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We are a part of everything in the universe and as we come to look through the personal to the universal, we see clearly the inseparable ONENESS of God-consciousness and man-consciousness, and as we understand and master this relationship, we can read the real answer to our question: "Where are the promises?"
This God-consciousness is found first in the Grecian feeling of the Commonwealth, the idea of a common good surpassing a personal good; then in the conception of the Epic, which assumes a political as well as a physical Kosmos, or order; then in the grand moral ideas lying at the basis of the Mythology, the myths, for instance, of Prometheus, and the picture of Nemesis and the Fates.
There are three principal stages on the way of progress three separate degrees of God-Consciousness. The first is the Consciousness of the Presence of Jesus, the Perfect Man. We take Him into the heart, accept and know Him, love and obey Him. We rejoice in Him, giving Him a more perfect obedience.
How is God-consciousness to be achieved shall we do it by study, by reading? No for the study or reading of it will do no more than whet the appetite for spiritual things this is its work, but can do no more in giving us the actual possession of this joy than the study of a menu can satisfy hunger. Individual, personal and inward possession is in all things our necessity.
Listen also to the words of Swami Vivekananda, in the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, about his master, Ramkrishna Paramhansa's growing into self-conscious Deity: "Every now and then strange fits of God-consciousness came upon him.... He then spoke of himself as being able to do and know everything.... He would speak of himself as the same soul that had been born before as Rama, as Krishna, as Jesus, or as Buddha, born again as Ramkrishna.... He would say he was ... an incarnation of God Himself."
This state of God-consciousness is a gift, and our work is to qualify for this gift by persistent ardent desire towards God continued through every adversity, through every lack of sensible response on His part a naked will and heart insisting upon God.
So complete is the change that He brings about in us that I now only count my life and my time from the first day of this new God-consciousness that I received upon the hill, for that was the first day of my real life; just as formerly I would count my time from the first day of my physical birth, and from that on to my falling in love and to my marriage, which once seemed to me to be the most important dates.
To establish this connection, to actualise this God-consciousness, that it may not be for one transcendent moment, but that it may become constant and habitual, so that every thought arises, and so that every act goes forth from this centre, is the greatest good that can come into the possession of man. There is nothing greater.
When Illumination comes, there comes with it absolute freedom. God does not want to be worshipped on bended knee; by rites and ceremonies; by obedience to commandments, but the undisciplined soul acquires power and poise through these exercises, and in time grows to the full stature of god-consciousness.
This state of God-consciousness once received and in full vigour of life, there is without doubt about this condition a principle of active contagion, very noticeable, very remarkable.
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