Month: May 2021

On the inferior planes of consciousness, our outer world seems essentially foreign to us, excluded from our self-life, a mighty mechanism, the motive power of which is blind force, devoid of intelligence and lacking soulful qualities. Conscious only of impotence inwardly, we are fairly overwhelmed by this show of external forces. But as we slowly awaken from the state of lethargy or inertia that furnishes the basis of such a conception of self, and makes such a construction of life possible, as we affirm our deeper selfhood and more fully…

6.CONSCIOUSNESS. The more we study the world of externals, the objective world we imagine to exist distinctly outside of us, the more we appropriate, build into our thought ideas presented to us objectively, the larger our conception of life grows, and the more we realize of selfhood subjectively; and, conversely, the more we think, expand mentally, the larger and richer our outer world grows. We note such an intimate correspondence between the two worlds that it is at once evident that they sustain very close relations to each other, and…

The eternal life is not a dream of the future; it is without beginning or end, centered in the eternal NOW.Outer phenomena are symbols of inner experiences. We are acquainted with matter in solid, liquid, and gaseous states. When any solid substance is exposed to a definite degree of heat, it is reduced to a liquid. Likewise, when the temperature rises to a definite point still higher, the liquid becomes a volatile gas. Through the influence of heat, ice is converted into water, and water into steam. In the solid…

Every man is conscious of a self in which his separate, personal experiences are so unified that he knows them to spring from a single source. Waking and sleeping, he preserves his identity from day to day and from year to year. But if we readily associate expressions separated in time with one self, it is equally true that we may assume a broader basis by extending our thought so that it shall associate expressions separated in space with one self. Jesus’ thought of self embraced all mankind. He said:…

But are these fleeting phenomena all there is of life? Are they not, rather, like scintillating sparks thrown off by our deeper, Universal life, as it moves majestically on through eternity, altogether unperceived by the materialistic vision? Are they not, in the deepest sense, expressions of a Universal Self underlying and manifesting itself in all appearances? As the perennial plant sends up fresh shoots in the spring, which grow and flourish, and die at the approach of winter, so the unseen, the real life, manifests itself in these myriad finite…

It is this conception of life which prompts altruism, philanthropy, humanitarianism.According to an ancient Roman legend, there opened in the Forum a yawning chasm, which the soothsayers declared could be closed only through the sacrifice of Rome’s choicest possession. Thereupon the noble Curtius mounted his horse and rode headlong into the abyss, which immediately closed over him. Innumerable heroes have sacrificed their personal lives for family and country. Hosts of martyrs have given their bodies to be burned, rather than surrender allegiance to principle. Among the lower animals, birds and…

An illustration of the narrowest imaginable thought of life is furnished by the individual who considers only the amount of personal gratification the present moment can be made to afford, e.g. the habitual drunkard, the reckless sensualist. His thought, which embraces but a single instant of his own career in a personal sense, denotes an essentially animal type of life. Even on the lowest distinctly human plane, the individual who considers simply his own interests, usually looks ahead and takes into account, in some measure at least, the probable result…

The kind of thought necessary to estimate and compare facts, events, opinions, has breadth as well as duration; it extends in more than one direction of time. This is the distinctively intellectual type of thought. It exhibits different degrees of intensity, as do colors in space, but it suggests only superficial qualities. In space we see only the surfaces of bodies; yet we have evidence of their substantial quality, although none of the physical senses reveal it, because, holding the three-dimensional conception of space, we are obliged to see objects…

5.THE INNER WORLD. Space pertains to the perception of things outwardly, as they are represented in objective relations.Time pertains to their perception inwardly, as they are represented in subjective relations. Every person is familiar with the three dimensional conception of space; but comparatively few people are accustomed to think of time in that way. Yet a three dimensional conception of time is just as essential to an adequate comprehension of the subjective phases of life, as is a three dimensional conception of space to such a comprehension of its objective…

But as we have already indicated, both size and number have only apparent values in bodily distinctions; so that we have no absolute standard by which to estimate matter, either in regard to its dimensions or the number of units it expresses. Both considerations depend on the observer’s standpoint. The absolute significance of number is expressed in the unit the basis of enumeration and infinity. Two lines may diverge from a point, but that point may be conceived to exist anywhere in an ideal scale that extends indefinitely in both…

Every body of which we have any accurate knowledge occupies a position in the midst of the scale in regard to size, being apparently neither the largest nor the smallest in existence. We might, under suitable conditions, be able to determine the exact number of units of a certain sort in any particular body we choose to designate; or we might at least form some kind of an estimate of their number; at all events we are sure that an exact number of such units does exist in that particular…

The idea of the relative value of size must already have occurred to us, in following this discussion. We have no absolute standard of size. Any line may be considered either long or short, according to the length of our measuring rule. If we measure with an inch rule, a yard-stick seems long; if with a ten-foot pole, it seems short. To one riding in an express train, a mile seems short; to the creeping infant, it seems long. By conceiving space to be infinite, we imply that our standard…