Spiritual Consciousness E-Book

Frank H. Sprague

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Experience the life-changing power of Frank H. Sprague with this unforgettable book.

Leseprobe

Spiritual Consciousness

Frank H. Sprague

Preface

The closing years of the nineteenth century seem in many respects the most significant in human history.

Men have fed on the dry husks of materialism until they are crying out for food which satisfies the craving of their higher nature. The extent to which this hunger is felt is indicated by the widespread interest manifested in the spiritual aspect of life. The doctrines of Spiritualism, Christian Science, Mental Science, Spiritual Healing, the “New Thought and Theosophy are outgrowths of an earnest desire to possess the inmost kernel of life concealed within its material husk. Nor is this awakening confined to the disciples of these new faiths alone. It is everywhere apparent among longer established bodies of believers, and in the minds of a host of independent truth-seekers.

The tendency of the age is toward unity in all departments of life. This little volume is the outcome of an independent search for the spiritual view-point. It seeks to interpret human experience and the latest revelations of science from that view-point.

False ideals are at the root of all failure, dissatisfaction, misery, despair, degradation and strife; and false ideals are due to a wrong view-point. Choice of view-point, then, is the fundamental consideration upon which all the issues of life depend. The purpose of the following pages is suggestive rather than instructive. When one discerns the real meaning of the spiritual view-point, he may safely trust “the Spirit of Truth” to guide him “into all the truth.”

F. H. S.

Wollaston, Mass.,

December 1, 1898

Signs of the Times

An inborn craving for knowledge forever impels the mind to reach out in all directions for an unknown something with which to satisfy its desires. Attention is at first attracted by the outer world of objects—appearances that appeal to the senses. But after analyzing all that the senses can perceive, and even carrying the process by inductive reasoning and aid of the imagination far beyond the boundaries of actual sense perception, it finds itself no nearer the goal of its search than at the outset. In fact, it finds itself farther than ever from the complete satisfaction of its desire for knowledge; for it begins to realize that there is no ultimate boundary line for the world of physical manifestation. The mind goes on and on, in its efforts to conceive the magnitude and extent of something which has no limits either in space or time, until it sinks in utter amazement and bewilderment, overcome by a sense of the impossibility of ever accomplishing the task it has undertaken. But the result of this very experience has given birth to a new idea—infinity. That word, hitherto vague and meaningless, now comes to stand for a reality.

Investigation, which heretofore has been directed almost exclusively to the outside of life, now turns to the inside as well. To be sure, we continue to study phenomena, but with a new thought of their nature and significance. They seem no longer of primary, but only of secondary importance. Mind is no longer regarded as an adjunct to matter or an emanation from it. Its capacity is no longer that of a revealer of supposed physical reality; but, vice versa, it is seen to be not only superior to the physical which it reveals, but creator of it. In the last analysis we are driven from the phenomenal world and compelled to take refuge in mind, which is then self-revealed. Material and spiritual, physical and metaphysical, are the opposite poles of mental energy. Intelligence requires both. Man is a microcosm of the universe. The individual is a type of the race; and we have only to study his nature deeply enough to find in him all principles and tendencies existent in larger social organisms.

Ever and anon, in the world’s history, the mind of man has been seized with an irresistible passion for investigation and exploration. The tendency to consider first the outer, and afterward the inner side of life, is characteristic of the race as well as of the individual. When the mind of civilization awoke out of its slumber during the night of medieval darkness, a new light dawned upon it. As one rising in the morning after a sound sleep, with vigor renewed and faculties alert, it began to reach out and extend the horizon of its knowledge on all sides. A wealth of hitherto hidden treasures of intellectual and practical value opened to its view.

Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Guttenberg, Watt and many other immortal names designate this period as the most notable in the world’s history in its bearings upon physical discovery and invention. But such marvelous growth in ideas relating to the outer world must needs have had its counterpart in the unfoldment of spiritual thought. The fulfilment of this necessity was realized in the Idealism whose exponents include Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer. Thus we find a balance preserved between physical and metaphysical conceptions.

We may note a repetition, more recently, of substantially the same conditions. The nineteenth century has been characterized by a degree of scientific research unparalleled in history. Enthusiasm for material investigation, which called forth Darwin, Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, Agassiz and a host of others, is even now having its natural result in an increasing interest in the spiritual aspect of life. A predominance of the materialistic tendency in the philosophical conceptions of the former period, has led to a reaction, already manifested in the growing disposition, everywhere apparent, to consider all questions, both theoretically and practically, from a spiritual standpoint. Never before would a thoroughly systematic and intelligent study of the inner meaning and relations of life have been feasible.

The inductive method has been applied to every department of knowledge relating to the outer world, until sciences have been established, one after another, upon a basis of fact. They are now studied not only individually, but relatively, as interdependent branches—as integrant parts of one complex system, each of which throws some light upon others and gives a larger significance to all. But physical sciences take account of only one side of life—the outer. When they have been pursued to their utmost capacity, elements of experience still remain unaccounted for, which cannot be brought within their scope. We are then obliged to ascend to other planes, and view the world from the standpoint of its psychical and spiritual sides. While man regarded himself as only a material being—the highest species of the animal kingdom—it is not surprising that this thought should have been projected in the form of an anthropomorphic God. While he considered the world a collection of separately created objects, it was inevitable that he should have conceived of a God external to the human soul. But with the growth of spiritual consciousness, he began to look within as well as without.

“I searched for God with heart-throbs of despair,

‘Neath ocean’s bed, above the vaulted sky;

At last I searched myself, my inmost I,

And found him there.”

The negative materialism, skepticism and pessimism of the recent past are already giving place for spiritual activity born of faith and positive assurance. Evidences of a regenerating force are everywhere present in the social organism. The spirit of freedom, which at present characterizes intellectual and moral conceptions, is apparent also in the industrial and economic world. There, too, events are steadily tending toward a climax. The purified intellectual atmosphere, which enables us to attain to a more spiritual consciousness, also affords glimpses of a new social dominated by love instead of selfishness, which will yet emerge from the current strifes and controversies of the material plane. All indications point toward an approaching adjustment of life on a spiritual basis. Earnest efforts along every line are simultaneously converging to this end.

The close of the nineteenth century marks a decided epoch in human progress. All indications point to the speedy advent of an era in which a new, spiritual type of man, and consequently a new society will prevail. Manifold theories and aims, exercised along independent lines, need the unifying power of some great life which shall embody them in practical shape. Such an incarnation alone can bring them into vital relation to the lives of people of all classes.

Every age which has been distinguished by the development of any vitally important idea has appealed to the world through its leader or prophet. Moses, Confucius, Gautama, Jesus and Luther were exponents of mighty tides of human unfoldment. Their insight and spiritual power made them incarnations of the thoughts and aspirations of thousands of lives. Behind each of these representative characters were racial tendencies and purposes seeking expression in the profound life of a great soul, and calling for utterance in the comprehensive declarations of a great mind. The “word made flesh” is the culmination of every great revelation.

The prophet of the coming era—the exponent of its highest ideals—will be endowed with insight profound enough to comprehend the practical as well as the theoretical needs of the hour; for it will be his mission to make the ideal things of life practical, and its practical things ideal. Thought and action, word and deed, need to be brought into perfect unity and harmony on the plane of the broadest human attainments of the present day. On every hand spontaneous movements, representing some phase of social, moral or spiritual advancement, are preparing the way, and hastening the consummation of this end. The spirit of expectancy which everywhere pervades society must sooner or later find its fulfilment in a leader who shall unite in one brotherhood all those who seek a solution of life’s problems upon the spiritual plane, and look for the revival and permanent establishment of the kingdom of heaven among men.

What is Truth?

The skeptic, the bigot and the seer are typical representatives of three distinct attitudes which men entertain toward the Truth. Individuals of each of these classes are equally positive in their convictions, equally certain that their particular views are correct. How, then, is it possible for one to decide whether that which appeals to him with such emphasis as true is the Truth, or not? By what test can one distinguish truth from error?

There are two kinds of knowledge:—that which pertains to facts, and that which pertains to principles. The former is relative, changeable, for facts are susceptible of a variety of interpretations, depending on the view-point of the observer. The latter is absolute, unchangeable, for principles do not admit of interpretation. Facts are apparent; principles are real. Knowledge of principles alone is perfectly trustworthy, for it is not subject to revision or adaptation. Principles are discerned, appreciated by intuition; they are axiomatic. Facts are perceived, understood by the intellect. Intuition reveals the Truth immediately, without an intervening process of interpretation. The intellect stands in the capacity of a commentator on the Truth. It doubts, questions, argues, reasons, explains, believes; but it can furnish no absolute assurance that its conclusions are final. It sees truth in conceptions. No conception should be held as a finality, but only as the best view compatible with present discernment of truth, and with the recognition that it must yield to something better when we realize truth more perfectly.

The process of evolution reveals growth through a succession of stages. The inner life develops each form to its utmost capacity, until, transcending its limits, it appears in the guise of a higher one. The insect larva passes through a succession of moults, discarding each outgrown form for a fresh one representing a higher stage of development. Catastrophe, or seeming destruction, is but the ushering in of a new order of existence; and that which appears to be death is only transition to higher conditions of life.

Every dogma contains the seed of its own destruction, for it implies the possibility of a permanent conception. Throughout the world’s history, thought has been in almost complete bondage to dogmatism. Now and then, however, certain individuals have realized perfect freedom of thought; but usually, each formulation has been treated by its adherents as final in its own domain. Nevertheless, the entire realm of mind is one; and change of ideas in a single department of thought often involves the readjustment of a whole scheme.

Theologians, scientists and philosophers have contemplated life from independent standpoints. Not only have they antagonized each other, but they have been at variance among themselves. Each one has asserted his own views in opposition to all others, until chaos of conflicting claims ensued. Each has insisted upon the supremacy of his own opinions, only to have them superseded in turn by others for which equal authority was claimed. Each purported to hold the unalloyed truth. But men are beginning to see that beliefs about truth are not the Truth; that conceptions, to be of value, must be sufficiently elastic to admit of unlimited readjustment and modification.

However exhaustively we study the world from any standpoint, we have only to assume a different one, or to view it from another plane, to find our former conception replaced by a new one. Theologians, scientists and philosophers are coming to recognize and consider the claims of one another. Not one, without the aid of the others, can see the full significance of even the smallest fact of life. Like the radii of a circle when considered as starting from different points on the circumference, they all converge toward a common center.

The Truth can be dealt with only on its own plane. The world is still attempting to solve its problems upon the plane suggested in the query of the woman of Samaria—whether men ought to worship “in this mountain” or in Jerusalem. No true answer could be given upon the plane of such an inquiry, for it revealed a misconception of the very idea of worship. When the true nature of worship was understood, the alternative implied in the question was no longer possible.

Conceptions are at best only suggestive. They cannot comprehend the Truth, for that is infinite and transcends all possibility of perfect formulation. They can only indicate the direction in which it lies, the atmosphere in which it exists. They are its ever-changing body, which the dogmatist mistakes for the soul. They are its appearance, not its reality. The forms of our conceptions must necessarily be deduced from experience.

At the surface of life is manifold expression in infinite variety, apparently without unity of source, or direction of purpose. If we dwell upon the surface, we are borne around, knowing neither whence nor whither. Phenomena seem the only realities. But as we turn inward and seek its center, obeying a spiritual attraction, we begin to discern the unreality of phenomena. Only when the universal center becomes the individual’s center, does he find perfect repose. Past and future are lost in an eternal present. Existence seems no longer fragmentary, but one complete whole. Confusion, contradiction and inharmony no longer prevail. The most intricate problems reach a simple solution. From this standpoint both center and circumference are perceivable, and the whole is comprehensible; while from the surface neither circumference nor center is recognizable, and the mind knows not even its own relative position.

At the center alone is absolute knowledge possible. There the individual comes into harmony with the Universal and shares its consciousness. Thought and feeling are no longer distinct experiences, but are merged in realization. We know what truth is because we experience the Truth. This was the standpoint of Jesus. He spoke with absolute authority: “I and my Father are one;” “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” The Pharisees, who judged according to appearances from the outer instead of the inner standpoint, were astonished at his wisdom: “Whence hath this man knowledge, never having learned?” To the dogmatist of today the idea of wisdom which is independent of learning is just as incomprehensible. He insists that it must bear the stamp of the schools, or be accompanied by some external authority, in order to be genuine. The great world still thinks of truth as something to be known outwardly, instead of appreciated inwardly. It sees it only in conceptions; it does not realize it.

If we are to be free, in the truest sense, we must be released from bondage to belief. We must conquer the intellect, and make it our servant, instead of permitting it to be our master. We must assume a standpoint above the plane of understanding, so as to be able to control our thinking, and not allow it to control us. The vast majority of people, knowingly or ignorantly, merely reflect the opinions of others in intellectual matters, instead of developing original tendencies of thinking. Just at present it is comparatively easy for most persons to forsake old beliefs and conceptions for newer ones. These are days of transition, of revision, of reconstruction, in the world of thought. It is now, indeed, more natural for progressive minds to accept new forms of belief than to cling to old ones. So general is this disposition, so widespread has become the tendency to adopt new ways of thinking, that, unless one is extremely careful, he is in danger of yielding to a “fad” in changing his views. History proves that when any reconstructive movement has once gained sufficient headway, new recruits flock eagerly to its support. But, after all, the significance of such movements does not lie so much in the superiority of the new doctrines they proclaim as in the spirit evinced by considerable numbers of people identified with them to become independent truth-seekers, instead of to adhere tenaciously to any single phase or expression of truth. In time, however, a large proportion of the champions of new doctrines allow themselves to come into bondage to them, just as have men, in times past, to older ones. History constantly repeats itself. Principles, vital truths, give rise to doctrines, and in turn doctrines degenerate into dogmas. It is the dogmatic spirit rather than allegiance to any particular belief that stamps one a bondservant of thought instead of a free man. Every dogma is a dry, shriveled husk that once contained the seeds of a vital truth. Men recognize the familiar external form, and by association confound it with the spiritual essence it once embodied. But the living germ has already fallen into the ground where, warmed and nourished by the revitalizing influences of faith and love, it is again growing into manifestation in fresh forms. Such is the common history of all beliefs. Doctrines, philosophies and theologies are born, grow, bear fruit and die. “Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it cannot bear fruit.”

Every belief is destined at some time to be outgrown and cast aside. He who pins his faith to beliefs, ancient or modern, builds on an unstable foundation. The free man is absolved even from the desire for a permanent system of thought. Just now we need to be exceedingly careful lest, in our enthusiasm for a newly discovered ideal, we establish a dogma of healing. The final word in this matter has not yet been spoken,—in fact it never can be spoken in any matter with which the intellect has to deal. Every man believes what he believes because of his particular view-point. The free man recognizes the utter dependence of belief upon viewpoint. Instead of asserting that what appears to him in the form of intellectual conceptions is the Truth, he treats his views rather as working hypotheses. To attempt to put truth into rigid forms, implies a misconception of its very nature. For convenience we may try to formulate it, but always with the realization that each result is merely tentative and a steppingstone to a higher one, in endless progression, as our experience enlarges. Creeds are but “milestones on the road to truth.” The man whose inner world is based on definite beliefs is in much the same quandary as the ancients who fancied that the earth rested on the back of a huge elephant, which in turn stood on a tortoise. But what supported the tortoise? That seems to have rested on the credulity of the believer. An absolute first cause can never be arrived at by reasoning back from specific effects to their antecedent causes. In order to obtain a truer inward view of the world, we must relinquish the view-point we have hitherto held. We shall then see that absolute truth is independent of all fixed beliefs and authority. Spirit is self-constituted, self-sufficient, self-sustaining, not mind-created or subject to the dominion of thought. It is necessary repeatedly to tear away formulas and dogmas—deposits of thought filtered through the intellect and crystallized around the spiritual nucleus of life. Open-mindedness is the key that unlocks the door of the intellect, and gives one access to the spiritual realm. He who bars this door with dogmas and creeds cannot know the essence of truth.

Agnosticism and skepticism have dealt some heroic blows at lingering, decaying forms from which the Spirit had departed, lopping off and pruning away the dead wood of dogmatism to make way for fresh expressions of a vital character. Honest skepticism is like fire, consuming the dross, and leaving only the genuine substance of truth unscathed. A positive, vital faith is impervious to the thrusts of such negative weapons as doubt and unbelief. They can only prevail where faith is in decadence and the dry rot of conventionality has set in. As beliefs are outgrown and discarded, many timid persons entertain the gravest apprehension lest the disappearance of old forms shall involve the destruction of faith and the annihilation of all that men have reverenced in the past. By confounding faith with belief, by associating the Truth with its instruments or agents, they are led to assume that if certain of the latter are put aside because no longer adequate to meet present needs and conditions, no vital power will survive capable of effecting a reconstruction of life upon a broader basis. They do not recognize an eternal Principle beneath all metamorphoses. The casting off of superfluous opinions and conceptions that have already fulfilled their period of usefulness is indicative of a deeper life at work making for larger ends. As newly formed leaf-buds expand, they force the past season’s dried foliage to loosen its hold and fall to earth, thereby preparing the way for a fuller growth of fresh leaves.

Slaves of belief may be separated into two classes:—those who judge every idea in the light of their preconceived opinions, holding tenaciously to a particular philosophy or creed which serves them as a touchstone by which to estimate all new revelations of truth; and those who, although not hopelessly or permanently committed to the views they now hold, are, nevertheless, slaves of belief because they substitute in their lives one or another form of belief for the Principle of principles. The former class cannot properly be termed truth-seekers at all, for they are unwilling to abandon outgrown conceptions for more serviceable ones. The man who never changes his views is, indeed, hopelessly in the dark. He is like a person who should refuse to change his clothing lest he might thereby forfeit his identity. The dogmatist does not profit by the experiences of past generations. In the clearer light of the future, our most advanced conceptions will seem crude and even in a way absurd, as do those of former periods to us today. The radical of yesterday is the conservative of today; the “crank” of today may prove the sage of tomorrow. Every truly great scientist is imbued with the spirit of reverence, not that of arrogance. It is a characteristic trait of the dogmatist to regard the knowledge of his own time as the grand consummation of all past thinking. He fancies that, however ignorant and conceited former generations may have been, the full light of truth has now, at length, burst upon the world. Yet in the evolution of knowledge it is necessary continually to abandon outgrown theories after they have served their purpose as stepping-stones to a more perfect understanding of truth.

The doctrine of the “new birth” is founded on a universal principle. Beneath the distorted conception of conversion taught in the “old theology,” is a fact of experience that finds new emphasis in each successive epoch of the world’s unfoldment. Before any human being can appreciate his right relation to the universe, it is necessary for him to utterly forsake the viewpoint he accepted on entering this sphere of finite thought, the earthly life,—to cease relying on intellectual impressions as the basis of absolute knowledge. Through the spiritual re-birth, one emerges from the darkness of that realm into the light of an absolute or axiomatic consciousness. Thus the Truth makes one free. “Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” i.e., the realm of Spirit.

Realization of Ideals Through Right-Thinking

Our subject contains three elementary ideas— Ideals, Right-Thinking, and Realization. Let us consider Ideals first. What is an ideal? The word Idea, from which the adjective and the noun Ideal are formed, is derived from the Greek to see. An ideal is primarily, then, something that is seen.

We may define it as The Absolute seen through relative conditions. Those conditions are due to limitations in our thought. Ideas are like pictures on a screen. When we look through them at the light of the Absolute Principle, it transforms them into ideals. Ideals would be impossible without its illuminating power. Both the absolute and relative elements are necessary to their existence. Thought paints on the screen of time and space an outer world, through which this light shines.

“Forever at the loom of time I ply,

And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.”

We cannot know the Absolute fully or perfectly from relative planes of consciousness; and so, as we journey through the realm of transient, finite experiences, since our thought is perpetually changing, our ideals change correspondingly; but they go ever before us like the “pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night,” indicating the direction of the absolute realm where thought is consummated by perfect realization.

To illustrate: Our attention is attracted by some character which seems to us a perfect expression of goodness; i. e., the Absolute Principle discerned through that character, appears to us as goodness, for that Principle, shining through it, radiates in goodness. The same Absolute Principle, discerned through some external form, appears to us as beauty; discerned through some inward thought, it appears to us as truth. In a masterpiece of music it is revealed to us as harmony. Any medium through which we see the Absolute, becomes idealized for us. But as our thought-attitudes change, our ideals change too; we see the Absolute in new forms instead of the old ones,—in other characters, other works of art, other thoughts, other harmonies. We discern the Absolute intuitively, and are drawn toward it wherever we discern it, by the soul’s law of gravitation— love—because we are absolute in our essential nature. It is “the light that lighteth every man coming into the world.” Every soul-center in the moral world is as truly a center of attraction as is every physical center in the natural world. Its attracting power is determined by the degree in which it manifests the Absolute. The Absolute is revealed to us with ever-increasing fullness as the veil of our thought becomes finer and more spiritual. On the lower planes of consciousness our vision is so clouded by a grossly materialistic thought web that we are led to regard it as only a myth, the phantom of a dream, instead of the very source of life. But as our thought reaches more spiritual altitudes, our vision grows clearer, and doubt dissolves in faith. In proportion, then, as we attain to higher planes of consciousness, our ideal visions approach absolute perfection, for the finite, relative elements become less pronounced.

But what do we mean by Right-thinking? The character of our thinking determines the nature of our ideals. If our thought is engrossed with the things of the lower realms of sense and understanding, it loses itself in a maze of contradiction, confusion and doubt. We are sure to be betrayed whenever we allow revelations of pure intuition to be conditioned by, or subordinated to, evidence furnished by the lower faculties, no matter how cogent their evidence may be within their respective spheres. Neither sensation nor understanding can transcend its own circle. As reason often refutes evidence furnished by the senses, so, in turn, intuition frequently overrules the decisions of reason.