Can we conceive of any position containing greater possibilities than these? The circle of this vital influence may expand as the individual grows into the wider contemplation of his unity with Infinite Being, but it would be impossible to formulate any more comprehensive law of relationship. Emerson has rightly said that a little algebra will often do far more towards clearing our ideas than a large amount of poetic simile. Algebraically it is a self-evident proposition that any difference between various powers of x disappears when they are compared with x multiplied by itself to infinity, because there can be no ratio between any determinate power, however high, and the infinite; and thus the relation between the individual and All-Being must always remain immeasurable.
I trust unmathematical readers will pardon my using this method of statement for the benefit of others to whom it will carry conviction. A relation once clearly grasped in its mathematical aspect becomes thenceforth one of the unalterable truths of the Universe, no longer a thing to be argued about but an axiom to be assumed as the foundation on which to build up the edifice of further knowledge. But, laying aside mathematical formulae, we may say that because the Infinite is infinite, there can be no limit to the extent to which the vital principle of growth may draw upon it, and therefore there is no limit to the expansion of the individual's powers. Because we are what we are, we may become what we will.
To me, thus realising the great unity of all Spirit, the infinite is not the indefinite, for I see it to be the infinite of Myself. It is the very same I AM that I am; and this is not by any act of uncertain favour, but by the law of polarity which is the basis of all Nature. The law of polarity is that law according to which everything attains completion by manifesting itself in the opposite direction to that from which it started. It is the simple law by which there can be no inside without an outside, nor one end of a stick without the opposite end,
Life is motion, and all motion is the appearance of energy at another point. Where any work has been done, it appears under another form than that in which it originated; but wherever it reappears, and in whatever new form, the vivifying energy is still the same. This is nothing else than the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy, and it is upon this well-recognised principle that our perception of ourselves as integral portions of the great Universal Power is based.
We do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have taught that all power is in the "I AM". It is better to accept this teaching by faith in their bare authority rather than not accept it at all; but the more excellent way is to know why they taught thus, and to realise for ourselves this first great law which all the master-minds have realised throughout the ages.
It is indeed true that the "lost word" is the one most familiar to us, ever in our hearts and on our lips. We have lost, not the word, but the realisation of its power. And as the infinite depths of meaning which the words I AM carry with them open out to us, we begin to realise the stupendous truth that we are ourselves the very power which we seek.
It is the polarisation of Spirit from the Universal into the particular, carrying with it all its inherent powers — just as the smallest flame has all the qualities of fire. The I AM in the individual is none other than the I AM in the Universal. It is the same Power working in the smaller sphere of which the individual is the centre. This is the great truth which the ancients set forth under the figure of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, the lesser I AM reproducing the precise image of the greater. This is what the Bible tells us when it speaks of man as the image of God.
At every moment we are dealing with an infinitely sensitive medium which stirs creative energies that give form to the slightest of our thought-vibrations. This power is inherent in us because of our spiritual nature; we cannot divest ourselves of it. It is our truly tremendous heritage because it is a power which, if not intelligently brought into lines of orderly activity, will spend its uncontrolled forces in devastating energy. If it is not used to build up, it will destroy.
There is nothing exceptional in this: it is merely the reappearance on the plane of the Universal and undifferentiated of the same principle that pervades all the forces of Nature. Which of these forces is not destructive unless drawn off into some definite direction? Accumulated steam, accumulated electricity, accumulated water, will at length burst forth, destroying everything around. But, drawn off through suitable channels, they become sources of constructive power, inexhaustible as Nature itself.
Similarly, for the mass of mankind, this spiritual power has not yet reached a very high degree of concentration. Every mind, it is true, must be in some measure a centre of concentration, for otherwise it would have no conscious individuality. However, the power of the individualised mind rapidly rises as it recognises its unity with the infinite Life, and its thought-currents, whether well- or ill-directed, then assume a proportionately greater significance.
Hence the ill effects of wrongly directed thought are in some degree mitigated in the great mass of mankind. Although the thinkers themselves are ignorant of what thought-power is, many causes are in operation to give a right direction to their thoughts. To give a right direction to the thoughts of ignorant thinkers is the purpose of much religious teaching, which the uninstructed must accept by faith in bare authority because they are unable to realise its true import.