98/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
The different forms simply represent particular modes in which it is manifested. The ideal human life calls for such all-around development as is afforded by intercourse with the Infinite through every possible avenue of spiritual discernment. One is in danger of growing ill-balanced by exclusively following any special bent.
The pursuit of a “hobby” tends to warp and deform one’s life, until its poise and symmetry are destroyed. The hermit, the religious fanatic, the morbid mystic, the musical monomaniac, are illustrations of this tendency. The ideal life reaches out in all directions, and is open to influences from all sources. Its various talents are unified, as the colored rays of the spectrum blend in the white light.
Many scholars and business men who regard an occasional sojourn among the mountains or at the seashore as quite indispensable, almost entirely ignore the benefits they might also derive from contemplating the universal aspect of life through other channels.
Speaking comparatively, how few people enjoy the invigorating, stimulating atmosphere of the thought-world! How few cultivate the spiritual vision by which the ideal world is inwardly perceptible! How few, too, seek recreation and strength in the revitalizing world of Music!
As we probe beneath the plane of phenomena, we enter a realm of pure ideas, discernible by the spiritual faculty, but not by the senses or the intellect. In dream visions we are sometimes aware of the presence of ideas which are intangible and indescribable because they are not clothed informs recognizable by the lower faculties.
In waking moments, also, we are sometimes conscious of ideas too elusive to be embodied in words. The ideal substance of things is capable of formulation in all modes of expression. The same essential ideas appear in different guises. Certain descriptive adjectives apply equally well to phenomena of all worlds of expression.
We characterize natural objects, emotions, thoughts and tones alike, as broad, deep or substantial, brilliant or subdued, sharp, rough or dull.
We are conscious of harmony in Nature, and of beauty in Music.