the Word?

The distribution of the solar systems in space, the localization of the Spirit in specific areas of cosmic activity, proclaims the starting of all manifestation through the “Word.”  Then the operation of Law follows with mathematical precision, just as when we write 2 x 2 we cannot avoid getting 4 as the result—­only there is no reason why we should not write 2 x 3 and so get 6 instead of 4.  Let it be borne in mind that the Law flows from the Word, and not vice versa, and you have got the clue to the enigma of Life.

How far we shall be able to make practical use of this clue depends, of course, on our acceptance of its principle.