o has
struggled to realise it.

Such a spiritual process, after something of its nature has been
realised, finds necessities laid upon it on all hands. Once we have
stepped into the very centre of spiritual norms and ideals they begin to
reveal with a wonderful rapidity and impressiveness their own intrinsic
content and value. "Universal" religion has enabled us to realise that
we are dealing with "grounds" which are a demand of the deepest nature,
and with convictions which seem, without a doubt, "to ring true." The
man has found a shelter in the midst of all the chaos and welter of the
natural process, [p.154] and his deepest reason has not failed to come
to the assistance of his spiritual need. He now becomes conscious of
security and even of victory in the enterprise before the battle has
really begun on an arena outside his own nature; a conviction is being
brought into being within his deepest soul that the best and strongest
elements in the universe are on his side. Although hindrances and
entanglements of all kinds increase in number, the increase in spiritual
certainty, and faith in the final issue of his life, have grown at a
greater ratio. Such a man has settled his destiny; he has come to the
great spiritual affirmation of life--an affirmation which has to be
repeated so often, and which each time distils something of a higher
order within the soul.

It is evident that such an affirmation of the reality of spiritual
ideals, which have now an existence of their own, should lead us
farther. If they mean so much, why cannot they mean more? If they
subsist in themselves, they must be what they _are_. They are to us
meaning and value of infinite significance. But such and other spiritual
characteristics are _not things_, and, as we have seen, not mere
projections of our own individual selves. There is nothing short of
personality and over-personality by which they can be even partially
designated and determined. We are forced to this conclusion if they are
to be objects of communion and union: and we are forced [p.155] further
to gather the Many into the One. That was what was done on all lower
planes. Why stop short here, because infinitely much happens when the
Many find their points of union and meaning in the One?[52] We have said
that infinitely much happens when the Many find their meaning in the
One. A need of the nature has arisen which demands this, and it has
arisen at its _highest possible level alon