Thomas Troward - The Creative Process in the Individual

the other hand we grant that there is, above the individual minds, a great

Cosmic Mind which imposes upon them the necessity of all seeing the same

image of Matter, then that image is not a projection of the individual

minds but of the Cosmic Mind; and since the individual minds are themselves

similar projections of the Cosmic Mind, matter is for them just as much a

reality as their own existence. I doubt not that material substance is thus

projected by the all-embracing Divine Mind; but so also are our own minds

projected by it, and therefore the relation between them and matter is a

real relation and not a merely fictitious one.

I particularly wish the student to be clear on this point, that where two

factors are projected from a common source their relation to each other

becomes an absolute fact in respect of the factors themselves,

notwithstanding that the power of changing that relation by substituting a

different projection must necessarily always continue to reside in the

originating source. To take a simple arithmetical example--by my power of

mental projection working through my eyes and fingers I write 4 X 2. Here I

have established a certain numerical relation which can only produce eight

as its result. Again, I have power to change the factors and write 4 X 3,

in which case 12 is the only possible result, and so on. Working in this

way calculation becomes possible. But if every time I wrote 4 that figure

possessed an independent power of setting down a different number by which

to multiply itself, what would be the result? The first 4 I wrote might set

down 3 as its multiplier, and the next might set down 7, and so on. Or if I

want to make a box of a certain size and cut lengths of plank accordingly,

if each length could capriciously change its width at a moment's notice,

how could I ever make the box? I myself may change the shape and size of my

box by establishing new relations between the bits of wood, but for the

pieces of wood themselves the proportions determined by my mind must remain

fixed quantities, otherwise no construction could take place.

This is a very rough analogy, but it may be sufficient to show that for a

cosmos to exist at all it is absolutely necessary that there should be a

Cosmic Mind binding all individual minds to certain _generic_ unities of

action, and so producing all things as realities and nothing as illusion.

The importance of this conclusion will become more apparent as we advance

in our studies.

We have now got at some reason why concrete material form is a necessity of

the Creative Process. Without it the perfect Self-recognition of Spirit

from the Individual standpoint, which we shall presently find is the means

by which the Creative Process is to be carried forward, would be

impossible; and therefore, so far from matter being an illusion, it is the

necessary channel for the self-differentiation of Spirit and its Expression

in multitudinous life and beauty. Matter is thus the necessary Polar

Opposite to Spirit, and when we thus recognize it in its right order we

shall find that there is no antagonism between the two, but that together

they constitute one harmonious whole.

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