YOU ARE alive today on this small planet which, in relation to the known universe about you, is not even the size of this printer’s dot •
Actually, it is impossible to communicate to you how infinitesimal this earth is as compared to the untold billions and trillions of suns and planets which our present day telescopes have revealed as existent in the boundless reaches of space. We now know that the more we extend the electronic eyes of our telescopes into the heavens, the more we bring into view new systems of constellations and galaxies beyond and beyond and beyond those already glimpsed.
Inspiring Experience
It is a humbling and, at the same time, an inspiring experience for creature man to realize, however seemingly inconsequential he may consider himself to be, that he is a part of all this.
To think that he possesses the consciousness and the intelligence to be aware, not only of his identity in time and space, but of his relationship to the world about him and, in some way not yet too discernible, a relationship to the inconceivably great God of this totally indescribable, majestic and awesome cosmos!
The very fact that man has been given, by his mysterious Creator, the sensory equipment of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, as well as higher mental and intuitive powers with which to perceive what is going on within and without him, and the ability to develop the means of doing something about it, should be proof that man, as a being, has evolved with a purpose and a destiny beyond all other forms of life now resident on this planet.
Inheritor Of A Tremendous Past
You are the inheritor of a tremendous past in which you have had at least a potential existence through all the various early forms of life, and their experiences, which have contributed to the evolvement of the human instrument you now occupy.
You have been contained in the loins and wombs of your countless progenitors, in the unbroken line of creation which has led ultimately to your emergence in the sex and in the form you now possess.
You have an “I am I” awareness of your identity which belongs to you alone, as does your personality, different and distinctive from that of any person who has ever lived or who ever will live.
You are, in other words, a special creation in the universe, in that you are not duplicatable. This very uniqueness is indicative that creation seems intent upon individualizing itself with relation to the whole.
Present Day World
Unhappily, few of us have yet realized the significance of this fact or what might be implied by it. In some over populated parts of our present day world, where life is regarded as cheap and expendable, little or no value is attributed to the individual. He is swallowed up in the mass to the point of almost losing his identity.
And yet, if man possesses a soul and spirit indwelling a body, as early religions have taught and modern religionists still profess, then each human creature, however lowly or depraved, has a potential value in the sight of his Creator.
But for the grace of different circumstances, you could have been one of the more unfortunate peoples of this earth.
The mystery of your being
But you are you, and they are they and this is one of the mysteries of being. Why you are who you are and what you are and where you are, and not someone else, or even some other form of creation on this or some other planet, is an unanswerable question.
You will just have to accept the fact that you are a part of an unfathomable creative scheme of things, and that all of your fellow human creatures, of whatever race or color, have been brought into individualization by causative forces just as inexorable as those which have functioned in the process of bringing you into being.
There is an apparent pattern or design to and in the life force which is expressing itself on the human level—an expression which is incomprehensible.
Your job is not to concern yourself with these hows or whys, but to make the most intelligent and beneficial use of the life that has been given you.
Coming Into A Knowledge
Scientists tell us that they are coming into a knowledge of what life is and how it can be created. They believe that they can reproduce conditions conducive to the manifestation of life.
It is possible that this will, one day, be accomplished. But, when life appears in a man made organism or vehicle, it will remain as mysterious and undefinable as it is now. Life implies a form of consciousness and this awareness, in the human creature at least, is far greater than the sum of all its physical parts.
It is evident, throughout all Nature, in animal or vegetable life, that the intelligence characteristics of any species must have a physical form through which to express. Your reason tells you that this intelligence must have existed in some state prior to the body it indwells because intelligence is required to design a body since the body obviously does not design itself.
The atheist who tries to deny the existence of a God has to account for a creation and an intelligence which pervades all forms of life, and is so staggering in its immensity as well as its individualized intimacy, as to explode the brain cells of the wisest man who ever lived.
In all logic, confronted with the mounting scientific evidence of the mighty creative processes in constant operation throughout the universe, it is no longer possible to maintain a strictly atheistic point of view.
Anthropomorphic Kind Of God
The person who says he does not believe in an anthropomorphic kind of God or a personal God, must still concede that a vast intelligence exists which apparently governs and controls the macrocosmic as well as the microcosmic universes, with absolute precision and surety. Such an intelligence must be given a name—and “God” is as good as any.
Throughout the four thousand years of recorded history, man has referred to God by many names, depending upon his concept of the Creator. But, however much these concepts have differed, there has been a general agreement among all races that a Higher Power exists which commands, if not their reverence and worship, at least their respect and fear. Man’s universal need of God Man is a lonely, insecure and incomplete creature when bereft of an ability to rely upon a power greater than himself. This fact becomes self evident as one studies the rise and fall of civilizations, some of which have acquired high degrees of intellectual and material attainments, and yet have either lost or lacked the spiritual guidance which could have saved them from self destruction.
Looked at, in the largest cosmic sense, apart from any of the world religions, however well conceived and organized they may have been, man has demonstrated throughout the ages, a basic inadequacy to cope with life as he has found it here, without some kind of belief in God, satisfying to his needs. Even primitive man, before any formative religions, worshipped gods of fire and vengeance, and offered up sacrifices to win favor and to appease wrath. This vague but persistent awareness in early man of something greater than himself in the universe, is significant.
As man evolved, his thought processes were stimulated by language and the written word. He could then begin to make more articulate his theories and concepts as to the nature of the universe and the Power behind it.
Jehovah, As A Father
It was natural, at first, that he should conceive of God, Jehovah, as a Father, more or less a glorified anthropomorphic image of himself. The earth seemed to be the center of all things and God’s one and only interest was in the destiny of the human creatures He had placed upon it.
Before the time of the great thinkers, who began to envision a stupendous universe of matter and movement, design and form, cause and effect, and purpose and will, ruled over by an Intelligence that was All-Powerful, All-Present and All-Knowing, the early progenitors of the human race were almost totally unconscious of the vast potentialities within and without themselves.
They lived and died pretty much in accordance with the law of the jungle. To them, however, we owe a great and everlasting debt. They, too, possessed souls, if we ascribe to ourselves the possession of these higher faculties within.
They too, possessed desires and aspirations, however crude and undeveloped, as judged by our present degree of refinement.
They, too, felt stirring within them the dim awareness that they were different from, and somewhat above, the other forms of life about them.
Nature And The Inhumanities And Intolerances
Could they have foreseen that they were to be the forebears of a new kind of being on this planet that would survive all the ravages of Nature and the inhumanities and intolerances of their own fellow creatures, down to this present day, on the long, painful path toward greater and greater self understanding and self enlightenment, they would have been awestruck and unbelieving. And yet, if these first species of the human race had not possessed the animal like cunning, the fortitude, and the spirit to survive, the advent of self conscious creature life on this planet would have passed with the dinosaur, and we would not have been.
But what might have happened did not happen. Scientists now estimate the age of the human race as dating back some two million years, but the hands of the time clock are being frequently pushed backward.
In comparison to the age of the earth itself, man has been on this planet less than a minute! Consider, however, the possible fact that some designing Influence, aided by myriads of intelligences, has taken millions of years to create and assemble the resources and conditions on this planet in preparation for man’s arrival.
Proof of this possibility is contained in the fact that no other creature but man has developed, through the countless centuries, the creative and inventive capacity to adapt and make use of the limitless treasures stored up in the land and sea and air, in, about and upon this planet.
Can this have been all accidental and mechanistic, spontaneous, and without plan? Order is not brought out of seeming chaos in this manner, and when scientists tell us that our little ball of earth was formed from a super conglomeration of gases, the wonders of creation are only compounded ad infinitum.
No God, no Great Intelligence behind this universe?
As well try to convince average man that an automobile was conceived and built without a designer, and operates without a driver! It should be obvious, upon even a surface reflection, that your body was provided for you by an act of creation in which your parents have shared, so that the identity, the entity that is you, might express your soul and personality through it.
But your parents did not give you life—they simply conceived and created for you the instrument through which the life that is you might manifest.
Great minds reach similar conclusions Where you came from originally and where you are going, after you leave your temporary residence on this earth, are mysteries that man has been trying to penetrate ever since he developed the power to think.
The great philosophers of the world, giant minds like Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, and a host of others down to the present day, have propounded their theories as to the nature of God and the universe.
They have been supported, in whole or in part, by equally great religious leaders such as Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, Confucious, LaoTze, Mohammed, Moses and Jesus.
Limitless Treasures
These two groups, the philosophers and the religionists, and make use of the limitless treasures stored up in the land and sea and air, in, about and upon this planet.
Can this have been all accidental and mechanistic, spontaneous, and without plan? Order is not brought out of seeming chaos in this manner, and when scientists tell us that our little ball of earth was formed from a super conglomeration of gases, the wonders of creation are only compounded ad infinitum.
No God, no Great Intelligence behind this universe? As well try to convince average man that an automobile was conceived and built without a designer, and operates without a driver!
It should be obvious, upon even a surface reflection, that your body was provided for you by an act of creation in which your parents have shared, so that the identity, the entity that is you, might express your soul and personality through it. But your parents did not give you life—they simply conceived and created for you the instrument through which the life that is you might manifest.