The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers: Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully ExplainedTiffany, Joel
Religion
The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers: Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully Explained
Tiffany, Joel
Spiritualism
The inmost principle of consciousness which identifies me of to-day
with what I was thirty years ago, does not, of itself, notice time,
except as it is connected with this outward part of me. It counts
time by changes; but when you come into itself and separate it from
those changes, it does not know time at all. Between my infancy and
the present time it has been a constant now. It is the presence of the
infinite and eternal in man, and the means by which he is connected
with the infinite and eternal. It is by the presence of this infinite
and eternal consciousness that man knows that he possesses a finite and
changeable nature. It is a lamp within, which shines out and reveals to
him his finite consciousness, and the changes transpiring there. So man
has two selfhoods, an inward, and an outward which is changing from day
to day.
When I speak of you as an individual being who differs from me, I speak
of your outward, changing selfhood. But when I speak of you in your
inmost consciousness, I speak of you in your inmost selfhood, in which
you do not differ from me.
It is by this inmost consciousness that I know that I am. It reveals
myself to myself by just the same law by which you are revealed to
yourself. There are two methods of addressing the outward selfhood—from
without, and from the infinite within. Where the individual
consciousness is addressed from within, the communication is made
to the affections, whence it flows into the understanding. When it
is addressed from without, it is by representations of that which
addresses it. But when I go to the Spiritual world, I go with this
divine consciousness, this constant, unchanging consciousness within,
but not as a principle which belongs to me, which is individualized
within me. It is just as universal as God. It is the divine
consciousness which is unindividualized within me, and wherever that
is, I must be, because of the ubiquity of this divine principle. If
there were any point from which this could be excluded, and into which
the individual could be thrust, he would be annihilated.
What we need is to bring the external consciousness into unceasing
relation with this internal consciousness. That which does not come
into such relation with this absolute consciousness does not become a
part of our finite selfhood—a part of our immortal selfhood. Standing
before you I perceive your countenances, because your images are
brought into a certain relation to this absolute consciousness within
me. Now when they come into unceasing relation to this unchanging
consciousness, they become a part of my external, finite selfhood.
Memory is the result of bringing events into such relation with this
consciousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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