Читать книгу The Creative Process in the Individual - Thomas Troward - Страница 6

If we ask how the cosmos came into existence we shall find that ultimately

we can only attribute it to the Self-Contemplation of Spirit. Let us start

with the facts now known to modern physical science. All material things,

including our own bodies, are composed of combinations of different

chemical elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, &c. Chemistry

recognizes in all about seventy of these elements each with its peculiar

affinities; but the more advanced physical science of the present day finds

that they are all composed of one and the same ultimate substance to which

the name of Ether has been given, and that the difference between an atom

of iron and an atom of oxygen results only from the difference in the

number of etheric particles of which each is composed and the rate of their

motion within the sphere of the atom, thus curiously coming back to the

dictum of Pythagoras that the universe has its origin in Number and Motion.

We may therefore say that our entire solar system together with every sort

of material substance which it contains is made up of nothing but this one

primary substance in various degrees of condensation.

Now the next step is to realize that this ether is everywhere. This is

shown by the undulatory theory of light. Light is not a substance but is

the effect produced on the eye by the impinging of the ripples of the ether

upon the retina. These waves are excessively minute, ranging in length from

1-39,000th of an inch at the red end of the spectrum to 1-57,000th at the

violet end. Next remember that these waves are not composed of advancing

particles of the medium but pass onwards by the push which each particle in

the line of motion gives to the particle next to it, and then you will see

that if there were a break of one fifty-thousandth part of an inch in the

connecting ether between our eye and any source of light we could not

receive light from that source, for there would be nothing to continue the

wave-motion across the gap. Consequently as soon as we see light from any

source however distant, we know that there must be a continuous body of

ether between us and it. Now astronomy shows us that we receive light from

heavenly bodies so distant that, though it travels with the incredible

speed of 186,000 miles per second, it takes more than two thousand years to

reach us from some of them; and as such stars are in all quarters of the

heavens we can only come to the conclusion that the primary substance or

ether must be universally present.

This means that the raw material for the formation of solar systems is

universally distributed throughout space; yet though we find that millions

of suns stud the heavens, we also find vast interstellar spaces which show

no sign of cosmic activity. Then something has been at work to start cosmic

activity in certain areas while passing over others in which the raw

material is equally available. What is this something? At first we might be

inclined to attribute the development of cosmic energy to the etheric

particles themselves, but a little consideration will show us that this is

mathematically impossible in a medium which is equally distributed

throughout space, for all its particles are in equilibrium and so no one

particle possesses _per se_ a greater power of originating motion than any

other. Consequently the initial movement must be started by something

which, though it works on and through the particles of the primary

substance, is not those particles themselves. It is this "Something" which

we mean when we speak of "Spirit."

Then since Spirit starts the condensation of the primary substance into

concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion

of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and

of taking an Initiative on its own account.

Here, then, we find the _initial_ Polarity of Universal Spirit and

Universal Substance, each being the complementary of the other, and out of

this relation all subsequent evolution proceeds. Being complementary means

that each supplies what is wanting in the other, and that the two together

thus make complete wholeness. Now this is just the case here. Spirit

supplies Selection and Motion. Substance supplies 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 is the original movement of Spirit _within itself_, of which we

can best get an idea by calling it Self-contemplation.

Now this may seem an extremely abstract conception and one with which we

have no practical concern. I fancy I can hear the reader saying "The Lord

only knows how the world started, and it is His business and not mine,"

which would be perfectly true if this originating faculty were confined to

the Cosmic Mind. But it is not, and the same action takes place in our own

minds also, only with the difference that it is ultimately subject to that

principle of Cosmic Unity of which I have already spoken. But, subject to

that unifying principle, this same power of origination is in ourselves

also, and our personal advance in evolution depends on our right use of it;

and our use of it depends on our recognition that we ourselves give rise to

the particular polarities which express themselves in our whole world of

consciousness, whether within or without. For these reasons it is very

important to realize that Evolution is not the same as Creation. It is the

unfolding of potentialities involved in things already created, but not the

calling into existence of what does not yet exist--_that_ is Creation.

The order, therefore, which I wish the student to observe is, first the

Self-contemplation of Spirit producing Polarity, and next Polarity

producing Manifestation in Form--and also to realize that it is in this

order his own mind operates as a subordinate center of creative energy.

When the true place of Polarity is thus recognized, we shall find in it the

explanation of all those relations of things which give rise to the whole

world of phenomena; from which we may draw the practical inference that if

we want to change the manifestation we must change the polarity, and to

change the polarity we must get back to the Self-contemplation of Spirit.

But in its proper place as the root-principle of all _secondary_ causation,

Polarity is one of those fundamental facts of which we must never lose

sight. The term "Polarity" is adopted from electrical science. In the

electric battery it is the connecting together of the opposite poles of

zinc and copper that causes a current to flow from one to the other and so

provides the energy that rings the bell. If the connection is broken there

is no action. When you press the button you make the connection. The same

process is repeated in respect of every sort of polarity throughout the

universe. Circulation depends on polarity, and circulation is the

_manifestation_ of Life, which we may therefore say depends on the

principle of polarity. In relation to ourselves we are concerned with two

great polarities, the polarity of Soul and Body and the polarity of Soul

and Spirit; and it is in order that he may more clearly realize their

working that I want the student to have some preliminary idea of Polarity

as a general principle.

The conception of the Creative Order may therefore be generalized as

follows. The Spirit wants to enjoy the reality of its own Life--not merely

to vegetate, but to enjoy giving--and therefore by Self-contemplation it

projects a polar opposite, or complementary, calculated to give rise to the

particular sort of _relation_ out of which the enjoyment of a certain mode

of self-consciousness will necessarily spring. Let this sentence be well

pondered over until the full extent of its significance is grasped, for it

is the key to the whole matter Very well, then: Spirit wants to Enjoy Life,

and so, by thinking of itself as _having_ the enjoyment which it wishes, it

produces the conditions which, by their re-action upon itself, give rise to

the reality of the sort of enjoyment contemplated. In more scientific

language an opposite polarity is induced, giving rise to a current which

stimulates a particular mode of sensation, which sensation in turn becomes

a fresh starting-point for still further action; and in this way each

successive stage becomes the stepping-stone to a still higher degree of

sensation--that is, to a Fuller Enjoyment of Life.

Such a conception as this presents us with a Progressive Series to which it

is impossible to assign any limit. That the progression must be limitless

is clear from the fact that there is never any change in the method. At

each successive stage the Creating Power is the Self-consciousness of the

Spirit, as realized at that stage, still reaching forward for yet further

Enjoyment of Life, and so always keeping on repeating the _one_ Creative

Process at an ever-rising level; and since these are the sole working

conditions, the progress is one which logically admits of no finality. And

this is where the importance of realizing the Singleness of the Originating

Power comes in, for with a Duality each member would limit the other; in

fact, Duality as the Originating Power is inconceivable, for, once more to

quote "Paddy's Philosophy," "finality would be reached before anything was

begun."

This Creative Process, therefore, can only be conceived of as limitless,

while at the same time strictly progressive, that is, proceeding stage by

stage, each stage being necessary as a preparation for the one that is to

follow. Let us then briefly sketch the stages by which things in our world

have got as far as they have. The interest of the enquiry lies in the fact

that if we can once get at the principle which is producing these results,

we may discover some way of giving it personal application.

On the hypothesis of the Self-contemplation of Spirit being the originating

power, we have found that a primary ether, or universal substance, is the

necessary correspondence to Spirit's simple awareness of its own being. But

though awareness of being is the necessary foundation for any further

possibilities it is, so to say, not much to talk about. The foundation

fact, of course, is to know that I Am; but immediately on this

consciousness there follows the desire for Activity--I want to enjoy my I

Am-ness by doing something with it. Translating these words into a state of

consciousness in the Cosmic Mind they become a Law of Tendency leading to

_localised_ activity, and, looking only at our own world, this would mean

the condensation of the universal etheric substance into the primary nebula

which later on becomes our solar system, this being the correspondence to

the Self-contemplation of Spirit as passing into specific activity instead

of remaining absorbed in simple awareness of Being. Then this

self-recognition would lead to the conception of still more specific

activity having its appropriate polar opposite, or material correspondence,

in the condensation of the nebula into a solar system.

Now at this stage Spirit's conception of itself is that of Activity, and

consequently the material correspondence is Motion, as distinguished from

the simple diffused ether which is the correspondence of mere awareness of

Being, But what sort of motion? Is the material movement evolved at this

stage bound to take any particular form? A little consideration will show

us that it is. At this initial stage, the first awakening, so to say, of

Spirit into activity, its consciousness can only be that of activity

_absolute_; that is, not as related to any other mode of activity because

as yet there is none, but only as related to an all-embracing Being; so

that the only possible conception of Activity at this stage is that of

_Self-sustained_ activity, not depending on any preceding mode of activity

because there is none. The law of reciprocity therefore demands a similar

self-sustained motion in the material correspondence, and mathematical

considerations show that the only sort of motion which can sustain a

self-supporting body moving _in vacuo_ is a rotary motion bringing the body

itself into a spherical form. Now this is exactly what we find at both

extremes of the material world. At the big end the spheres of the planets

rotating on their axes and revolving round the sun; and at the little end

the spheres of the atoms consisting of particles which, modern science

tells us, in like manner rotate round a common center at distances which

are astronomical as compared with their own mass. Thus the two ultimate

units of physical manifestation, the atom and the planet, both follow the

same law of self-sustained motion which we have found that, on _a priori_

grounds, they ought in order to express the primary activity of Spirit. And

we may note in passing that this rotary, or _absolute_, motion is the

combination of the only two possible _relative_ modes of motion, namely,

motion from a point and motion to it, that is to say centrifugal and

centripetal motion; so that in rotary, or absolute, motion we find that

both the polarities of motion are included, thus repeating on the purely

mechanical side the primordial principle of the Unity including the Duality

in itself.

But the Spirit wants something more than mechanical motion, something more

alive than the preliminary Rota, and so the first step toward

individualized consciousness meets us in plant life. Then on the principle

that each successive stage affords the platform for a further outlook,

plant life is followed by animal life, and this by the Human order in which

the liberty of selecting its own conditions is immensely extended. In this

way the Spirit's expression of itself has now reached the point where its

polar complementary, or Reciprocal, manifests as Intellectual Man--thus

constituting the Fourth great stage of Spirit's Self-recognition. But the

Creative Process cannot stop here, for, as we have seen, its root in the

Self-contemplation of Spirit renders it of necessity an Infinite

Progression. So it is no use asking what is its ultimate, for it has no

ultimate--its word is "Excelsior"--ever Life and "Life more Abundant."

Therefore the question is not as to finality where there is none, but as to

the next step in the progression. Four kingdoms we know: what is to be the

Fifth? All along the line the progress has been in one direction, namely,

toward the development of more perfect Individuality, and therefore on the

principle of continuity we may reasonably infer that the next stage will

take us still further in the same direction. We want something more perfect

than we have yet reached, but our ideas as to what it should be are very

various, not to say discordant, for one person's idea of better is another

person's idea of worse. Therefore what we want to get at is some broad

generalization of principle which will be in advance of our past

experiences. This means that we must look for this principle in something

that we have not yet experienced, and the only place where we can possibly

find principles which have not yet manifested themselves is _in gremio

Dei_--that is, in the innermost of the Originating Spirit, or as St. John

calls it, "in the bosom of the Father." So we are logically brought to

personal participation in the Divine Ideal as the only principle by which

the advance into the next stage can possibly be made. Therefore we arrive

at the question, What is the Divine Ideal like?