Step Three:   Unity

Topic:            Unity of the Spirit

  We have now paved the way for understanding what is meant by "The Unity of the Spirit".  

  In the first conception of spirit as the underlying origin of all things it must then include what we perceive as a universal substance, which at this stage, is not differentiated into any specific forms.  

  This is not a question of some bygone time , but subsists at every moment of all time in the innermost nature of all being.  When we see this, we see that the division between one specific form and another has, below it, a deep essential Unity , which acts as the supporter of all the forms of individuality arising out of it.  

  As our thought penetrates deeper into the nature of this spiritually produced substance, from which all forms emerge, we see that it cannot be limited to any one portion of space, but must be limitless as space itself.  It is the Undifferentiated Universal Mind.  

  It is one of those intuitive perceptions that the corporal mind can never get away from, that this Undifferentiated Universal Mind must be commensurate with the infinitude of the Life-In-Itself, the All-Generating Living Spirit, and we can therefore never think of it other than Universal or Infinite Itself.  These are two expressions of one-and-the-same being -- The Spirit is the Infinite “Here”, and the Limitless “Now”; the Universal Mind is the Infinite “Space” and the Limitless “Time”.  

The Absolute and the Relative -- The Cause and the Effect

Now it is a mathematical truth that the Infinite must be a Unity

  You cannot have two infinites, for then neither would be infinite, each would be limited by the other, nor can you split the infinite up into fractions.  Therefore, Spirit and Mind, must certainly be two expressions of the same essence.

  The infinite is, mathematically, an essential Unity .  This is a point on which too much stress cannot be laid, for there follows from it the most important consequences.  

  Therefore if we would penetrate below the outward nature of the individual to that innermost principle of his being from which his individuality takes its rise, we can do so only by passing beyond the conception of Individual Existence into that of the unity of Universal Being .  

  The student who would produce practical results through Mental Science must realize that these abstract generalizations are the foundation of the practical work he is going to do.  

  Now the fact to be recognized about a unity is that, because it is a single unit, wherever it is at all, the whole of it must be .  The moment we allow our mind to wander off into the idea of extension in space and say that one part of the unit is here and another there, we have descended from the idea of unity into that of parts or fractions of a single unit.  This is to pass into the idea of a multiplicity of smaller units, and in that case we are dealing with the relative, or the relation subsisting between two or more entities which are therefore limited by each other, and so have passed out of the region of simple unity which is the absolute.  

Because the Originating Life-Principle is infinite,

It must then be a Single Unit.

    Consequently, wherever it is at all, the whole of it must be present.   But because it is infinite, or limitless, it is everywhere, and therefore it follows that the whole of Spirit must be present at every point in perceived space at the same moment of perceived time.   The Infinite “Here” and the Limitless “Now”.  

  Spirit is thus omnipresent in its entirety and it is accordingly logically correct that at every moment of time all spirit is concentrated at any point in space that we may choose to fix our thought upon.  

  This is the fundamental fact of all being , and it is for this reason that I have prepared the way for it by laying down the relation between Spirit and Matter as that between Idea and Form .  On the one hand " the Absolute " from which the elements of time and space are entirely absent, and on the other " the Relative " which is entirely dependent upon time and space.  

  This great fact is that Pure Spirit continually subsists in the Absolute , whether in a corporeal body or not; and from it all the phenomena of being flow, whether on the associative mental plane or the perceived physical plane.  

  The knowledge of this fact regarding Spirit is the basis of all Conscious Spiritual Operation , and therefore in proportion to our increasing recognition of it, our power of producing outward visible results by the action of our thoughts will grow.  

  The Whole is Greater than its Parts, and therefore, if, by our recognition of this Unity, we can concentrate all Spirit into any given perceived point at any given perceived moment, we thereby include any individualization of it that we may wish to deal with.  

  Pure Spirit is the Life-Principle, the Life-In-Itself, considered apart from the matrix in which it takes relation to time and space in any particular form.  

  In this aspect it is Pure Intelligence Undifferentiated into Individuality.  As Pure Intelligence it is Infinite responsiveness and susceptibility.  As devoid of relation to time and space it is devoid of Individual Personality.  That is to say, that It doesn’t play any favorites, but instead is completely amenable to any suggestion that is impressed upon it.  

  It is, therefore, in this aspect a purely Impersonal Element upon which, by reason of its inherent intelligence and susceptibility, we can impress any recognition of personality that we will.  

  These are the facts that the Mental Scientist works with, and the student will do well to ponder deeply on their significance and on the responsibilities, which these realizations must necessarily carry with them.  

  The Laws of the Universe will work equally for those whom would seek to abuse the inherent powers therein, as they will for the benevolent soul whom would labor for the betterment of all mankind.   It is in the proper application of the essence of the power inherent in thoughts and desires that sets the outpouring of the creative power into motion.   Thus it is in the motives of the Individual as to how the Laws will be directed - for the positive reinforcement of the Unity and prosperity of the whole or for the perpetuation of the illusion of separation and limitation of individual gain solely for the purposes of individual gain over that of another.  The Intelligence that directs this power, though, is not the Creator that generates it; it is the point of operation that acts as a distribution outlet.  The quality of the author is always in the action.  

  There is no “Good” or “Evil” in the acts themselves, but only in the motivating factors that are back of them, and our personal perceptions of them after the fact.  

  There is no fault in living Life to the fullest and most abundant state obtainable to the individual, for Life always seeks to more fully express itself and its Livingness.   The motivation behind living a fuller and more prosperous Life toward the expression of a greater happiness will hardly be motivated by greed of ownership and acquisition as accomplishment , but instead by the ongoing expression of the natural happiness that is ever dwelling within the very nature of our inner-most being.  

  Inversion is through an acceptance of outward conditions as being a true causative reality having a creative existence within them selves, and thus allowing the belief that those things that surround us are the sources for our expression of happiness, rather than the expression of the happiness that is within us, which is responsible for the things that surround us.  

What are others doing to continue to raise their vibration to joy?

All My Best,

Carol

  This is the topic outline for our next meeting (June 3rd):

Step Two:   Intelligence

Topic:         The Higher Mode Controls The Lower.

   Last month we discussed that descent in the expression of intelligence from expanded self-recognition, as we know it in our own personality, to matter, as we know it under what we call inanimate forms.

   It is a gradual descent in the scale of expression intelligence from that mode of “being” which is able to realize its own will-power as a capacity for originating new trains of causation to that mode of “being” which is incapable of recognizing itself at all.

   The higher the grade of life, the higher the expression of intelligence, from which it follows that the supreme principle of Life must also be the ultimate principle of intelligence .

This is demonstrated by the grand natural order of the universe.   

    The grand scale of planetary evolution shows us that Life is a constant forward movement toward greater order and refinement.   From crude beginnings this majestic, unceasing, unhurried, forward movement brings things stage by stage to the condition in which we know them now.

   But it does this by creating such numbers of each kind that, after allowing a wide margin for all possible accidents to individuals, the race will still continue.      Thus, the level of reproduction of any species is commensurate with the margin of destruction imposed on the species through the natural order.

"So careful of the type it seems, so careless of the Individual.”

In short, we may say that the cosmic expression of   intelligence works by a Law of Averages.

   The progress towards higher expressions of intelligence is always in the direction of narrowing down this margin of accident and taking the individual more and more out of the Law of Averages , and substituting the Law of Individual Selection.

In ordinary scientific language this is the survival of the fittest.

   Therefore, it is reasonable to accept that in proportion with expressed intelligence, the corporal individual ceases to be subject to a mere Law of Averages, and has increasing power in consciously controlling the conditions of their own survival.

   We see that there is distinction between the cosmic expression of intelligence and the individual expression of intelligence, and that the factor which differentiates the latter from the former is the presence of individual volition .

   The purpose of Mental Science is to explore the relation of this individual power of volition, in the “I Myself Am”, to the great cosmic law, the greater “I Am”, which provides for the maintenance and advancement of the race.

   The point to be carefully noted is that the power of individual volition is itself the outcome of the cosmic evolutionary principle at the point where it reaches its highest level.

   The effort of Nature has now culminated in the production of a being with a mind capable of abstract reasoning and a brain fitted to be the physical instrument of such a mind.

   At this stage the All-Creating Life-Principle reproduces itself in a form capable of recognizing the working of the Law of Evolution, and the unity and continuity of purpose running through the whole evolutionary progression until now.

   The place of such a being in the universal scheme must be to introduce the operation of that factor which, up to this point, has been conspicuous by its absence -- the factor of intelligent individual volition .

   If man is to evolve further, it can now only be by his own conscious cooperation with the Law which has brought him to the standpoint where he is able to realize that such a law exists.   His future evolution must be by conscious participation in the ever-ongoing process of Creation, and this can only be achieved by his own individual intelligence and effort -- the process of intelligent rather than random growth.

No one else can grow for us: we must each grow for ourselves

    This intelligent growth consists of our increasing recognition of the Universal Laws , which have brought us to this point, and our own individual relation to that Law, as we ourselves are the most advanced product of it .

Nature obeys us precisely in proportion as we first obey Nature.

   What differentiates the higher from the lower degree of expressed intelligence is the recognition of its own self-hood, and the more comprehensive that recognition, the greater will be the power.

   The lower degree of self-recognition is that which only realizes itself as an entity separate from all other entities, as the ego distinguished from the non-ego.

   The higher degree of self-recognition realizes its own spiritual nature and sees in all forms, not so much that which is not itself, but that which is itself in a different mode of expression.

   Since it is this higher degree of self-recognition by which the Mental Scientist produces their results it is imperative that we clearly understand the difference between Form and Being.   Form is the mode of the relative and is subject to conditions; Being is the Truth or the Absolute and controls conditions.

   This higher recognition of self as an individualization of pure spirit must control all modes of spirit which have not yet reached the same level of self-recognition.   These lower modes of spirit are in bondage to the law of their own being because they do not know the law.   The individual who has acquired this knowledge by nature have control over them through that law.   By control here, I mean stewardship, not domination .   To understand this we must inquire a little further into the nature of spirit.

   As we have already mentioned, there is the presence somewhere of a marvelous intelligence underlying the whole.   The question is; where is this intelligence to be found?

   It is that power which, in every species and in every individual, becomes that which that species or individual is; and thus we can only conceive of it as a self-forming intelligence inherent in the ultimate substance of which each thing is a particular manifestation .

   That this perceived primordial substance must be considered as self-forming by an inherent intelligence present in itself follows from the fact that intelligence is the essential quality of Spirit; and if we were to conceive of this primordial substance as something apart from Spirit, then we should have to postulate some other power which is neither Spirit nor matter, and originates both.   This would only be putting the idea of a self-evolving power a step further back and asserting the production of a lower grade of undifferentiated Spirit by a higher.

   However far back, we may relegate the original starting point, we cannot avoid the conclusion that at that point, Spirit contains that which will be perceived as the primary substance in itself.

This brings us back to the common statement that it made everything out of nothing.

    From these considerations we see that the ultimate foundation of every form of matter is Spirit , and hence that a universal intelligence is present throughout Nature inherent in every one of its manifestations.

   This should be carefully noted because it is by the response of the Universal intelligence to the individual intelligence that thought-power is able to produce results on the material plane.

Intelligence manifests itself by responsiveness.

   The whole action of the Universal mind in bringing the evolutionary process from its beginning up to its present human stage is a continual intelligent response to the demands which each stage has made for adjustments between itself and its environment.

   Since we recognize the presence or expression of a Universal intelligence permeating all things, we must also recognize a corresponding responsiveness hidden within its very nature that stands ready to be called into action when appealed to.

   All mental treatment depends on this responsiveness of Spirit in its lower degrees to higher degrees of itself.   It is here that the difference between the mental scientist and the uninstructed person comes in; the former knows of this responsiveness and makes use of it, and the latter cannot use it because he does not know of it.

-- Victor

-- Victor

This is the topic outline for our next meeting (May 6th):

Step One:   Spirit and Matter

Topic:         The Relationship between Spirit and Matter.

  I’ve found that the perceived difference between Spirit and Matter is most readily summed up as follows -- “Living” Spirit and “Dead” Matter.   At least these are the two most commonly used adjectives that people apply in describing the apparent opposition of these two concepts.

   On the surface this would seem quite correct, but where error creeps in is in our willingness to judge according to outward appearances, and as well, in the terms by which we define these judgments.

What do we mean by the “Livingness” we attribute to the Spirit?

What do we mean by the “Deadness” we attribute to the Matter?

  Scientifically speaking, there is no such state as the absence of the power of motion.   Matter or seemingly inert masses are vibrating with the most intense energy at speeds that bewilder the mind.   As well, atoms come and go from common substances in a constant and ongoing process and seemingly empty space is filled with various cosmic vibrations, therefore Motion cannot be the distinguishing factor in defining Life as opposed to Lifelessness.

…    We must probe deeper …

   Rather than setting out to compare what we call “Living” to what we call “Dead”, which will not provide a solution to this dilemma, we must instead compare various degrees of “Livingness” with each other. 

>> One school of thought suggests that Livingness does not admit to degrees.

>> Another suggests that it is all a question of degrees.

   We wouldn’t question the Livingness of a plant.   However, we must accept that it is something very different from the Livingness of an animal.  

Again, in turn, what child wouldn’t prefer a dog or cat for a pet rather than a goldfish?

   Let us consider why the child itself is an advance upon the dog.   The plant, the fish, the dog, and the child are all equally alive.   There is, however, a difference in the quality of their Livingness about which no one can have any doubt.   

  I am suggesting that this difference is in the degree of intelligence expressed by each.

   It is the greater expression of intelligence that places the animal higher in the scale of being than the plant, the man higher than the animal, the intellectual man higher than the savage.

  The higher the expression of intelligence, the more completely that circumstances and environment are under its control.   As we descend in the scale of intelligence, it is marked by a corresponding increase in automatic motion not under the control of conscious intelligence.

  This descent is gradual from the expanded self-recognition of the highest human personality to that lowest order of visible forms, which we call "things", which possess no self-recognition at all.

  “Livingness” therefore consists in the degree of intelligence -- in other words, in the power of thought.

We may then say that the distinctive quality of spirit is thought.

  We cannot conceive of matter without form.   To be matter at all, it must occupy space, and to occupy any particular space implies a corresponding form.

   Form implies extension in space and therefore limitation within certain boundaries.  Thought implies neither.

Therefore we can accept that the distinctive quality of Spirit is thought and the distinctive quality of Matter is form.

  When we think of Life as existing in any particular form, we associate it with the idea of extension in space.   An elephant consists of a vastly larger amount of living substance than a mouse.   However, when we think of “Life” as the “Livingness” we do not associate it with the idea of extension, thus we know that the mouse is just as much alive as the elephant, despite the difference in size.   

  The important point here is that if we can conceive of anything as entirely devoid of the element of extension in space, it must be present in its totality everywhere -- that is to say, at every point simultaneously.

The scientific definition of time is the period occupied by a body in passing from one given point in space to another. Therefore, when there is no space there can be no time.

  Since Spirit is devoid of the element of space it must also be devoid of the element of time.   Therefore if our conception of spirit is of pure Thought, and not as concrete Form, then the conception of it is as subsisting independently of the elements of both time and space.

  From this it follows that if the idea of anything is conceived as existing on this level it can only represent that thing as being actually “present” Here and Now .   In this view of things nothing can be remote from us either in time or space.

  Either the idea is entirely dissipated or it exists as an actual present entity, and not as something that shall be in the future, for where there is no sequence in time there can be no future.   Similarly where there is no space there can be no conception of anything as being at a distance from us.

When the elements of time and space are eliminated, all our ideas of things must be as existing in a “Universal Here” and an “Everlasting Now”.   The Spirit knows no conditions, the Spirit knows no limitations, and the Spirit knows no death.   The Spirit is the Life-In-Itself -- the Ever-present Here and Now.

  The opposite conception, therefore, is that of things expressing themselves through conditions of time and space and thus establishing a variety of relations to other things, such as of size, distance, speed, direction, and sequence in time.

These two aspects are the concept of the abstract and the concrete, of the unconditioned and the conditioned, of the absolute and the relative, of the Infinite and the finite.

  They are not opposed to each other in the sense of incompatibility, but are each the complement of the other and the Spiritual medium for expression is in the combination of the two; both are necessary for the formation of a substantial or palpable entity.  

  -- Victor

I'm so excited to start this alliance to bring local groups from around the globe together to share ideas on running, growing, and loving the local group experience.

The meetup alliance is a new offering and it's certainly new to me, so bare with us as we learn and grow and stay tuned as I see this as a great opportunity to connect with like minded people from all over.

I look forward to the potential of this group and look forward to our sharing this experience together.

All My Best,

Carol