18/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
The higher consciousness is a never-failing source of expressive power. It is a reservoir from which one may perpetually draw fresh supplies of nervous energy and muscular strength. Spirit, unlike “will power,” is inexhaustible. When allowed free course, it permeates, energizes, and reinvigorates one’s whole system. It works like leaven through all the lower channels of expression.
In its light one grows oblivious to difficulties. Power is due to poise. Doing is the result of being. Action depends on attitude. Energy proceeds from concentration, centering of attention. One cannot give out or distribute more than he possesses. Mind is not the creator of energy and vitality, but only a dispensing medium. Sensation is a matter of consciousness.
An ache or pain ceases as soon as one succeeds in establishing a state of consciousness that is superior to the plane of sensation. One’s thought may dwell on some disagreeable feeling until he is scarcely conscious of anything better in life; but let him be suddenly surprised by the unexpected arrival of a long-absent friend, and the dreaded sensation instantly disappears.
It existed in thought alone. The athlete is not conscious of effort while indulging in a contest that completely absorbs his attention and interest; but should he expend an equal amount of energy in some distasteful pursuit, he would feel the exertion at once. The power that actuates and moves the finite in man is ever at hand, accessible to all who are prepared to receive it.
One has only to come into communication with it to be moved by it, as is the electric car when connected with the feed-wire. The wise man discounts anxiety and suffering, not by evading or trying to escape responsibility, but by looking down on events and circumstances from the vantage-ground of a higher plane, with that quality of consciousness which disarms them of their power to affect him.
The drudge toils on, bewailing his lot and fancying that the difficulty lies in externals over which he has no control. He attributes his hardships to “luck,” fate, or the dispensation of Providence, little dreaming that the situations in which he finds himself are due to a lack of knowledge on his own part.
Even if the particular circumstances that occasion his suffering were removed, he would still be in a position to encounter others possibly more annoying. One’s consciousness of weakness gives such externalities the semblance of power they possess. For the strong-minded there are no terrors; the weak-minded encounter them on every hand.