The Inner Life

cannot be their minds alone, for we can see very little change in one short lifetime. Then it must be their souls that are growing?

And what part of them are their souls? It must be their inner consciousness, that part which includes all that they know and are at present. This presupposes that if that inner consciousness is growing, it must have been born, and is still very young, because ignorant of and unable to use but few of the powers of their God-selves within them—the source of all that they are.

That inner consciousness, which is different from and wiser than that of the outer mind, then must be the soul, and is what is growing and unfolding by means of the knowledge gained from experience, lifetime after lifetime.

But what of the God within, the Holy Spirit or Life that is growing them? Must not then be the Teacher, the Knower, that is causing the soul to grow and to be reborn in these different bodies, in different conditions, in different ages, in order to teach and inform it of the full meaning and purpose of life and what these outer experiences hold for it—and what they cannot supply?

But why must the soul learn all this, and why does it take countless ages to learn it? Why can not and does not man turn within to the God-self there, know and assume his God-nature, when once informed of the truth of his being?

And why the so-called “fall” of man, if he was created perfect in the beginning, and made in the image and likeness of God?

Why was he as a soul placed in the Garden of Eden by the Lord God, Who supposedly was all-wise, all-loving and all-powerful, permitted to enter and live in that perfect state, but told that he could eat of the fruit of all the trees but one, that of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which if he ate of it he would surely die? And why, if the Lord God was all-wise, all-loving and all-powerful, did He permit the serpent to be in the Garden, certainly knowing that the serpent would tempt man so that he would disobey? And knowing this, why did He drive man out of the Garden and condemn him to long ages of hard labor and suffering for that one little mistake committed in natural ignorance?

Do you think God made an error in thus placing man in the Garden, and was unfair in making him pay such a terrible penalty?