And the rock on which such attempts always split, is in the indulgence
of some limited passion. Some one object fills the soul with its image,
and in devotion to that, other things are sacrificed, until at last all
comes to ruin.
But what does this mean? Surely it is simply this, that where there
should be knowledge there is ignorance. It is not that there is too much
devotion, too much passion, but that we are ignorant and blind, and
wander in error. We do not know what it is we care for, and waste our
effort on the appearance. There is no such thing as wrong love; there is
good love and bad knowledge, and men who err, clasp phantoms to
themselves. Religion is but the search for realities; and thought,
conscious of its own limitations, is its best aid.
Let a man care for any one object--let his regard for it be as
concentrated and exclusive as you will, there will be no danger if he
truly apprehends that which he cares for. Its true being is bound up
with all the rest of existence, and, if his regard is true to one, then,
if that one is really known, his regard is true to all.
There is a question sometimes asked, which shows the mere formalism into
which we have fallen.
We ask: What is the end of existence? A mere play on words! For to
conceive existence is to feel ends. The knowledge of existence is the
caring for objects, the fear of dangers, the anxieties of love. Immersed
in these, the triviality of the question, what is the end of existence?
becomes obvious. If, however, letting reality fade away, we play with
words, some questions of this kind are possible; but they are mere
questions of words, and all content and meaning has passed out of them.
The task before us is this: we strive to find out that physical unity,
that body which men are parts of, and in the life of which their true
unity lies. The existence of this one body we know from the utterances
of those whom we cannot but feel to be inspired; we feel certain
tendencies in ourselves which cannot be explained except by a
supposition of this kind.
And, now, we set to work deliberately to form in our minds the means of
investigation, the faculty of higher-space conception. To our ordinary
space-thought, men are isolated, distinct, in great measure
antagonistic. But with the first use of the weapon of higher thought, it
is easily seen that all men may really be members of one body, their
isolation may be but an affair of limited consciousness. There is, of
course, no value as science in such a supposition. But it suggests to us
many possibilities; it reveals to us the confined nature of our present
physical views, and stimulates us to undertake the work necessary to
enable us to deal adequately with the subject.
The work is entirely practical and detailed; it is the elaboration,
beginning from the simplest objects of an experience in thought, of a
higher-space world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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