Discourse on Reality
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The night before they left Alexandria, Ganid and Jesus had a long visit with one of the government professors at the university who lectured on the teachings of Plato. Jesus interpreted for the learned Greek teacher but injected no teaching of his own in refutation of the Greek philosophy. Gonod was away on business that evening, so, after the professor had departed, the teacher and his pupil had a long heart-to-heart talk about Plato’s doctrines. While Jesus gave qualified approval of some of the Greek teachings which had to do with the theory that the material things of the world are shadowy reflections of invisible but more substantial spiritual realities, he sought to lay a more trustworthy foundation for the lad’s thinking, so he began a long dissertation concerning the nature of reality in the universe. In substance and in modern phraseology Jesus said to Ganid:
The source of universe reality is the Infinite – God himself. The material things of finite creation are the time-space repercussions of the eternal Paradise Pattern and the Universal Mind of the eternal God. Causation in the physical world, self- consciousness in the intellectual world, and progressing selfhood in the spirit world – these realities, projected on a universal scale, combined in eternal relatedness, and experienced with perfection of quality and divinity of value – constitute the reality of the Supreme Being (the emerging God of all experiential time and space). But in an ever-changing universe the original personality of causation, intelligence and spirit experience is changeless, absolute (being of the eternal God of All, Himself). All things, even in an eternal universe of limitless values and divine qualities, may, and oftentimes do, change – except the Absolutes and that which has attained the physical status, intellectual embrace, or spiritual identity which is absolute.
The highest level to which a finite creature can progress is the recognition of the Universal Father – the eternal God of all Creation, and the knowing of the Supreme – the emerging God of all time and space. And even then such beings of finality destiny (such as ourselves) go on experiencing change in motions of the physical world and in its material phenomena. Likewise, do they remain aware of selfhood progression in their continuing ascension up, through, and throughout the spiritual universe, and of growing consciousness in their deepening appreciation of, and response to, the intellectual cosmos. Only in the perfection, harmony and unanimity of will can the creature become as one with the Creator; and such a state of divinity is attained and maintained only by the creature’s continuing to live in time and eternity by consistently conforming his finite personal will to the divine will of the Creator. Always must the desire to do the Father’s will be supreme in your soul and dominate over your mind.
A one-eyed person can never hope to visualize the depth of perspective. Neither can single-eyed material scientists nor single-eyed spiritual mystics and allegorists correctly visualize and adequately comprehend the true depths of universe reality. All true values of creature experience are concealed in the depth of recognition.
Mindless causation cannot evolve refined and complex from the crude and the simple, neither can spiritless experience evolve the divine characters of eternal survival from the material minds of the mortals of time. The one attribute of the universe which so exclusively characterizes the infinite Deity of God is this unending (absolute) creative bestowal of personality which can survive in (your) progressive attainment of Him.
Personality is that cosmic endowment, that phase of universal reality, which can coexist with unlimited change and at the same time retain its identity in the very presence of all such changes, and forever afterward.
Life is an adaptation of the original cosmic causation to the demands and possibilities of universe situations, and it comes into being by the action of the Universal Mind, and the activation of the spark of the God who is spirit. The meaning of life is adaptability, the value of life is its progressability – even to the heights of God-consciousness.
Misadaptation of self-conscious life to the universe results in cosmic disharmony. Final divergence of personality, will, from the trend of the universe, terminates in intellectual isolation, personality segregation. Loss of the indwelling spirit pilot (guidance) supervenes in spiritual cessation of existence. Intelligent and progressing life becomes then, in and of itself, an incontrovertible proof of the existence of a purposeful universe expressing the will of a divine Creator. And this life, in the aggregate, struggles toward higher values, having for its final goal the Universal Father.
Only in degree does man possess a mind above the animal level aside from the higher and quasi-spiritual ministrations of intellect. Therefore animals (not having the ministrations of worship and wisdom) cannot experience superconsciousness, consciousness of consciousness. The animal mind is only conscious of the objective universe.
Knowledge is the sphere of the material or fact-discerning mind. Truth is the domain of the spiritually endowed intellect that is conscious of knowing God. Knowledge is demonstrable, truth is experienced. Knowledge is a possession of the mind, truth an experience of the soul, the progressing self. Knowledge is a function of the non-spiritual level, truth is a phase of the mind-spirit level of the universes. The eye of the material mind perceives the world of factual knowledge, the eye of the spiritualized intellect discerns a world of true values. These two views, synchronized and harmonized, reveal the world of reality, wherein wisdom (knowledge plus experience) interprets the phenomena of the universe in terms of progressive personal experience.
Error (evil) is the penalty of imperfection. The qualities of imperfection or facts of misadaptation are disclosed on the material level by critical observation and by scientific analysis; moral level, by human experience. The presence of evil constitutes proof of the inaccuracies of mind and the immaturity of the evolving self. Evil is, therefore, also a measure of imperfection in universe interpretation.
The possibility of making mistakes is inherent in the acquisition of wisdom, the scheme of progressing from the partial and temporal to the complete and eternal, from the relative and imperfect to the final and perfected. Error is the shadow of relative incompleteness which must of necessity fall across man’s ascending universe path to Paradise (spiritual) perfection. Error (evil) is not an actual universe quality; it is simply the observation of a relativity in the relatedness of the imperfection of the incomplete finite (creature and creation) to the ascending levels of the Supreme (God of all time and space) and Ultimate (the emerging and evolving God of all that transcends time and space, but is not eternal).
Although Jesus told all this to the boy in language best suited to his comprehension, at the end of the discussion Ganid was heavy of eye and was soon lost in slumber. They rose early the next morning to go aboard the boat bound for Lasea on the island of Crete. But before they embarked, the boy had still further questions to ask about evil, to which Jesus replied:
Evil is a relativity concept. It arises out of the observation of the imperfections which appear in the shadow cast by a finite universe of things and beings as such a cosmos obscures the living light of the universal expression of the eternal realities of God the Infinite One.
Potential evil is inherent in the necessary incompleteness of the revelation of God as a time-space limited expression of infinity and eternity. The fact of the partial in the presence of the complete constitutes relativity of reality, creates necessity for intellectual choosing, and establishes value levels of spirit recognition and response. The incomplete and finite concept of God the Infinite which is held by the temporal and limited creature mind is, in and of itself, potential evil. But the augmenting error of unjustified deficiency in reasonable spiritual correction of these originally inherent intellectual disharmonies and spiritual insufficiencies is equivalent to the realization of actual evil.
All static, dead, concepts are potentially evil. The finite shadow of relative and living truth is continually moving. Static concepts invariably retard science, politics, society and religion. Static concepts may represent a certain knowledge, but they are deficient in wisdom and devoid of truth. But do not permit the concept of relativity so to mislead you that you fail to recognize a co-ordination of the universe under the guidance of the cosmic mind, and its stabilized control by the energy and spirit of the Supreme.
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