If we study history, whether of the most ancient civilizations or of modern progressive and cultural movements, we find that people's concepts of God rooted in their inherited religious creeds have exerted a sweeping influence, sometimes to uplift and inspire, at others, to degrade and to enslave. One very striking fact, however, that we notice in such historical study is that in the earliest civilizations there was knowledge of true religion. The culture of the Vedic times in old India, or that of Chaldea or of ancient Egypt, was not reared on mere superstition or on little understood phenomena of Nature. These cultures and civilizations were founded on knowledge inherited from still more ancient times, till we come to the "dawn of manhood" when Divine Sages incarnated among earthly men and taught them the secrets of arts and sciences, of agriculture and architecture. As we study the evolution of ideas even in these grand civilizations of the past, we see the cycle of wisdom, pure and benign, coming to a close. We find a silent but perceptible separation taking place between on the one hand seers and sages, the bards and the makers of myths, and on the other hand the growing band of the hoi polloi to whom God and prayer and religion were becoming more and more matters of ignorant faith and blind belief.

Theosophy takes a very different view from that of modern science in reference to the birth of man and of human history. It teaches that the starting point of human civilization was not in savagery, but in the descent of great and glorious "Sons of Light and Wisdom" who incarnated on earth to teach and to guide, to instruct and to inspire infant humanity. Therefore at the "dawn of manhood" there was no religion of mere belief. This is described in The Secret Doctrine (II, 272-73). Religion then was a matter of knowledge. Man then felt the presence of god within him; he knew the magic art of divine communion. Today man believes in a god he knows absolutely nothing about, and as he has lost the art of true prayer or divine communion, he often indulges in meaningless appeals and petitions, and sometimes in the harmful exercise of his thought, will and feeling.

It is necessary for us to note the difference between the Theosophicl view of the genesis of culture and civilization and that of modern science. Science teaches that we started in savagery and have now reached the high level of knowledge we possess; Theosophy teaches that we started in genuine innocent devotion and have, through the descent of cycles, come to our present position of disbelief or blind belief about God and the right approach to God, which is what prayer is. It also teaches that the ascent of cycles has begun and humanity is bound to awaken and become once more the possessor of the Ancient Art. We shall then know, by and in our own individual experience, what we felt as true and beneficent when we were in our innocence of soul-childhood and lived brotherly lives of purity and holiness because of the grand examples of our Divine Instructors. When we throw off our selfishness and ignorance and learn for ourselves the Magic Art of a life of Universal Brotherhood, we shall reach the child-state we have lost.

To begin with, Theosophy does teach the existence of Deity and also it does recognize the value of the right approach to that Deity. It describes as prayer the communion between Man and Deity. Theosophy is not atheistic, nor agnostic; Theosophy is Divine Gnosis, i.e., the knowledge about Deity, which knowledge is obtainable by the method of right communion or prayer. Theosophy offers knowledge, not mere belief, about the nature and powers of Deity.

Knowledge of and about Deity can be secured by the human mind, and to aid the mind in its efforts study is recommended. Study is the first step in prayer or communion with Deity. The first step is not mere repetition of some sacred text. If one desires to approach God, one must know something about the nature of God. Therefore the very first truth to grasp is a definition of Deity. It is to be found in what is known as the First Fundamental Proposition of the Secret Doctrine. Deity is defined as the Principle of Life. The expresion, Principle of Life, is not as simple as it sounds; it implies that Life and God are one and the same. Life is God; Deity is Life. But what is Life? Science knows many things about life, but it does not know what Life is. The ordinary human mind is not capable of knowing what Life is directly, because that mind is in the habit of depending upon the five senses and the brain. Life cannot be sensed by the five senses.

Theosophy puts forward some fundamental concepts about Life or Deity. Further, to enable us to understand better, three symbols are offered. The first step in prayer is study of these three symbols which are so to speak pictures or portraits, idols or images of God. These symbols are: Space, Time, Motion. Deity is Space, Deity is Time, and Deity is Motion; but as Deity is Life, we must look upon Life itself as Space, Time and Motion.

Space is omnipresent, present everywhere. Look around you, not only with your eyes but with your mind. Can you conceive, can you at all think, without the basis of space? You will find it impossible. Space is everywhere, so is Deity everywhere, so is Life everywhere. So, through this symbol we learn that Deity or Life is omnipresent. It is Existence itself.

The next symbol is Time. Time not only gives us an idea of the present existence, but also of the past and the future. When we think of Space we think of the Present—i.e., the Presence of Deity or Life everywhere. But Time inmediately brings to us the thought of the Past and the Future. In the symbol of Space the Present looms large and formidable, but in the symbol of Time the Present dwindles down to a minute, a second, a hundredth part of a second. The Past is long, the Future is long, but the Present is very short. Go in your mind to the most distant past, and behind it there is a still more distant past; similarly beyond the most distant future there is a still more distant future. So the symbol of Time adds to our concept of existence that of the ever and ever Existence. Deity or Life is Existence for ever and ever.

The third symbol is Motion. The very idea of Time brings us to Motion. Time is movement. Minutes move to make an hour; hours make day and night; months make years, centuries, yugas and kalpas. But we also perceive Motion in Space. In the cities there is motion; in the dark jungles there is motion; on land and sea there is motion; in the sky there is the motion of clouds, of stars, and of air itself. There is not an inch of space where movement or motion of some kind is taking place. This Motion symbolizes the creative urge of Life. Life is not static or stationary; Life is Motion. At every point of space, at every moment of time, Deity or Life is showing the creative urge. Everywhere there is the perpetual Motion of Life.

The first step in right prayer, i.e., study, shows us that God is Life, and that It exists everywhere and is moving all the time, producing everything. God or Life has within itself the urge of creativeness. Add to these ideas one more: as God or Life is omnipresent, it is in you, in me, in all of manifestation, everywhere; therefore we must use our mind to look for God or Life within ourselves.

This is the second step in prayer: we must search and find the creative urge of Life within ourselves. Each one of us is ever-existing Life with its creative urge. Within us is Spiritual Consciousness or Life or God; and we have to see for ourselves that at the core of our being we are divine, omnipresent like Space, boundless like Time, and ever-creative like Motion. Unless we look for the Spirit within ourselves, which can be united with the Universal Spirit, the positive or constructive aspect of prayer cannot begin. The activity of our senses and of our brain, of our feelings and desires and of our mind, obtrudes upon our attention. A hundred noises from outside, and others which arise from inside, in the blood and the brain, overpower us. So our second step in prayer is self-examination.

Self-examination is in two steps: First, the examination of our weaknesses, vices and faults, also of our merits and virtues. The second step is the affirmation of the Self who examines, the Self who takes charge and says: "This weakness must go, this virtue must evolve"—the Self who controls the wandering mind. Our communion with Deity or our prayer will not be successful until we have found the Spiritual Soul in us who is the witness of the wandering mind, of the rising and the falling desires, of the many sense-activities. When to the first step of study, the second of effort and practice is added, we soon come upon the Soul within which is creative and godlike. The difficulty of this stage is lack of regularity and of perseverance. By establishing a regular habit of communion with the Self, every day, preferably in the morning, we can succeed; but that effort must be regular, not spasmodic. By persevering regularity we soon establish our own law of cycles, and that mental and psychic habit once formed, our task becomes less difficult.

To make the morning exercise of finding the Self fruitful, we have as regularly to attend to the night exercise of reviewing our day. Every night we must review our thoughts and feelings, note the words we uttered and the deeds we performed, and the Soul in us must fearlessly pass judgment. This night exercise is a help to communion with the Self—the exercise that has to be done in the morning. In this second step of prayer, the lower or devilish self in us gets controlled and the higher or divine self gains expression. The night review enables us to control and purify the lower; the morning search enables us to come upon the light of the higher. But between morning and night there is the day during which we are able to see the results, in so much success, so much failure. When, as a result of the two steps of study and the dual self-examination, we recognize the Soul within us as a radiant entity, then by its aid we are able to perceive the radiance everywhere. But, as nothing comes without effort and endeavour, we must try to seek this radiance in all things and all beings, and that is the third step in prayer. Study is the first; seeking the radiant Soul within ourselves is the second; seeking the light of Spirit everywhere is the third.

The third step of prayer is also called yoga or union; union between the Soul in us and the Spirit everywhere. Just as we must study and practise self-examination, so also we must actively seek the radiance of Spirit in everything, in all beings. People say, "God is everywhere and in all creatures," but how many try to act up to that? The Light of Deity is more beautiful than the light of the sun or of the moon; and that Light of Deity is hidden in the heart of everyone.

That Light, that Glory, ever exists, but has receded from our own active thought. Because our desires and passions have pushed it behind, we are like men and women groping in the dark without light.

The third step of prayer as outlined above is to deliberately try to see the Good, the True and the Beautiful everywhere. Behind a mass of vice there is some virtue hidden; in a heap of falsehoods we shall find a stray truth; in abject ugliness there is some strange beauty. These we must try to look for. The difficulty is that sentimental people are not discriminative, and they often see falsehood as truth, vice as virtue, and ugliness as beauty. God is everywhere, but only the God within us can perceive It in all places and at all times. When this perception is gained, we have begun that yoga, union with the Divine, which is the gaining of Immortality.

So Deity or God is omnipresent, boundless, creative Life everywhere, including within ourselves. Prayer begins in study, goes to self-examination, seeks the radiant Soul within, and by its aid looks for the radiance of God everywhere. Knowledge is available, and one method of obtaining that knowledge is through the service of human souls. That service enables us to see the truth, the virtue and the beauty that are hidden everywhere. Through that service we advance and get closer to the God within.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour.

—Henry David Thoreau