13/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

In philosophy the majority of people still hold ideas of externalism, materialism. Ever since man began to think logically, he has tried to solve the problem of an outer, objective world of phenomena—matter. Considered solely with the understanding, that world seems, in its essential nature, very far removed from the inner, subjective realm of thoughts, ideas and principles.

Apparently two worlds exist, interrelated and inseparable, yet distinct in quality and essence. Formerly the natural world of forms, colors and objects, was regarded as the finished work of Deity, who summoned it into being by fiat and maintained it by arbitrary laws. Although the author and upholder of creation. He existed outside of it, distinct in substance and essence.

Man was supposed to have been specially created, endowed with a different nature from the lower orders of life. But, in the progress of thought, laws and processes akin to those in man were discovered in the lower orders. The common origin and nature of the entire cosmos became increasingly apparent, until, in the present century, previous tendencies of thought culminated in the doctrines of evolution and unity of forces.

And today the extensive world of matter and the intensive world of mind are regarded by the profoundest thinkers as identical in nature and origin; objective and subjective phases of the same activity; physical and psychical aspects of the same creative energy.

It seems probable, indeed, that at no distant day, science will satisfactorily demonstrate the essential unity of the entire realm of manifestation, and that involution of thought will be established as the counterpart of evolution of experience. Man will then be revealed as more properly creator of his environment than a product of it.

Every person’s objective world is his thought of the cosmos, externalized. It consists of just what is included in the quality and scope of his thought. If we strike a tuning-fork in the room with a piano, its vibrations awaken a response from a corresponding piano string, for both are so adjusted that they act in harmony.

No two people see exactly the same outer world, for their thoughts vary, and consequently harmonize with different expressions from without. In fact no one of us sees precisely the same outer world that he did yesterday. The trained eye of the artist beholds colors in nature that I cannot distinguish, unless I, too, train my perceptive powers to recognize them. The senses are points of contact where internal and external meet.

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