Science and the Infinite; or, Through a Window in the Blank Wall — John Shaqi
Science and the Infinite; or, Through a Window in the Blank WallKlein, Sydney T. (Sydney Turner)
Religion
Science and the Infinite; or, Through a Window in the Blank Wall
Klein, Sydney T. (Sydney Turner)
Religion and science
We are now prepared to attempt the last aspect of our view--namely,
the description of what is experienced when the physical mists have
been evaporated by the Mystical Sense. Again we find that no direct
description is possible, language is absolutely inadequate to describe
the unspeakable, communications have to be physically transmitted in
words to which finite physical meanings have been allocated. The still
small voice which may at times of Rapture be momentarily experienced
in Music, is something much more wonderful than can be formed by
sounds, and this perhaps comes nearest to the expression necessary for
depicting the vision of the soul; but it cannot be held or described,
it is quickly drowned by the physical sense of audition. As the
Glamour of Symbolism can only be transmitted to one who has passed
the portal of Symbolic Thought, the Rapture of Music can only be truly
understood by one who has already experienced it, and the Ideal of Art
requires a true artistic temperament to comprehend it, so it is, I
believe, impossible to describe, with any chance of success, this
wonderful experience to any but those whom Mr. A. C. Benson, in his
_Secret of the Thread of Gold_, very aptly describes as having already
entered "the Shrine." Those who have been _there_ will know that it is
not at all equivalent to a vision, it is not anything which can be
seen or heard or felt by touch; it is entirely independent of the
physical senses; it is not Giving or Receiving, it is not even a
receiving of some new knowledge from the Reality; it has nothing to do
with thought or intellectual gymnastics; all such are seen to be but
mist. The nearest description I can formulate is:--A wondrous feeling
of perfect peace;--absolute rest from physical interference;--perfect
contentment;--the sense of Being-one-with-the-Reality, carrying with
it a knowledge that the Reality or Spiritual is nearer to us and has
much more to do with us than the Physical has, if we could only see
the truth and recognise its presence;--that there is no real
death;--no finiteness and yet no Infinity;--that the Great Spirit
cannot be localised or said to be anywhere, but that everywhere is
God;--that the whole of what we call Creation is an instantaneous
Thought of the Reality;--that it is only by the process of analysing
in Time and Space that we imagine there is such a thing as succession
of events;--that the only Reality is the _Spiritual_, the _Here_
embracing all Space and the _Now_ embracing all Time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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