In pursuing this study, we shall find very soon that the most valuable truths come to us through our own extension of consciousness, or through our own effort to find greater truth according to the laws and methods that have been suggested to us by great souls of any age. When your own soul is in touch with the vast sea of wisdom, and yet not depending upon any personality for wisdom, that is the attitude through which the highest light is received. In other words, it is the light that we can see with our own vision that illumines the mind to the greatest degree, although we are permitted to be instructed by others, for a period, as to the most perfect methods in the finding of the light. The spirit of truth is everywhere, and we all may open our minds to the light of the spirit of truth, regardless of who we are, or where we may be in the cosmos.

The first interpretation, therefore, of this statement, would infer that the greater things must invariably follow when we learn to depend upon our own higher wisdom and power, and thus assume that attitude of life where we may give expression to the highest and best that is within ourselves, while at the same time living and working in harmony with all that is good, all that is high and all that is sublime anywhere in the world.

The second interpretation of this remarkable statement is much deeper and goes much farther; and this interpretation does not refer to Jesus as a personality, but refers to the Christ as the only begotton son of the Most High. Let us try to forget, therefore, for the time being, the personality of Jesus, and let us try to think of Christ, the Eternal Spirit, that is enthroned in every soul, and one with the Father.

To try to differentiate between God the Father and God the Son, and also to try to understand the distinction between the first and second person in the Trinity, and the third person, or the Holy Spirit will lead us into a very deep metaphysical study; and yet, as we grow in spiritual understanding, we shall be able to discern how these three are one, and yet in a certain sense distinct. The usual conception of the Trinity has been so materialistic that we have failed to find the real truth involved; but the spiritual understanding will give us the full light on this wonderful theme.

In an external sense we find that the term "three in one" is merely a wonderful symbol; but as every external symbol is related to a corresponding truth, in the absolute of the spiritual, we realize that the triune idea is by no means a metaphysical speculation only, but in fact a spiritual truth of wonderful meaning.

To try to analyze, through spiritual consciousness, the difference between God the Father and God the Son would require much time and much fine analytical thinking; but we can simplify the matter and state it briefly by saying that God is the Infinite, the Omnipresent Spirit, and that Christ, being the Son, is God individualized in every soul. The Christ is enthroned in every soul, and is, therefore, God made manifest in man; and that is how the idea of mediation originates; how we reach God through Christ, although it is not through the personal Jesus, but through the Universal Christ, the purely spiritual Son, because the Christ is the Spirit of God living and manifesting in the human soul.

When we grow in spiritual consciousness, we realize how the Christ is related to God by being the individualization of God, and in every human soul, and how we are related to Christ through the wonderful truth that the Christ is enthroned in every soul. And in the same way, we shall understand the significance of the Holy Spirit, and why our growth in pure spiritual truth must come through the ministrations of the Holy Spirit.

Turning now to this wonderful statement, "Greater things than these shall ye do, because I go unto the Father," we realize that the higher our consciousness of the Christ, within us, ascends towards the consciousness of the Infinite, the greater becomes our spiritual power.

The meaning of the term, "because I go unto the Father," is this, that the consciousness of the human soul ascends towards the consciousness of the Supreme; and we know that our own spirituality depends upon how high we can go in the consciousness of the Christ that is enthroned within us. The truth is, that our own consciousness of the Christ is eternally going to the Father; this consciousness is eternally ascending into higher and higher realizations of the Omnipresent Spirit of God; and we may continue eternally to go deeper and higher into the real spiritual life of the Infinite, or into the Kingdom of God, because there is neither limit nor end to the vastness of that life in the kingdom.

We do not simply go at a certain time to the Kingdom, and then remain forever in a certain place in the spiritual life; that is the materialistic view; but the materialistic view never contains the whole truth, although it may contain an indication of the truth. The purely spiritual view declares that the human soul, created in the image and likeness of God, is eternally going to the Father, eternally rising in the wonderful spiritual scale; and the spiritual cosmos is so vast that we may rise for all eternity to still higher states, and still there will be greater and greater glories on before.

But here we must remember that the human soul, ascending eternally, higher and higher, into the spiritual life of the Infinite, can do so only through the Christ that is enthroned in the soul; that is, we must become conscious of the Christ within us before we can begin to go to the Father. So that the very moment the Christ begins to go to the Father, or our consciousness of the Christ within us is gained so that we may go with the Christ, in consciousness, into the higher spiritual realization of the Divine, this wonderful change begins to take place. We no longer live in materiality, and we no longer depend upon that which is personal; but we begin to advance steadily and surely in higher spiritual consciousness, and thereby secure possession of higher spiritual power. The result must be that the greater works will inevitably follow.