64/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

8.
THE GROWTH OF SOCIETY.

Undoubtedly the most important contribution of the nineteenth century to the store of human knowledge is the doctrine of evolution. We know now that from time immemorial the hidden things of the spiritual world have been coming forth into manifestation in the visible universe through an orderly process of unfolding. From a finite standpoint, everything appears to grow, to evolve, in accordance with absolutely exact, universal laws.

The life of the individual is a growth.
The life of the race is a growth.
Our world seems to be a complicated entanglement of forces and interests when we regard it simply as a struggle amongst individuals, in which only the strongest can survive; but it blends into a consistent expression when we lose the finite, personal thought in the Universal consciousness, and view life from its true center.

To do this we must break down the walls of dogmatism, materialism, and selfishness which finite thought has built around us, and which shut out the spiritual vision. In feudal days men sought to protect their lives and fortunes by intrenching themselves in impregnable strongholds and establishing their supremacy as individuals sundered from the body of society.

But later there came a violent reaction to balance the equation. Man is no more fitted to live in isolation than is an atom of matter to remain apart from others of its kind. Both alike are endowed with natures that compel them to seek alliances and enter into combinations which tend to produce more highly organic forms. True individualism can only be realized through co-operation.

This is a law of Being. The highest specialization in the several members of the human body is effected through their organic unity in a perfect whole.
Growth has generally been regarded as a consequence of getting, acquiring, and absorbing. But according to the spiritual view, exactly the reverse of this is true it is due to the impulse to give out, to share, to co-operate, to part with the exclusive life by losing it in a larger existence.

He grows most who realizes most of the spirit of giving, losing, abandoning, sacrificing the lower things of life for the greater good.
“Whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”