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The Fifth Lesson: The One and the Many.787
taken away from. But they do positively teach that there is a great beneficial
purpose in all the Plan, accruing in the end to the developed souls that have
evolved through the workings of the plan. These souls do not possess the
qualities of the Infinite—they are Finite, and thus are capable of receiving
benefits; of growing, developing, unfolding, attaining. And, therefore, the
Yogis teach that this building up of Great Souls seems to be the idea of the
Infinite, so far as may be gained from an observation of the Workings of the
Plan. The Absolute cannot need these Great Souls for Its own pleasure, and
therefore their building-up must be for their own advantage, happiness
and benefit.
The Yogis teach, on this subject, that there can be only one Real Perfect
Being—Perfect without experience—Perfect from the Beginning—but only
one! In other words, they teach that there can be no such thing as Absolute
Perfection, outside of the Absolute Itself—and that not even the Absolute
Being can create another Absolute Being, for in that case there would be no
Absolute Being at all, but only two Relative Beings.
Think over this for a moment, and you will see its truth. The Absolute
must always be “the One without a Second”, as the Yogis express it—there
cannot be two Perfect ones. And so, all Finite Beings, being Finite, must work
their way up toward the plane of Perfection by The Path of Life, with all of its
lessons, tasks, cares, pains, and strivings. This is the only way open to them—
and even the Absolute cannot have it otherwise, and still be the Absolute.
There is a fine point here—the Absolute is All-Powerful, but even that All-
Power is not sufficient to enable It to destroy Its Absolute Being. And so, you
who have wondered, perhaps you may now understand our words in the
First Lesson of this series, in which we said that the message of the Absolute
to some of the Illumined has been: “All is being done in the best and only
possible way—I am doing the best I can—all is well—and in the end will so
appear.”
And, as we also said in that First Lesson: “The Absolute, instead of being an
indifferent and unmoved spectator to its own creation, is a striving, longing,