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intelligent, in our sense of the word, because both these terms imply duality, an entity to cognize and a thing to be cognized, whereas He is All in All and in Him, we and all things, move and live and have our being, but still that He is All consciousness and all intelligence. The believers therefore in an Impersonal God are some of them Theists, some Panthesists, but can by no means truly be designated Atheists.
Lastly there are the so-called Atheists, who say they believe in no God, Personal or Impersonal, who affirm that the universe is an infinite aggregation of substance, its undifferentiated condition, neither conscious nor intelligent, expanding and contracting by the inherent laws of its own being, and subject in accordance with these to alternate periods of day and night, activity and rest; who maintain that during such periods of activity in accordance still with these inherent laws, all things human and divine differentiate out of, and are evolved from, this primal all-pervading substance, to disintegrate, once more, into it as the night of rest supervenes.
These call themselves Atheists; and if there be such, they probably have the best right to assume the title, but I confess that I doubt whether even these are really Atheists.
In the first place, when they talk of laws, they overlook, it seems to me the fact, that a law postulates a law-giver—a will at any rate that has impressed a course of action—and so it seems to me that, admitting an inherent law, they cannot logically escape a will that orginated that law, and such a will in such a case must be what mankind understands as God.
But in the second place, though they deny this primary will, they do not really deny all Gods. For they say that in accordance witht the inherent laws, develop, not only all we see and know, but incredibly and inconceiveably higher spiritual beings, who guide and direct all things in the visible universe, and to whose power and love are due all the beauties and wonders of the world that so impress us with a sense of design.*[1]
So then, though they may call these, Dhyan Chohans or Elohim, these exalted spiritual beings are really their Gods, and they are- ↑ * Reference is here made to the Tibetan Arhats—our Masters.—Ed.
