76/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

When we analyse the world of finite forms, we perceive evil, suffering, and abnormality. Only when the light of the Absolute Principle radiates through it, is it transformed into a world of beauty, truth, goodness and harmony. The steady, monotonous glare of light, untempered by shade, soon becomes as unendurable as the depressing gloom of darkness, unrelieved by light.

Either condition tends to induce blindness. The significance of those factors of experience, commonly regarded as evil, depends on the interpretation we give them. If we regard them as intrinsically evil, instead of attaching to them only such incidental importance as they possess by way of revealing a deeper Universal consciousness, they seem to suggest the existence of some malevolent power, actuated by a diabolical purpose.

Heroism that faces difficulties construed as essentially evil, often presages despair; but faith that comprehends their true nature, enables one to surmount them, and cause them to be instrumental in yielding a deeper soul-consciousness. So, while evil is not absolutely real, it plays, even as a phenomenon, an important part in the drama of life.

Any single object or experience, regarded in the partial sense as a fragment, provokes a certain feeling of dissatisfaction. In one’s inmost Being one longs for perfection, completeness, infinity; yet a state of existence into which the conception of partiality (implying a complementary something unrealized) did not enter, would be one of such unrelieved monotony that spiritual blindness would ensue.

In a great work of art, the unity of completeness is attained through a combination of individual effects. The execution of all its details is controlled by the creative Spirit, manifested through a perfect ideal. Its success depends on the faithfulness with which each component part contributes its share to some larger effect, so that, comprehended as a whole, the work will give perfect satisfaction.

Any career consisting of a steady, unbroken flow of pleasurable experiences would, in its entire aspect, produce an impression not altogether agreeable. Every satisfying effect, whether derived from a work of art or a life of active effort, is due to the presence of elements that, observed apart from the whole, are disappointing, perhaps even ugly.

Analysis conceals harmony and ideal perfection, while synthesis reveals them. The way life appears, depends on our attitude toward it whether we try to arrive at a just estimate of it through its details, or interpret its details in the light of its completeness as an ideal unit.