93/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
The life of the deeper Self is manifested in beauty, truth, goodness and harmony. Through their influence the real Being, which lies beneath every finite, human mask, may be appealed to, until it responds in some degree, at least.
The man who has supposed himself to be a mortal creature, obeying the quickening impulse from within, aspires to realize his essential nature, the Divine and Eternal. This is the tale of evolution; as the Divine reaches down to the human in revelation, so the human reaches up to the Divine in realization.
The deeper Self speaks many languages; but every attentive, appreciative listener finds the same story in all, however much they differ in forms of expression. Ranged around the absolute center of life are numerous spheres of expression, each with a circumference or surface of its own, and differing from all others in its mode of expression,
the character of its phenomena, the guise in which ideas present themselves. During the process of human evolution, four such independent world-orders have come to light, gradually, one after another. They may be designated the world of Nature and Art; the world of Religion; the world of Philosophy; and the world of Music.
Within one or another of these worlds, every one may cultivate the acquaintance of his deeper Self the Universal Self, so as to come immediately into the presence of the Infinite, which, to the uninitiated inquirer, seems enshrouded in unfathomable mystery. Thrice happy is he who has obtained access to the soul-realm by all these entrances, and is able through all alike to commune with the Infinite.
Two of these worlds, Nature and Music, are perceived by the faculties of sight and hearing, respectively; the other two, Religion and Philosophy, are discerned intuitively, without the intervention of external sense-mediums peculiarly adapted to reveal them. Both the inner and the outer sight and hearing are susceptible of cultivation, and need equally careful training.
As the deeper Self is manifested outwardly in Nature, so it is manifested inwardly, to the “mind’s eye,” as it were, in Philosophy. As it speaks outwardly in Music, so it speaks inwardly, through the voice of conscience and the moral sensibilities, in Religion.