A Divine Vision of Man, Nature and God
By Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa (1875–1953).
76 Pages | First Edition 1928, 1st - 3rd reprints 1949-1954, second edition 1986 | Softcover | Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar | ISBN: 8170590329.
These three Lectures were delivered by the Author at the Queen's Hall London in May 1927, and formerly published under the title 'The Divine Vision'.
It is a true saying, and one experienced and proved by us all, that we rise to higher things on the stepping stones of our dead selves. The life of man is a continual change of vision; as experiences come to him one after another, it is as if he rose from one level to another as he climbs up a mountain side, and therefore his visions steadily changes.
We recognise that there are two kinds of vision possible for us, that of the ordinary man of the world, and that other vision, which is presented to us by the great leaders of humanity, the founders of the religions. But we are apt to imagine that that lofty vision of the great teachers is something reserved for them alone, that we men in these lower levels are not capable of a divine vision. Yet the whole purpose of the message of Theosophy is to show that what the greatest of mankind has achieved shall some day be the achievement of every human being. In the course of these three Lectures, I shall try to show there is possible for us a divine vision of man, of nature and of God.
From Page 26:
" The student of Nature wonders the more and is astonished the less, the more conversant he becomes with her operations; but of all the perennial miracles she offers to his inspection, perhaps the most worthy of admiration, is the development of a plant or of an animal from its embryo. Examine the recently laid egg of some common animal, such as the salamander or a newt. It is a minute spheriod in which the best microscope will reveal nothing but a structureless sac, enclosing a glairy fluid holding granules in suspension. But strange possibilities lie dormant in that semi-fluid globe. Let a moderate amount of warmth reach its watery cradle, and the plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid and yet so steady and purposelike in their succession, that one can only compare them to those operated by a skilled modeller upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible trowel, the mass is divided and sub-divided into smaller and smaller proportions until it is reduced to an aggregation of granules not too large to build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied by the spinal column, and moulded the contour of the body, pinching up the head at one end, the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb into due salamandrine proportions in so artistic a way that, after watching the process hour by hour, one is almost involuntarily possessed by the notion that some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic microscope would show the hidden artist, with his plan before him, striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his work. " - Lay Sermons, Chapter - 'The Origin of Species'.
A Divine Vision of Man, Nature and God
By Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa (1875–1953).
76 Pages | First Edition 1928, 1st – 3rd reprints 1949-1954, second edition 1986 | Softcover | Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar | ISBN: 8170590329.
These three Lectures were delivered by the Author at the Queen’s Hall London in May 1927, and formerly published under the title ‘The Divine Vision’.
It is a true saying, and one experienced and proved by us all, that we rise to higher things on the stepping stones of our dead selves. The life of man is a continual change of vision; as experiences come to him one after another, it is as if he rose from one level to another as he climbs up a mountain side, and therefore his visions steadily changes.
We recognise that there are two kinds of vision possible for us, that of the ordinary man of the world, and that other vision, which is presented to us by the great leaders of humanity, the founders of the religions. But we are apt to imagine that that lofty vision of the great teachers is something reserved for them alone, that we men in these lower levels are not capable of a divine vision. Yet the whole purpose of the message of Theosophy is to show that what the greatest of mankind has achieved shall some day be the achievement of every human being. In the course of these three Lectures, I shall try to show there is possible for us a divine vision of man, of nature and of God.
From Page 26:
” The student of Nature wonders the more and is astonished the less, the more conversant he becomes with her operations; but of all the perennial miracles she offers to his inspection, perhaps the most worthy of admiration, is the development of a plant or of an animal from its embryo. Examine the recently laid egg of some common animal, such as the salamander or a newt. It is a minute spheriod in which the best microscope will reveal nothing but a structureless sac, enclosing a glairy fluid holding granules in suspension. But strange possibilities lie dormant in that semi-fluid globe. Let a moderate amount of warmth reach its watery cradle, and the plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid and yet so steady and purposelike in their succession, that one can only compare them to those operated by a skilled modeller upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible trowel, the mass is divided and sub-divided into smaller and smaller proportions until it is reduced to an aggregation of granules not too large to build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied by the spinal column, and moulded the contour of the body, pinching up the head at one end, the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb into due salamandrine proportions in so artistic a way that, after watching the process hour by hour, one is almost involuntarily possessed by the notion that some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic microscope would show the hidden artist, with his plan before him, striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his work. ” – Lay Sermons, Chapter – ‘The Origin of Species’.