themselves) said to belong to eternal life is really the liberation of
the idea of personality. Personality is allowed to expand as far as it
can, and only so can it come into its own. When Keyserling adds, 'The
instinct of immortality really affirms that the individual is not
ultimate,' I entirely agree with him.
The question, however, is not whether in heaven the circumference of the
soul's life is indefinitely enlarged, but whether the centre remains.
These centres are centres of consciousness; and consciousness apparently
belongs to the world of will. It comes into existence when the will has
some work to do. It is not conterminous with life; there is a life which
is below consciousness, and there may be a life above consciousness, or
what we mean by consciousness. We must remind ourselves that we are
using a spatial metaphor when we speak of a centre of consciousness, and
a temporal one when we ask about a continuing state of consciousness;
and space and time do not belong to the eternal world. The question
therefore needs to be transformed before any answer can be given to it.
Spiritual life, we are justified in saying, must have a richness of
content; it is, potentially at least, all embracing. But this
enhancement of life is exhibited not only in extension but in intensity.
Eternal life is no diffusion or dilution of personality, but its
consummation. It seems certain that in such a state of existence
individuality must be maintained. If every life in this world represents
an unique purpose in the Divine mind, and if the end or meaning of
soul-life, though striven for in time, has both its source and its
achievement in eternity, this, the value and reality of the individual
life, must remain as a distinct fact in the spiritual world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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