11/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

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 fulness 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 thoughtweb 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.