The Star in the West

292 THE STAR IN THE WEST immortality. Our port to reach is that divinity which abides in us , mud -bound though it be in the clay of its surroundings , for as Lamartine said : “ Humanity is as a weaver working on the reverse of the web of Time . One day will come when passing to the other side , she will behold the wonder and beauty she has woven , in the place of the loose threads and knots of the reverse .” That day God will be manifested . The secret theurgy of the ages is neither science , nor ethics , philosophy , nor religion ; for it is the science , the ethics , the philosophy , the religion of all times , and when manifest in the heart of the adept , the full blaze of a divine glory will descend , life will be van quished , and the soul set free . To attain to this freedom is the end of life ; in this respect both yogi and mystic agree , and that every thing which entails the loss of freedom is sin , there fore change is sin and illusion , maya , and our great object is to get beyond this changeable changeability into an unchangeable changelessness . The yogi proposes to himself no less a task than to master the entire universe , and finding that the mind has the reflexive power of looking back into its own depths , does his utmost to develop this power by turning the mind , as it were , by artificial means , inside on itself , concentrating all its powers on itself , and stopping it at every turn from wandering outside of itself . Then the mind , slowly learning its own nature , analyzes itself and discovers the Divinity which is itself . And I have ceased to think ! That is, have conquered and made still Mind's lower powers by utter Will .? 1 The Sword of Song , Pentecost , vol . ii, p . 177 .