SPIRIT

THE WORD “SPIRIT” is often used without the speaker being aware of what spirit really is.

Some simply call spirit the inner life of man, while others regard soul and spirit as being the same.

It is often used to describe a “spirited” person, but this goes no further than mere brain activity.

There are also many other ways of using it, but no one tries to explain what spirit really means.

The most exalted meaning yet given to the word lies in the expression “God is spirit”, from which all else is deduced.

Through this expression one sought to understand God and thus to explain Him.

But just this was again bound to lead away from reality and disseminate errors, for it is wrong simply to say “God is spirit”.

God is Divine and not spiritual!

This in itself explains everything.

One may never call Divinity spirit!

Only spirituality is spirit.

This hitherto erroneous view can be explained by the fact that man originates in the Spiritual Sphere, and is therefore unable to think beyond that sphere.

Thus he regards all that is spiritual as being the highest.

So it is quite natural that he likes to regard what is most perfect and undimmed in this sphere as the origin of all Creation, thus as God.

Hence one may assume that the reason for this wrong conception sprang not only from the desire to depict his God as being of his own nature, although perfect in every respect, so as to feel more closely united with Him, but lay mainly in his inability to grasp the real Sublimity of God.

God is Divine, His Will is spirit!

Out of this, His Living Will, His immediate spiritual surrounding came into being – Paradise and its inhabitants.

Out of this Paradise came man as a spirit-germ to begin his journey through the further Creation.

Thus man is the bearer of spirit in the whole material Creation!

For this reason he is bound to the pure Primordial Will of God in all his actions.

He must bear full responsibility if he permits external influences from the material world to smother his spirit with impurity and, in certain circumstances, to allow it from time to time to be completely buried!

This is the treasure or the talent which at his hand was to bring compound interest.

From the erroneous assumption that God Himself was spirit, thus of the same nature as the origin of man, it is evident that man could never form the right conception of the Godhead.

He should not only picture Him as being the absolute perfection of his own species, but go far beyond this to a species that will forever remain incomprehensible to him, because his own spiritual nature would never be capable of grasping it!

Spirit, therefore, is the Will of God, the life-elixir of all Creation which, if it is to continue to exist, must be permeated by the Divine Will.

Man being part-bearer of this spirit should, in becoming self-conscious, contribute towards the upliftment and further development of all Creation.

To do this, however, it is necessary that he should learn to use the powers of Nature aright and make them collectively serve the furtherance of Creation!

What is said here is only meant as a preliminary explanation.

It will be followed later by more detailed lectures, in which the various species of spirit will be depicted within their own well-defined spheres.

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