Month: May 2021

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…

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The endless array of forms in the world, as we interpret it physically, may be likened to separate threads or strands woven into a tapestry. One may trace the courses of individual threads, and even gain an exhaustive knowledge of their several characteristics, without entertaining the slightest idea of their superior worth and significance as necessary portions of the whole fabric. The chief value of the finished product depends on the faithfulness with which it embodies the idea of the designer. However beautiful and perfect the threads may seem individually,…

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Details are indispensable to the realization of a perfectly satisfactory effect. Phenomena that, distinguished separately, seem, in the act of perception, like flaws or blemishes in their relation to the whole, because they suggest imperfection or ugliness, are factors essential to the complete representation. Every detailed expression of a perfect ideal exhibits certain phases that may be construed as imperfect, in a way; and such imperfection must be accounted for, not on the supposition that the ideal is deficient, but solely on the ground of the inadequacy of our method…

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When we analyse the world of finite forms, we perceive evil, suffering, and abnormality. Only when the light of the Absolute Principle radiates through it, is it transformed into a world of beauty, truth, goodness and harmony. The steady, monotonous glare of light, untempered by shade, soon becomes as unendurable as the depressing gloom of darkness, unrelieved by light. Either condition tends to induce blindness. The significance of those factors of experience, commonly regarded as evil, depends on the interpretation we give them. If we regard them as intrinsically evil,…

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Darkness, as a phenomenon of the natural world, denotes merely the absence of light, in a relative degree. Even there, absolute darkness does not exist; it only seems to exist when contrasted with stronger light effects. But the phenomenon of darkness is essential to an appreciation of light effects. The negative element in perception is necessary in order that the positive factor shall be appreciable. One may be fully aware of the true character of a phenomenon, the value of which is purely negative; but that circumstance need not in…

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What explanation can be offered of experiences commonly termed “evil” pain, suffering, conflict, death, and the like.” How can their presence in the world be reconciled with the existence of a Supreme Being who “is love”? What are their true values in the picture of life? How shall we properly estimate their worth in the grand total of experience? Distinctions of good and evil originate in the mind of the thinker; they are not inherent in objects. Objective expressions are pronounced good or bad, according to our attitude toward them.…

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9.THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. Any scheme of philosophy that recognizes evil as a factor to be reckoned with, in dealing with problems of human existence, seems to some persons to savor of pessimism. In whatever light the theme may be presented, in whatever fashion it may be treated, they regard any serious consideration of it as altogether superfluous.They are satisfied either entirely to ignore it, or to dismiss it with the briefest negation. If evil is an illusion, they say, why recognize it, even in a doctrinal way? What profit…

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At present, every human being begins the brief period known as the “earthly life” heavily handicapped by a legacy of materialistic propensities, acquired prenatally; and, in most instances, this subconscious heritage is supplemented and reenforced by conventional education of a similar description; so that, arriving at the point where independent thinking and acting are possible, men find themselves bound hand and foot, like the fly in the spider’s web, by a network of traditional notions and habitual practices from which they must slowly, and often painfully, extricate themselves. All eyes…

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Jesus did not promulgate a creed, establish an organization, or institute a specific reform; yet within a comparatively brief period, the expansive quality of the type of life which he manifested in a supreme degree, yielded the fruits of reform in more abundant measure than any specific reform which has ever been inaugurated. His life contained the potency, not only of social reform, but of far more than that of a complete metamorphosis of humanity. Fixed forms of every description impede, even where they do not absolutely prohibit free growth.…

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A worldly-wise materialism makes strenuous exertions to administer formal justice to a few legally-constituted criminals, while at the same time almost utterly ignoring the subtle forces that are at work, on every hand, sowing seeds of crime, disease and misery in thousands of minds. While men are at work repairing one leak in the outer shell of society, the whole structure is being undermined by insidious forces, which are scarcely recognized by the busy throng who live in externalities in the semblance of things. Attempting to check the ravages of…

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But such was not to be the final issue. That tragic event, which removed the last vestige of hope and courage from the minds of the disciples, marked the beginning of the most comprehensive, fareaching reconstruction of human interests in the world’s history. ” Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it cannot bring forth fruit.” A few years later, the most significant step ever inaugurated toward an improved social order, was taken by the disciples at Jerusalem. It was, indeed, a spontaneous expression of the…

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