Cosmic Consciousness: The Man-God Whom We Await

Man is essentially a spiritual being. The source of this spiritual Omniscience we may not, in our finite intelligence, fully cognize, because full cognition would preclude the possibility of finite expression. The destiny of man is perfection. Man perfected becomes a god. "Only the gods are immortal," we are told. Let us consider what this means, supposing it to be an axiom of truth. Mortality is subject to change and death. Mortality is the manifest—the stage upon which "man in his life plays many parts." Immortality, is what the word says it is—godhood re-cognized in the mortal. "Im" or, "Om"—the more general term—stands for the Changeless. Birthless. Deathless. Unnamable Power that holds the worlds in space, and puts intelligence into man. Biologists, even though they were to succeed in reproducing life by chemical processes from so-called "lifeless" (sterilized) matter, making so high a form of manifestation as man himself, yet could never name the power by which they accomplished it. Always there must remain the Unknownable—the Absolute. "Om," therefore, is the word we use to express this Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent power. The term "mortal" we have already defined. The compound immortal, applied to individual man, stands for one who has made his "at-one-ment" with Om, and who has, while still in the mortal body, re-cognized himself as one with Om. This is what it means to escape the "second death," to which the merely mortal consciousness is subject. This is the goal of every human life; this is the essence, the substance of all religious systems and all philosophies. The only chance for disputation among theologians and philosophers, lies in the way of accomplishing this at-one-ment. There is not the slightest opportunity for a difference of opinion as what they wish to accomplish. Admitting then, that the goal of every soul is the same—immortality—(the mortal consciousness cognizing itself as Om), we come to a consideration of the evidence we may find in support of this axiom. This evidence we do not find satisfactory, in spirit communication; in psychic experiences; in hypnotic phenomena; and astral trips; important, and reliable as these many psychic research