Page:Democratic Ideals (Olympia Brown).djvu/91

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The Radiant Center


words. Therefore I want to emphasize the other side of this great truth as being the fundamental proposition and that which gives truth and value to the human side of it.

To me there is a world of difference between saying "God and I are one and I am the one," and saying "God and I are one and God is the one." With the former statement we are trying to get a realization of the universal from the limitations of the individual. We are trying to get a conception of the great orb of the sun from the little ray of light that peeps through our own closed shutters. True, that ray of light is of the same nature as the splendor of the noon day and bears on its face the story of its origin and of the qualities of its source, but to know the warmth and radiance of the sun we must open wide our blinds and let the glory in. With the affirmation that God is the one we boldly take our stand on the Divine plane and illumine our own personality with the effulgence from the Radiant Center of the Absolute.

We can only say we are omniscient and omnipotent by absolutely losing sight of self and seeing God as the One, the All. We are of the divine essence with infinite potentialities, but we are not the Infinite any more than the ray of sunlight is the sun itself or the drop of water is the ocean. The drop of water that falls in rain has the push of sea