82/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
10.
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF HEALTH.
Viewed from its absolute center, life appears to be a perfect unit; while from any eccentric point, its proportions seem more or less distorted, and an infinite number of independent centers are seen. Each eccentric observer, on discovering what he imagines to be an unbalanced whole, tries to rectify matters, as far as possible, by forcing an adjustment of the world around his finite standpoint.
But every effort of this description serves to aggravate the difficulty by conflicting with a Universal purpose. No man can comprehend his relation to the world, or find abiding peace and satisfaction, until he discovers that a common center exists for all lives, and then comes into a sympathetic relation with its attracting influence. ” Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
The highest ideal of healing is self-revelation the discovery of one’s correct relation to the absolute center of Being. Only by apprehending the significance of life in its totality, by appreciating not alone its individual phases, but its universal phase as well, can complete, permanent harmony be established in one’s life.
Effort is not necessary; but, rather, renunciation of effort, and recognition of the fact that all expressive power proceeds from an absolute center. True efficiency, and personally directed effort, are contrary to one another; they increase and diminish in an inverse ratio. Great truths are marvelously simple; only error is mystifying.
Even the most perplexing mathematical problem becomes easy when the fundamental principle involved is once grasped. Any instrumentality that leads one to be conscious of a deeper selfhood serves as a healing medium. It may be an objective event or personality, or a purely subjective experience.
It sometimes happens that when individuals imagine themselves face to face with death, and feel that their finite lives are about to suffer dissolution, they for the first time discover the Absolute Principle as the basis of their lives; and, through consciousness of spiritual vitality thus gained, bodily vigor is renewed.
The existence of an eternal Reality is a fact too simple for one to discover while enchanted by the glamour of illusory phenomena; but when they fade from sight, it stands clearly forth. There are moments in the life of every human being, when he realizes something of the Absolute.
For a time the perplexing problems, doubts and distractions of ordinary life vanish; then the vision fades, and is remembered only as an indistinct dream. But, in truth, ordinary consciousness is the dream, and those rarer experiences the real life.