79/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
To appreciate the beauty and grandeur of the music in its entirety, we must get outside the din and inharmony attending the technical rendering of its several parts, and assume the standpoint of the conductor, or the composer. Then, for the first time, the work would appeal to us as harmonious and inspiring.
Every detail of the performance would thus become intelligible, and more deeply significant than it would have been possible for it to appear without the practical observations acquired through experiences that were, in themselves, perhaps vexatious and well-nigh unendurable; for we would then be fitted to understand the importance of each part in its relation to the others, and its ultimate bearing on the whole production.
Therefore, we would be able to view the whole situation both critically and appreciatively, and to realize the fullest meaning of all we had seen and heard. The facts of din and dissonance would be just as certain as while we felt the depressing influence of their spell; but they would no longer remain in evidence; for the grander idea of the whole composition would so overwhelm them as to transform ugliness into beauty.
Suffering and disappointment may be very much in evidence in the finite consciousness; but their import depends altogether on the plane from which one regards them. They play a most important part as agencies in awakening men from the sluggish repose of ignorance and selfishness, on the lower planes of consciousness.
Some awaken slowly and reluctantly, only after being repeatedly aroused by most distressing experiences; but then the need of awakening is most imperative. We live in dreams until the burden of suffering becomes unendurable, and impels us to awaken to consciousness of Reality.
Suffering in dreams may be most intense; but when, on awakening, we realize the nature of our misery, it is forgotten in the joy attending the discovery of a more real state. Intensity does not indicate reality. Forces that clash most violently, are soonest spent. Evil symptoms are transient and suicidal.
From the universal point of view, we may know life, not in dreams, but in the full light of awakened consciousness. Above all the hardships, pain, dis- cord, and even the horrors that invade the realm of finite conceptions, we may delight in the eternal harmony that attends the consciousness of an infinite Reality.