5/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
The process of evolution reveals growth through a succession of stages. The inner life develops each form to its utmost capacity, until, transcending its limits, it appears in the guise of a higher one. The insect larva passes through a succession of moults, discarding each outgrown form for a fresh one representing a higher stage of development.
Catastrophe, or seeming destruction, is but the ushering in of a new order of existence; and that which appears to be death is only transition to higher conditions of life. Every dogma contains the seed of its own destruction, for it implies the possibility of a permanent conception.
Throughout the world’s history, thought has been in almost complete bondage to dogmatism. Now and then, however, certain individuals have realized perfect freedom of thought; but usually, each formulation has been treated by its adherents as final in its own domain. Nevertheless, the entire realm of mind is one; and change of ideas in a single department of thought often involves the readjustment of a whole scheme.
Theologians, scientists and philosophers have contemplated life from independent standpoints. Not only have they antagonized each other, but they have been at variance among themselves. Each one has asserted his own views in opposition to all others, until chaos of conflicting claims ensued.
Each has insisted upon the supremacy of his own opinions, only to have them superseded in turn by others for which equal authority was claimed. Each purported to hold the unalloyed truth. But men are beginning to see that beliefs about truth are not the Truth; that conceptions, to be of value, must be sufficiently elastic to admit of unlimited readjustment and modification.
However exhaustively we study the world from any standpoint, we have only to assume a different one, or to view it from another plane, to find our former conception replaced by a new one. Theologians, scientists and philosophers are coming to recognize and consider the claims of one another.
Not one, without the aid of the others, can see the full significance of even the smallest fact of life. Like the radii of a circle when considered as starting from different points on the circumference, they all converge toward a common center.
The Truth can be dealt with only on its own plane. The world is still attempting to solve its problems upon the plane suggested in the query of the woman of Samaria—whether men ought to worship “in this mountain” or in Jerusalem. No true answer could be given upon the plane of such an inquiry, for it revealed a misconception of the very idea of worship. When the true nature of worship was understood, the alternative implied in the question was no longer possible.