William Atkinson - The Essential Works of William Walker Atkinson - 50+ Books in One Edition

On the surface of Creation we are expressions and centers of activity of Spirit. Spirit is in us and we are in Spirit, and in that knowledge there is the sense of absolute security. Outside of Spirit we can never be, for there is no outside. We can never be lost, never destroyed in essence, nature, substance, and principle. Though change alters our forms, states, or conditions, we are still in Spirit. The knowledge of our essence, nature, substance, and principle destroys fear, kills our apprehension, removes doubt, and sends us forward to the Divine Adventure with a smile on our lips and joy in our heart. And as to the end, if end there be to the personal being, we know that whatever is real in us is above personality and cannot perish. Those to whom illumination has come invariably echo the words of Gautama, the Buddha, who said of such an ending of personality:—

"If any teach NIRVANA is to cease,

Say unto such they lie;

If any teach NIRVANA is to live,

Say unto such they err, not knowing this,

Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps,

Nor lifeless, timeless bliss."

* * * * *

"The Dew is on the Lotus. Rise, Great Sun,

And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave.

Om mani padme hum! The Sunrise comes! The Dewdrop slips into the Shining Sea!"

Table of Content

THE WISE have ever asserted the phenomenal universe to be but an appearance in Spirit; and yet Spirit is seen to be Indivisible and Changeless. The phenomenal universe is perceived to have been created in the essence, nature, substance, and very being of Spirit; but Spirit itself is and remains ever Inseparable and Immutable .

This is a very important point of teaching and should be considered carefully in order that its full meaning may be grasped and assimilated. The term "created" means "brought into being; caused; produced." It is sometimes defined as "to form out of nothing," but such definition is meaningless, for the laws of thought show that the mind is incapable of thinking of something having proceeded from Nothing. In speaking of the phenomenal universe as "created" in the essence, nature, substance, and principle of Spirit, the preposition "in" signifies "situation or place with respect to surrounding, environment, encompassment." It is generally associated with position or place in space because of its ordinary employment in connection with material objects. But it is also used in connection with mental states and ideas, as, for instance, " in the mind," " in thought," " in imagination," thus showing that it is not necessarily related to space, for mind does not occupy space. Care must be taken not to identify the word "in" (as used above) with "of," "from," "out of," in the sense of separation, removal, or division, for we have seen that Ultimate REALITY is Indivisible and Inseparable; its Unity and Oneness cannot be impaired or destroyed. We are asked to consider a creation "in" Spirit and yet not "of" or "from" it. The creation must be accomplished without separation, division, or partition, and also without actual change in the essence, nature, substance, and being of that in which it is created. The necessities of the case require clear and subtle thought.

Let us first consider the various forms of "creation" familiar to us in the phenomenal world, that we may understand the nature of the creation of the phenomenal universe in Spirit and yet not of or from it.

CREATION FROM MATERIALS.

The most familiar form of creation is that in which something is created from materials. Man creates boats, shoes, knives, houses, textiles in this way. But a moment's thought will show us that Spirit cannot create the phenomenal universe in this manner. In the first place there are no materials outside of itself from which it could so create; there is no "outside" and there is nothing other than itself. In the second place it could not create from the material or substance of itself, for that would necessitate a separation, division, and partition of itself for the purpose of the creation, and the creation when completed would then be apart from its creator, divided and subtracted from it. Division and partition of, or subtraction from, Spirit is unthinkable, as we have seen in our inquiry. In the third place the creation cannot be made from Nothing, for something can never come from Nothing.

PROCREATION.

Another familiar form of creation is that known as begetting or procreation, which is familiar to us in the natural processes of animal birth. Spirit cannot create the phenomenal universe in this way, for begetting or procreation is but a form of division or subtraction. The procreated thing is always divided or subtracted from the parent thing. This is true in all birth, from that of the single cell to the higher forms of life, and even in the inorganic world in cases where the new forms are created from the material or substance of the old. Moreover, even were this possible, the procreated thing would be the "young" of its parent; the "young" of Spirit is unthinkable. Each young Absolute would be a replica of the parent Absolute—an absurd idea. Were there "young Spirits" there would no longer be Spirit, the Ultimate REALITY, but, instead, many Spirits, many Ultimate Realities, none of which would be ultimate, none absolute, none infinite, none total, none independent. The conception of anything being procreated from Ultimate REALITY belongs to the child mind of the race, and flatly contradicts the report of the reason. The test of the Axioms of Being, which arise from the report of the highest reason, effectively disposes of this fallacious conception.

CREATION BY CHANGE OF FORM.

A third form of creation is that in which the creation arises by reason of a change in the form, shape, activity, or appearance of the substance of the creator. A familiar instance of this form of creation is that in which a whirlpool appears in the running stream or a wave upon the surface of the river; or, in a more permanent condition, the appearance of lumps of ice in a body of water, crystals in the mother fluid, or lumps of butter in the cream; or, again, that in which motion is transformed into heat or light. The transformation of energy into various forms, as we have seen, affords us excellent and convincing examples of this form of creation. Certain scientists have assumed that matter may have arisen from "knots" or "rings" formed in the Universal Ether. In this way Materialism has sought to account for the variety apparent in the phenomenal universe.

A little analytical consideration, however, reveals the fact that the above-cited instances and their kind are in REality not creations in the true sense of the word, but rather are transformations . The whirlpool or wave in the stream is but the temporary change of form resulting from the effect of motion. The wave results from imparted motion; the whirlpool from arrested motion; in each case the effect being produced in matter. Again, the lumps of ice and the crystals are merely changes of molecular arrangement, molecules being incidents and "parts" of Matter, the creation being merely a change in the particles of the particular kind of Matter . The lumps of butter arise from the separation of one constituent or part of the cream from the other.

Heat, light, and other forms of energy arise from matter whose vibrations have been raised by motion. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as heat or light in themselves; there is only heated matter or lighted matter. The waves of heat and light traveling in the ether from the sun are neither heat nor light, but are merely waves in the ether. The space through which they travel is neither heated nor lighted. Space is absolutely cold and absolutely dark. It is only when the waves come in contact with air or other matter that "light" and "heat" result. Light and heat, therefore, as we know them, are merely rates of vibration of matter , and can scarcely be considered as created things; they are, rather, conditions of things .