According to an ancient Hindu legend, there was a time when all human beings were gods. However, they treated their divinity with such disrespect that Brahma, the chief god, decided that their deity (Godliness) should be taken from them and hidden in a place where they would never again find it.
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Brahma is usually depicted as having four faces, symbolic of a wide-ranging four-square capacity, as expressed in the four Vedas (collections of poems and hymns), the four yugas (ages), the four varnas (social classes), the four directions, and the four stages of life (ashramas). He is usually shown with four arms, holding an alms bowl, a bow, prayer beads, and a book. |
The question was, “Where to hide it?” Brahma consulted with all the lesser gods on the problem. The lesser gods said, “Let us bury man’s divinity deep in the earth.” But Brahma said, “That will not do. Man will dig into the earth and find it.”
Then the lesser gods said, “Let us sink man’s divinity in the deepest sea.” But Brahma replied, “That will not do. Man will learn to penetrate the deepest waters and will find it on the ocean bed.”
Then the lesser gods said, “Let us hide man’s divinity on the highest mountain peak.” But Brahma again disagreed. “Man will surely climb to the top of all the earth’s mountains and someday find it.”
The lesser gods were discouraged. “It seems there is no place on land or sea that man will not eventually reach,” they agreed. Then Brahma said, "We will hide man’s divinity deep in man himself. He will never look for it there." And ever since then, the legend concludes, man has been climbing, digging, diving, exploring — searching for that which is already within himself.
It has been said that two thousand years ago, a man named Jesus found it, but in the Movement that sprang up in His name, the Divinity in man has been the best-kept secret of the ages.
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