68 SYDNEY T. KLEIN ON THE INVISIBLE IS THE REAL, 



both these appaUing infinities of time and space are mere illusions, 

 caused by the finite outlook of our se/./-consciousness. When, 

 by looking inwardly we have cancelled that finite self and have 

 become God-conscious, we are able to realise our oneness 

 with the Great Spirit, and that our real spiritual being, the holy 

 son of God growing up within us, always has been, is now and 

 ever shall be in the Eternal Now comprising all time and the 

 Here comprising all space, where there cannot have been a 

 beginning and can be no end. 



When we have realised that our real personality is our inner 

 spiritual being, we have only to turn our thoughts in the right 

 direction, namely, inwardly instead of outwardly, to have the 

 power of employing spiritual discernment for sweeping away all 

 those other inconceivables with which the misuse of Intellection 

 has for so long surrounded us. 



We have thus seen that the whole world of appearances can 

 only be looked upon as the temporal condition under which the 

 race is being gradually educated, and by m.eans of which we are 

 being prepared for an existence far transcending anything that 

 we can even imagine in our present state of knowledge. 



It is only in the last fifty years that we have entered a new 

 era of Eeligion and Philosophy ; we hear no m.ore of the old fear 

 that the study of scientific facts leads to atheism or irreligion ; 

 we have learnt to realise that Religion and Science are only 

 provisional, they are both progressive in their outlook and are 

 meant to go hand in hand towards elucidating the Riddle of the 

 Universe; but the Scientist, on the one hand, must always 

 remember that he is only looking outwardly at the shadow forms 

 of that Invisible Power which is the cause of all causation, and 

 that the real goal to which all knowledge is meant to lead us is 

 the vision of that Reality. 



The teachers of religion, on the other hand, must realise the 

 value of scientific investigation. It can indeed only deal with the 

 visible shadow forms, but these are shadows of the Reality, and 

 the study of nature is one and perhaps the most important of the 

 channels through which we are meant to gain a knowledge of 

 nature's God. It is therefore clearly a duty that the teacher 

 of religion should, by the help of Scientists, seek to become better 

 acquainted than he usually is with the wonders with which 

 God has surrounded us. St. Paul, in the passage quoted above, 

 has pointed out the value of the world of appearances for gaining 

 a knowledge of God, but he has also warned us against looking 

 upon the visible as being itself the reality. His words are, " For 

 the things which are seen are temporal, but the things that are 

 not seen are Eternal." 



I have shown elsewhere* that before we can gain a vision of the 



* Science and Infinite, chapter on " The Vision." 



