WHAT IS TRUTH?

Pilate asked the question "What is Truth?" and being incapable of knowing from within, he received no answer.

Christ Jesus said: "The Truth shall make you free," and Plato, with mystic intuition, said "God is Truth, and Light is His shadow." John said "God is Light," and as he was closer to the Master than the other disciples, he undoubtedly received teaching higher than the others were capable of receiving. We must remember that it matters not how much truth there may be, it is not for us unless we can receive it. Everyone may see the beauty of the numerous shades of light and color all about us, except those with the affliction of blindness. He who cannot perceive the world of color around him is poor indeed. So it is with Truth. Truth is everywhere, and can always be found if we are capable of perceiving it. In the exercises of the Rosicrucian Fellowship (Retrospection and concentration), we have been given a splendid means of coming in touch with Truth.

Plato and John said, "God is Light," and if we go to one of the great observatories, and with the best telescope made, look into space, we see that there is no boundary to light. It is everywhere, and with the symbol of light there expressed there comes the idea of omnipresence and magnitude of the God we worship. John, in the first five verses of his Gospel, says: "In the beginning was the Word," and therein we have a marvelous solution of the problem, for when we go back to the beginning, we are in the realm of Truth.

At the present time we have sunk into matter, and are incapable of coming into contact with that truth directly, but when we go back in thought to the beginning of things, then we are in thought with God and more capable of recognizing the Truth. Plato spoke of a time when "there was darkness." The Old Testament tells about darkness, that state of primordial matter, or "Arche," given form by God, the Grand Architect, the primordial Builder of the universe.

When we think of the One who built things in the beginning, we come into contact with Him, with God, in that "arche" in the first sentence of the five verses we take for meditation. In the next few words we come to the second proposition: the Word. The term "Word" is mistranslated in our present Bible, for it is not only "Word," but it is also the thought, the Greek word "Logos" used in that verse meaning both the word and the logical thought back of it. Before there can be a word, there must be a logical thought back of it. Before the word could come into existence, there had to be a thinker; therefore John used the words "in arche" and "Logos." They express what we wish to understand, that in the beginning there was a homogeneous mass of matter, and in that homogeneous matter was God; and God became the "Word," the rhythmic sound that goes out in the universe, and that shapes all things.

Farther on in the five verses is the statement: "in that was life." In the first place there was darkness; no vibration had been sent out into primordial matter, and there must of necessity have been darkness. But the first thing that comes into existence, we are told, is light, and light and sound are synonymous from the higher point of view. Some people, who are sensitive, never hear a sound without seeing a flash of light, and never see a flash of light without at the same time hearing a sound. So John writes mystically when he says "in the beginning"-in the primordial matter-"was God" and "God was the Word," and in that "was life," and the life became "the light of men."

There we have the abstract truth, as near as we can get it, of the whole problem of creation. Inside the human body there is that light shining unto this day, the light that shines in darkness, the light that is hidden by the veil of Isis, and all around us are Spirits dwelling in darkness, unless through the window of the soul the glories of the universe are revealed. Then we perceive God as light, everything good as light, and the opposite as darkness.

Light is not of one color, however, for there are seven Spirits before the Throne, each one being a light-bearer for a certain ray. Each one of us comes from one of the rays of light, and each one can better respond to one of the rays. Thus we each see Truth differently, and although we are all gradually moving toward the same source, which is God, we have, nevertheless, at different times, different viewpoints. Although we seem to be at variance one with another, yet in those five verses of John's Gospel is Truth: that we are all children of the light. Each one has within the divine spirit of light; each one is gradually learning to know that light, and with the help of the exercises, to express more of that light.

The mystic, as he sees the light of the morning dawn, looks upon it as the daily coming into his soul of the primordial Creative Fiat, "Let there be Light," and as the Light of day progresses and gradually wanes in the western sky, he sees in the glorious tapestry of the sunset a something beyond description by human tongue, a something that can be felt by the soul. If we let those five verses live within us, in the way they do in the mystic, we too, shall know the light, know the truth, as we know nothing else in the world.

We have all trodden the different paths of life at some time. At one time we have walked through Life under the martial ray, and have trodden its path of activity and passion, not caring who suffered or what became of others. In another life we came under the lighter ray of the Venusian color, and trod the path along the love side of life. Later still, the path of the deep blue, or Saturn Ray, and still later the path of the lighter blue or Jupiter Ray. So we all look forward toward the higher perception which comes from the yellow Uranian Ray, though most of us are not at present capable of receiving it, but must be content with the lower deeper yellow of the Mercury Ray. We are all working gradually toward the white light that comes from the Sun, which is the union of all color. To this we must aspire, for the light from any of the other rays is but secondary. From the great central Source come all things.

"And what about the darkness," someone asks, "is that evil?" No, there is nothing evil in God's universe. During the day we perceive by the light of the Sun the glories of this little Earth that swings in space, and perhaps if there were only light, we should perceive nothing beyond this Earth and remain ignorant that there is more than the Sun and Moon. But when night comes, and the glories of the day have faded, when the Sun no longer illumines the sky, we can realize, to a certain extent at least, the immensity of space. We can see worlds millions and millions of miles away, and the Spirit is incited to wonderful devotion, as we dwell upon the Truth that GOD IS ALL IN ALL.-Max Heindel.