The Divine Within: Selected Writings on Enlightenment

by Aldous Huxley

“Our Father which art in heaven.” God is ours in the sense that He is the universal source and principle, the being of all beings, the life of all that lives, the spirit of every soul. He is present in all creatures; but all creatures are not equally aware of His presence. The degree of this awareness varies with the quality of that which is aware, for knowledge is always a function of being. God’s nature is fully comprehensible only to God Himself. Among creatures, knowledge of God’s nature expands and becomes more adequate in proportion as the knower becomes more God-like. As St. Bernard puts it, “God who, in His simple substance is all everywhere equally, nevertheless, in efficacy, is in rational creatures in another way than in irrational, and in good rational creatures in another way than in the bad. He is in irrational creatures in such a way as not to be comprehended by them; by all rational creatures, however, He can be comprehended by knowledge; but only by the good is He also comprehended by love” and, we might add, by contemplation, which is the highest expression of man’s love of God.