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THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
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is, Wisdom and Love blended together, has taken place, The 'little child,' that is, Wisdom and Love, united to high intelligence, is the Spiritual Ego, the true Inner Man, the Ruler Immortal ( A Study in Consciousness, by Annie Besant, page 385).
By a domineering, supercilious demeanour all that one can expect to gain is a temporary sense of greatness over certain members of our race, but surely it can mean pleasure only to the most degraded intellect. There are others who are superior to us and who can treat us in the same manner. When we reflect on the harm these hateful emotions are apt to produce, we inust recognize that the temporary sense of triumph, or superiority, over one's subordinates is no compensation for the evil wrought in one's own system. It is in our power to avoid the generation of the poison of hatred, and we must exert ourselves to do so, if health and happiness are to be attained. Man would find that, as he cultivates the emotions of Love, he is spared most of the headaches and other ills which the flesh is said to be heir to. Mrs. Annie Besant writes (A Study in Consciousness, page 367) :
"Since the nature of the Self is bliss, and that bliss is only hindered in manifestation by resisting circumstances, that which removes the friction between itself and these circumstances and opens its onward way must lead to its Self realization, i.e., to the realization of bliss. Virtue does this, and therefore virtue is a means to bliss. Where the inner nature of things is peace and joy, the harmony which permits that nature to unveil itself must bring peace and joy, and to bring about this harmony is the work of virtue."
Therefore, the Saviour's teaching about meeting evil with good, anger with kindliness, and persecution with
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