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Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism360
ideals and a building up of new and better ones. And yet God remains the
same—although higher conceptions of Him come into the minds of Man.
The less developed races cannot form the concept of One God—they
can see Him only as many Gods, each portraying and exhibiting some
particular attribute of the One—some phase of Life—some form of human
feeling, passion, or thought. They have their gods of war—of peace—of
love—of agriculture—of trade—and what not. And they worship and try
to propitiate these various gods, not realizing that underneath it all they are
obeying the religious instinct that will in time lead the race to a worship of
the One—the Absolute. They clothe their gods with human attributes (even
after they have evolved from the worship of many gods into the worship
of some one particular conception). They imagine that God divides men
into two classes, friends and enemies, and rewards His friends and punishes
His enemies. They make their God do just what they would do if they had
the power to reward and punish. They imagine that they are the chosen
people and special favorites of God, and that He goes with them to battle
and will help them to triumph over their enemies. They imagine that God
delights in human blood, and that he commands them to put their enemies
to the sword, even to the extent of killing the women and little children, yea,
even to the ripping open of pregnant women, and the putting their unborn
babes to the sword. Their God is a bloody and savage God—because they
are bloody and savage themselves. And yet the Absolute—God—moves
on unchanged, and these people are worshiping and loving him the best
they know how, calling him this name and that name, according to race and
time. And the enemies of these people are likewise worshiping their own
conception of God, calling Him by some name of their own, and imagining
that He is helping them to fight their enemies and their false God. And yet
these two Gods are both products of the minds of the two warring tribes,
both being created in obedience to the unfolding “religious instinct.”
We may shudder at these tales and thoughts, but are we so very much in
advance of this idea of the savage? In modern wars we find the two peoples