LITMIR.BIZ

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something from which

      selection can be made and to which Motion can be imparted; so that it is a

      _sine qua non_ for the Expression of Spirit.

      Then comes the question, How did the Universal Substance get there? It

      cannot have made itself, for its only quality is inertia, therefore it must

      have come from some source having power to project it by some mode of

      action not of a material nature. Now the only mode of action not of a

      material nature is Thought, and therefore to Thought we must look for the

      origin of Substance. This places us at a point antecedent to the existence

      even of primary substance, and consequently the initial action must be that

      of the Originating Mind upon Itself, in other words, Self-contemplation.

      At this primordial stage neither Time nor Space can be recognized, for both

      imply measurement of successive intervals, and in the primary movement of

      Mind upon itself the only consciousness must be that of Present Absolute

      Being, because no external points exist from which to measure extension

      either in time or space. Hence we must eliminate the ideas of time and

      space from our conception of Spirit's _initial_ Self-contemplation.

      This being so, Spirit's primary contemplation of itself as simply Being

      necessarily makes its presence universal and eternal, and consequently,

      paradoxical as it may seem, its independence of Time and Space makes it

      present throughout all Time and Space. It is the old esoteric maxim that

      the point expands to infinitude and that infinitude is concentrated in the

      point. We start, then, with Spirit contemplating itself simply as Being.

      But to realize your being you must have consciousness, and consciousness

      can only come by the recognition of your relation to something else. The

      something else may be an external fact or a mental image; but even in the

      latter case to conceive the image at all you must mentally stand back from

      it and look at it--something like the man who was run in by the police at

      Gravesend for walking behind himself to see how his new coat fitted. It

      stands thus: if you are not conscious of something you are conscious of

      nothing, and if you are conscious of nothing, then you are unconscious, so

      that to be conscious at all you must have something to be conscious of.

      This may seem like an extract from "Paddy's Philosophy," but it makes it

      clear that consciousness can only be attained by the recognition of

      something which is not the recognizing _ego_ itself--in other words

      consciousness is the realization of some particular sort of _relation_

      between the cognizing subject and the cognized object; but I want to get

      away from academical terms into the speech of human beings, so let us take

      the illustration of a broom and its handle--the two together make a broom;

      that is one sort of relation; but take the same stick and put a rake-iron

      at the end of it and you have an altogether different implement. The stick

      remains the same, but the difference of what is put at the end of it makes

      the whole thing a broom or a rake. Now the thinking and feeling power is

      the stick, and the conception which it forms is the thing at the end of the

      stick, so that the quality of its consciousness will be determined by the

      ideas which it projects; but to be conscious at all it must project ideas

      of some sort.

      Now of one thing we may be quite sure, that the Spirit of Life must _feel

      alive_. Then to feel alive it must be conscious, and to be conscious it

      must have something to be conscious of; therefore the contemplation of

      itself as standing related to something which is not its own originating

      self _in propria persona_ is a necessity of the case; and consequently the

      Self-contemplation of Spirit can only proceed by its viewing itself as

      related to something standing out from itself, just as we must stand at a

      proper distance to see a picture--in fact the very word "existence" means

      "standing out." Thus things are called into existence or "outstandingness"

      by a power which itself does not stand out, and whose presence is therefore

      indicated by the word "subsistence."

      The next thing is that since in the beginning there is nothing except

      Spirit, its primary feeling of aliveness must be that of being alive _all

      over_; and to establish such a consciousness of its own universal

      livingness there must be the recognition of a corresponding _relation_

      equally extensive in character; and the only possible correspondence to

      fulfil this condition is therefore that of a universally distributed and

      plastic medium whose particles are all in perfect equilibrium, which is

      exactly the description of the Primary Substance or ether. We are thus

      philosophically led to the conclusion that Universal Substance must be

      projected by Universal Spirit as a necessary consequence of Spirit's own

      inherent feeling of Aliveness; and in this way we find that the great

      Primary Polarity of Being becomes established.

      From this point onward we shall find the principle of Polarity in universal

      activity. It is that relation between opposites without which no external

      Motion would be possible, because there would be nowhere to move from, and

      nowhere to move to; and without which external Form would be impossible

      because there would be nothing to limit the diffusion of substance and

      bring it into shape. Polarity, or the interaction of Active and Passive, is

      therefore the basis of all _Evolution_.

      This is a great fundamental truth when we get it in its right order; but

      all through the ages it has been a prolific source of error by getting it

      in its wrong order. And the wrong order consists in making Polarity the

      originating point of the Creative Process. What this misconception leads to

      we shall see later on; but since it is very widely accepted under various

      guises even at the present day it is well to be on our guard against it.

      Therefore I wish the student to see clearly that there is something which

      comes before that Polarity which gives rise to Evolution, and that this

      something

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