Printed in the Spring 2023 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Craig, Carol, "My Journey to Redefine My Concept of God" Quest 111:2, pg 25-27
By Carol Craig
Man’s conception of divinity rises with his growth.
—Clara Codd
After I became an adult and left behind my staunch Southern Baptist roots, I was unsure who or what God is. Inside myself, I have somehow always known that there must be a higher power, and I have always felt a connection with Jesus. But in what form God exists, I had no clue.
Theosophy says that each of us is on our own individual path, and more and more knowledge is revealed to us as we become increasingly capable of understanding. What we believe is our own personal truth at that given time.
Growing up, I was a devout little Baptist girl. I was told that God is love; God is merciful; God cares about all his children and wants all of us to be happy and healthy. But I was also told stories about God’s anger and judgments and heard that upon my death, he would decide whether or not to let me into heaven or condemn me to hell. I never liked that aspect of God, but never told anyone.
Once I began to think for myself, I left behind my belief that God was sitting on a throne in the sky somewhere, judging me. I didn’t want to worship a vengeful God. I can also remember wondering as an adolescent, if God is loving and merciful, why would he be responsible for the torment that his Son had to experience? And of course the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people consumed my thoughts for years.
Despite these questions, in my early twenties, when I married and had my first child, I remember how important it was to me to raise my children in the Southern Baptist church. Even so, I began to wonder why someone else’s blood had to atone for my sins. Am I not responsible for my own actions? Besides, don’t I sometimes commit the same sin over again, even if it is supposed to be washed away by the blood of Jesus? Why would I continue to commit a sin that my beloved Jesus died for? All those teachings of my youth stopped making sense to me.
Out of loyalty to my upbringing, I remained in the Southern Baptist church, even teaching Sunday School when my children were young. It wasn’t until my midthirties, when I found myself unhappy in my personal life, that I left the Southern Baptists. Wasn’t God supposed to love me and always want what is best for me? He certainly had not made or kept me happy and in a peaceful state of mind. Where was he? I was having a crisis of faith.
Thus began my own personal search to find peace and happiness. That led me to the Disciples of Christ church, which turned out to be a good transition church for me, because the Disciples of Christ talked about the familiar Bible stories, but they seemed to me to be much more liberal thinkers about life in general: they didn’t tell me I would burn in hell for one thing or another, and I immediately felt comfortable about that. I became very good friends with the minister, and we used to have long, in-depth conversations. I discovered that for the first time in my life, I had the courage to admit that I was questioning my faith and even to disagree with him occasionally. He didn’t seem to like it when I did that, but I give him credit for listening and allowing me to express myself. In any event, I found the courage to admit my doubts and share them with other people.
At first, after leaving my fundamental roots, I was afraid that I was becoming an atheist. I never wanted to disbelieve in God, because I knew in my heart that I had an experience with something unexplainable when I was twelve years old. It was a voice inside, speaking to me about my love for Jesus, which had become so strong when I was a child. I believe I was experiencing what scholars of mysticism have called an awakening of my soul.
I’m a practical person and need to understand and relate to what I profess to believe. Coming to a satisfactory understanding of the meaning of God took me well over twenty years. Perhaps you are luckier than me and have resolved this long ago. Perhaps it’s not even important to you. While I assume that most Theosophists have already figured this out for themselves, it has been a quest of mine for most of my adult life.
My search soon led to the “sleeping prophet” Edgar Cayce. I could relate to Cayce’s story, particularly his struggle with the faith of his youth as new possibilities began to be revealed to him. I was assured then that I was on a quest and there was no turning back. I began reading self-help books. One book would lead me to another book or to a specific group, until one day a friend in Atlanta invited me to a meeting of the Theosophical Society.
“What is that?” I asked.
“You’ll just have to come to a meeting and find out for yourself,” I was told. I did, and that expression, “It was like coming home” finally made sense to me.
Soon after starting to attend regular TS meetings in Atlanta, I heard of the Masters for the first time. While researching the overwhelming amount of information on the Masters, I kept being reminded of the question I had held for years: just who, or what, is God?
The Southern Baptists had told me that God is love, and they also spoke about brotherly love—to love my neighbor as myself and to do unto others as I would do unto myself. But now Theosophy was talking about Brotherhood and Unity with All That Is.
After finding the TS in Atlanta, I learned that Theosophy encourages open-minded inquiry in order to understand the wisdom of the ages, respect the unity of all life, and help people explore individual spiritual self-transformation. I liked that! Furthermore, I was told that studying Theosophy helps us to realize that we live in a purposeful universe, that human existence has deep meaning, and that we are responsible for our own thoughts and actions. This made sense to me!
I began an extensive reading of Theosophical material on the subjects of God, Deity, Divinity, Brotherhood, and Unity. In An Outline of Theosophy, C.W. Leadbeater spoke of God as
the great Guiding Force or Deity of our own solar system, whom philosophers have called the Logos. Of him is true all that we have ever heard predicated of God—all that is good, that is—not the blasphemous conceptions sometimes put forward, ascribing to Him human vices. But all that has ever been said of the love, the wisdom, the power, the patience and compassion, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the omnipotence—all of this, and much more, is true of the Logos of our system. Verily “in Him we live and move and have our being,” not as a poetical expression, but (strange as it may seem) as a definite scientific fact; and so, when we speak of the Deity our first thought is naturally of the Logos.
We do not vaguely hope that He may be; we do not even believe as a matter of faith that He is; we simply know it as we know that the sun shines, for to the trained and developed clairvoyant investigator this Mighty Existence is a definite certainty. Not that any merely human development can enable us directly to see Him, but that unmistakable evidence of His action and His purpose surrounds us on every side as we study the life of the unseen world, which is in reality, only the higher part of this . . . That He is within us as well as without us, or, in other words, the man himself is in essence divine, is another great truth which, though those who are blind to all but the outer and lower world may still argue about it, is an absolute certainty to the student of the higher side of life . . . the inherent divinity is a fact, and that in it resides the assurance of the ultimate return of every human being to the divine level. (Leadbeater, 22‒24)
Leadbeater goes on to tell us that our stress, struggles, and sorrows are part of an ordered progress, that the law of evolution is presenting us with these experiences as a way of developing within ourselves the qualities we most need. This too makes sense to me. This sounds merciful and loving.
Next I turned to The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett. In letter 88, Koot Hoomi says there is no such thing as a personal or impersonal God in our planetary system and that the “idea of God” is an acquired notion (Chin, 270). How true: my early concept of God was certainly acquired!
So we have established what God is not. Even though I understand this concept and profess to believe it, I still am not sure who or what this “inherent divinity” is.
In her book Ancient Wisdom: Modern Insight, Shirley Nicholson states:
The Universal Mind is the first manifested principle. According to The Secret Doctrine, the separation of the poles takes place in a pre-cosmic state which is halfway between the nonbeing of the Absolute and the beginning of the manifested universe. Divine Mind is “the first production of spirit and matter,” and is “projected into the phenomenal world as the first aspect of the changeless Absolute.” It provides the interface between spirit and matter which is necessary for their integration in the world of form . . .
H.P.B. refers to Universal Mind as “the one impersonal Great Architect of the Universe.” However, she stresses that this “architect” is not outside the Cosmos, imposing order on it; it is not a creator apart from creation like a sculptor shaping clay. Rather the Divine Mind is intrinsic in nature, an innate part of natural processes, giving coherence and intelligent inner direction to natural forms. (Nicholson, 108‒09)
In his book Theosophy Simplified, Irving S. Cooper comments:
Each solar system [is] the physical body of a vast Intelligence, each star cluster the form of a still mightier Consciousness, the whole being but cells and organs in the body of God, the Universal Consciousness. Then we know that we must cast aside forever all our childish little ideas of God as a magnified human being and strive to think of Him as the Universal Life, the Limitless Consciousness, the Eternal Love, the very source and heart of all that is. “Everything that is, is God.” (Cooper, 82)
In Clara Codd’s Theosophy as the Masters See It, she quotes G.K. Chesterton as saying, “‘God is the great paradox.’ He cannot really be a person such as you and I, or there would be a universe outside of and apart from him. Yet at the same time he is the essence of personality, as he is the essence of everything else” (Codd, 49).
In The Ancient Wisdom, Annie Besant tells us:
The mental plane is that which reflects the Universal Mind in Nature, the plane which in our little system corresponds with that of the Great Mind in the Kosmos . . . Mahat, the Third LOGOS, or Divine Creative Intelligence, the Brahma of the Hindus, the Manjusri of the Northern Buddhist, the Holy Spirit of the Christians. In its higher regions exist all the archetypal ideas which are now in course of concrete evolution, and in its lower the working out of these into successive forms, to be duly reproduced in the astral and physical worlds. Its materials are capable of combining under the impulse of thought vibrations and can give rise to any combination which thought can construct. As iron can be made into a sword for slaying or a spade for digging, so can mind-stuff be shaped into thought-forms that help or that injure; the vibrating life of the Thinker shapes the materials around him, and according to his volitions so is his work. In that region, thought and action, will and deed, are one and the same thing—spirit-matter here becomes the obedient servant of the life, adapting itself to every creative motion. (Besant, 140‒41)
In her essay “The Unity of Deity,” H.P. Blavatsky writes:
Esotericism, pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we considered as Atheists. But, in reality, Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is based absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, the Absolute Deity; and if It itself is not speculated upon, as being too sacred and yet incomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect, yet the entire philosophy is based upon Its divine Powers as being the source of all that breathes and lives and has its existence. In ever ancient religion the One was demonstrated by the many . . .
for in this collection of divine personalities, or rather of symbols personified, dwells the One God, the God One, that God, which, in India, is said to have no Second. (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 569)
Blavatsky’s Key to Theosophy consists of a dialogue between an “Enquirer” and a “Theosophist.” At one point, the Enquirer asks the Theosophist if she believes in God and if so, whether it is the God of the Christians, the Father of Jesus, and the Creator. The Theosophist replies, “In such a God we do not believe. We reject the idea of a personal, or an extra-cosmic and anthropomorphic God, who is but the gigantic shadow of man, and not of man at his best, either. The God of theology, we say—and prove it—is a bundle of contradictions and a logical impossibility. Therefore, we will have nothing to do with him.”
When the Enquirer asks for reasons, the Theosophist states that if the God of Christians is called infinite and absolute, “then how can he have a form, and be a creator of anything? Form implies limitation, and a beginning as well as an end; and, in order to create, a being must think and plan. How can the ABSOLUTE be supposed to think . . . This is a philosophical, and a logical absurdity.”
The Theosophist denies that Theosophy entails atheism “unless the epithet of ‘Atheist’ is to be applied to those who disbelieve in an anthropomorphic God. We believe in a Universal Divine Principle, the root of ALL, from which all proceeds, and within which all shall be absorbed at the end of the great cycle of Being” (Blavatsky, Key to Theosophy, 61‒63).
When the Enquirer asks the Theosophist if she believes in prayer or prays, the Theosophist replies: “We do not. We act, instead of talking.”
The Enquirer asks if there is any other kind of prayer. The response is “Most decidedly; we call it will-prayer, and it is rather an internal command than a petition . . . directed to ‘Our Father in Heaven’—in its esoteric meaning . . . ‘Father’ is in man himself.”
The Enquirer wants to know if Theosophy makes of man a God. The reply: “In our sense, the inner man is the only God we can have cognizance of . . . We call our ‘Father in Heaven’ that deific essence of which we are cognizant within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness.”
Prayer, according to the Theosophist, is not a petition but a mystery, “an occult process by which finite and conditioned thoughts and desires, unable to be assimilated by the absolute spirit which is unconditioned, are translated into spiritual wills and the will; such process being called ‘spiritual transmutation.’ The intensity of our ardent aspirations changes prayer into the ‘philosopher’s stone’, or that which changes lead into pure gold . . . Our ‘will-prayer’ becomes the active or creative force, producing effects according to our desire . . . Will-Power becomes a living power” (Blavatsky, Key, 67‒68).
To this the Enquirer asks: “Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing about physical results?” The Theosophist replies: “I do.”
Clara Codd tells us: “We cannot see the divine life except as it manifests in all around us” (Codd, 51). When I meditate and through my intuition, I hear that still, small voice I first heard at the age of twelve. I now see God in nature when I’m doing yardwork, or in my daily life—even when I’m cleaning the kitchen. I now see God in the smile or touch of someone I love, or even from a stranger. I recognize God in the kind actions of others. And I see God in the faces of my grandchildren.
Now I acknowledge that it is the voice of my Higher Self, the voice of that part of me that is part of the unity of All that is, the voice of the Divinity within me—and I listen. My quest has led me to my current personal truth that God is just a name or label for the Universal Consciousness, Universal Mind, Universal Energy that connects all of humanity with All That Is. Collective consciousness is made up of all of us: our thoughts and desires. We are a Brotherhood of One with All that Is.
Namaste: The Divine within me recognizes and honors the Divine within you.
Sources
Emphasis in all quotations is from the original.
Besant, Annie. The Ancient Wisdom. 2d ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2015.
Blavatsky, H.P. Collected Writings, vol. 12. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980.
———. The Key to Theosophy. Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 2002 [1889].
Chin, Vicente Hao Jr., ed. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in Chronological Sequence. Quezon City, Philippines: Theosophical Publishing House, 1998.
Codd, Clara M. Theosophy as the Masters See It. Rev. ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2000.
Cooper, Irving S. Theosophy Simplified. Wheaton: Quest, 2000 [1915].
Ellwood, Robert. Theosophy: A Modern Expression of the Wisdom of the Ages. Wheaton: Quest, 1986.
Leadbeater, C.W. An Outline of Theosophy. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1902.
Mills, Joy. The One True Adventure: Theosophy and the Quest for Meaning. Wheaton: Quest, 2008.
———. Reflections on an Ageless Wisdom. Wheaton: Quest, 2010.
Nicholson, Shirley. Ancient Wisdom, Modern Insight. Wheaton: Quest, 1985.
Carol Craig found Theosophy while living in Atlanta in 1995. She became a charter member of the Phoenix, Arizona, study center in 2000 and sponsored the revival of the Wichita study center in 2018, where she serves as secretary.