“Men fight like devils for the love of God.” This is the ultimate history of every religion known to man.
Meantime, the soul of man, a spiritual being dwelling in a material body on the physical plane, is seeking real knowledge of spiritual things.
This real knowledge is an experience of the soul. It concerns, and is comprised in, the living of a life. It is more than mind or intellect. It is knowledge gained by experience. “This only I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.”
“Whether in the body or out of the body, I know not, but I saw things impossible to utter.”
Gradually man’s idea of God and his conception of Nature have changed and enlarged.
Man, as a spiritual being, is part of a spiritual universe. He has been able to harmonize his concept of God and Nature progressively as he has gained larger views and deeper insight of both. He is no longer a puppet of infinite caprice, nor a somewhat “improved animal.”
The idea of man as a “fallen god” with the capacity to regain his heavenly estate, is far nearer the truth.
As man advances in knowledge through the combined experiences of his spiritual nature and his physical embodiment, his beliefs change, his horizon enlarges, and his concepts become elevated and purified. The past is apprehended and utilized and the future intelligently anticipated. He begins to understand.
This means the recognition of law and order, permanency, Foundation, and stability.
The birth stories, the portents, signs and wonders that announce, accompany, or follow the birth of a Messiah or Avatar, are almost identical. A common instinct seems to have led all scripture-compilers to infer a simultaneous stimulus of nature and man upon the appearance of what the Hindoo calls an Avatar.