Maurice Nicoll teaches the spiritual unity that comes from uniting Truth and Good.
“The words Christ and Jesus have different meanings in the Gospels. Christ refers to the side of the Truth of the Word of God—that is, the Truth that can guide a man to inner self−evolution. And the word Jesus always refers to the Good of the truth. The Good and the Truth are united in Jesus Christ.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p72
“All teaching belonging to the higher level of Man must begin on the side of Truth before the Good of it can be realized.” The New Man, p72
“If Truth, if knowledge, does not lead to the goodness or use of it, which is its genuine partner, for what reason should we seek to study any Truth or knowledge? When a man acts from the sense of the Good of whatever Truth he knows, he acts directly from his will—from what he wants—for we will Good but think Truth.” The New Man, p73-74
“Truth by itself is merciless and those who act from Truth alone are capable of doing the greatest harm to others.” The New Man,
Maurice speaks of the inner, higher, psychological meaning of the parable of Jesus healing the paralyzed man who cannot rise and enter the healing waters at the Pool of Bethesda. Here Maurice outlines his complete understanding of the relationship between truth and good:
The paralyzed man “lay in Truth—but could not walk upright in it. Jesus, as the Good of the Truth the man lay in, raises him up. The man sees the Good of all he has known merely as Truth. Then his will, his desire, passes into all he knows, and he begins to live his Truth as Good. Truth was first, because it must be. A man must first learn Truth. But the Good of Truth is prior to Truth, for all Truth only can come from Good. So Truth is really second to its Good. But in time and space a man must learn everything the wrong way round—we must learn Truth first before we perceive and reach its Good. The man who lay in Truth by the side of the pool of Bethesda put Truth first and kept on doing so—and so was always second, always too late. He was second because he took Truth as first. Jesus as the realization of the Good of Truth healed him. The man then put Good first and Truth second and was healed. The miracle is about this deep question of first and second and its reversal. And the reversal makes Good first and Truth second. Then the man is made whole because the wholeness of Truth lies in the realization of its Good. The miracle means supremely that a man, however much Truth he knows, cannot act from it with his will unless he sees its Good, and this is the last stage of Truth called the Sabbath, where Good comes first.” The New Man, p74-75
“If a man begins to act from the Good of what he does and the love of Good itself, he will serve Good and be a servant of Good, and all ideas of authority, place and position, and all ideas of being superior to others, all rivalry, all personal envy and jealousy, and all human ideas of justice and injustice will become non−existent for him. For Good is not a person, and to act from seeing the Good of what one does and taking pleasure in it is to act beyond anything personal. The New Man p84
“Good is the only power that can unite. All harmony is from Good. As long as Good came first, everything else did not matter. A man might hold this view or that, as best suited him, but by putting God first he was in agreement with everyone else who put Good first.” The New Man p64
See also Truth and Good: Inner Evolution
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man refer to Martino Fine Books, Eastford CT, 2019
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