15/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
The ideal of Jesus was to the materialist only a wild flight of the imagination, an impracticable dream. But together with the ideal came the power of realization. If we yield ourselves unreservedly to the power of the Absolute within us, and trust It to direct the course of our lives, the realization of our ideals will be spontaneous.
Our failures are due to reliance upon external supports and props. We shrink from casting ourselves loose like the worlds in space, trusting the omnipotent inner law. But if, surrendering antagonism and fear, we allow ourselves to be controlled by the Absolute Power, our ideals will become as magnets, drawing around themselves the conditions necessary for manifestation.
The Infinite in man is free; and because the finite man recognizes this freedom he longs to realize it. He struggles blindly, following the misguiding of personal impulse, relying on “will power” until he finds himself farther than ever from the goal he aspires to reach.
His resolute efforts to unravel the mysteries of life, and loose himself from the entangling web of adverse circumstances, only serve to increase his dilemma and bind him more securely in its meshes; just as the frantic efforts of a fly to escape from a spider’s web hinder instead of furthering its release. The first step, then, toward overcoming the world, is to cease struggling, striving, battling, with imaginary forces as Don Quixote contended with the “windmill giants.”
Nature makes no conscious exertion. The potential energy represented by ocean tides is inconceivable; yet the ocean rises and falls without effort because it is receptive to the attraction of the sun and moon. The plant simply grows, unfolds according to the law of its being. It does not strive to obtain that which is not its natural possession.
Effort is due to friction, and friction results from opposition. While perfectly poised, one is not conscious of friction; it ceases when one comes into harmony with the All-conscious on the spiritual plane. Consciousness of effort, then, indicates lack of poise.
In exercising “will power” one descends to the plane of force, where friction prevails. By recognizing obstacles on that plane, and meeting them as real foes, one creates for himself difficulties that would not otherwise exist.
He clothes finite things with a degree of reality they do not possess. He ascribes real qualities to the semblance of things. It is the finite in us that feels the necessity of overcoming; the Infinite has nothing to overcome.