Divine Vision

IT is a true saying, and one experienced and proved by us all, that we rise to higher things on the stepping stones of our dead selves.

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Excerpt:

The life of man is a continual change of vision; as experiences come to him one after another, it is as if he rose from one level to another as he climbs up a mountain side, and therefore his vision steadily changes.

We recognise that there are two kinds of vision possible for us, that of the ordinary man of the world and that other vision which is presented to us by the great leaders of humanity, the founders of the religions. But we are apt to imagine that that lofty vision of the great teachers is something reserved for them alone, that we men in these lower levels are not capable of a divine vision. Yet the whole purpose of the message of Theosophy is to show that what the greatest of mankind has achieved shall some day be the achievement of every human being. In the course of these three lectures I shall try to show how there is possible for us a divine vision of man, of Nature, and of God.

Taking the divine vision of man, let us first note what characteristics we find in the ordinary vision of man. What is the attitude of the average man towards those around him? You will find that in one form or another, it has in it something of resentment. The average man does not: like to see things round him that are different from him; he does not feel at home if people think differently from him; he does not feel at all happy if there should be any kind of challenge to his thoughts and feelings. The result is that each one of us carries with him some subtle form of antipathy - antipathy to non-nationals, and antipathy to those who profess religious ideas differing from our own; and if not positive antipathy, then a sense of superiority. We go about with a critical sense, and we make the standard of our judgement our self and its needs. What will help our self we call "good "; wherever there is anything which seems in any way to narrow the expansion of that self, we call that "evil". Therefore we have the ordinary vision of man which is full of criticism, and we are very little influenced by that larger sympathy of which we are indeed capable.

But there is a different vision possible and every cultured man and woman knows something of it, for it is given to us by the great poets. For what makes a poet is a larger vision and especially is the larger vision of man a characteristic of the great poets. The great poet stands apart from mankind; you find that Shakespeare, who looks at all men as if from a Mount Olympus, notes their foibles and foolishnesses, and yet smiles on them all. There is the spirit of the divine vision when he makes one of his characters say about another, " God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man." You will note that, wherever Shakespeare deals with a villain, he has no kind of antipathy to him, whether it is to Cassio or Iago; he makes his villain live his life and expound himself, for Shakespeare has no resentment of the evil in the villain. Even in the case of Falstaff, full of coarseness and trickery, Shakespeare sees the man as he is, and there is no condemnatory judgement. A poet observes men as they are; therefore we find in the poets a larger vision than that of which the ordinary man is capable.

When we pass on from those, the great poets, to the greatest of mankind, those who gave the scriptures of mankind, then we have the widest vision possible. Take three great teachers, and consider the way that they looked upon men. Think of the great Christ, when He opened His arms and said, " Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Was there any distinction as to who should come to him, and who should not? " All that labour and are heavy laden" are His, and He looks on all men as to be cherished-sinner and saint, good and bad, young and old; for all men are part inseparable of Him.

There is one other place where we find the same great divine vision shown by Him, and that is when He describes His coming again to judge the quick and the dead ". He describes how he will separate; men on to His right hand and on to His left, and how He will call on those on His right hand to live with Him. And when He judges men, would you not think that the first question He would ask of those who are to live with him would be, "Were; you baptised? "- for you look upon Christ as the Master only of Christendom, and therefore you would naturally think that His chief standard of right and wrong must be whether people had accepted Him or not as the Christ. Not a word does He say about such a judgement.; His judgement is "Have you fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, visited the sick and those in prison? " Then will He say, "For as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." And does He say His brethren are only those who have been baptised into Christian faith? No; He merely says, "the least of these My brethren ".

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136 pages - 5½ x 8½ softcover

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