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

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AND THROUGH this wondrous evolution there is manifest ever invariable and unchanging Law. This law is mental law—logical laws. Everything proceeds from step to step, from unfoldment to unfoldment, in orderly sequence and regularity, as if an absolutely logical process were under way, as indeed it is. By this is not meant that each step is planned out beforehand; on the contrary each step proceeds logically the one immediately preceding it and in turn develops the one next succeeding it. Failures are made, blind alleys are entered, but even these and their consequences are perfectly logical and the inevitable result of all that has gone before. An experimental step here works certain results of success or failure a little farther on. Foresight is not claimed for the creative processes of Universal Mind any more than it is for any ideative, progressive process. It is simply a progress step by step, in this direction and in that, striving here and trying there, the unfolding idea being ever behind the evolution of form, shape, variety, and activity. But each step is the only possible logical step . Reason recognizes that the Universe is governed by Law. Each event in Nature is the inevitable and necessarily determined event logically proceeding from all that has gone before. There is no Chance in Nature. Law reigns everywhere throughout Nature's domains. There are no exceptions, no illogical sequences, no variation from lawful and orderly procedure.

LAW, NOT FATE.

This does not mean that Fate rules, or that Spirit predestines results. On the contrary there is nothing consciously predestined in Nature, and Fate is but a word conveying a half truth. Spirit is not consciously aware a second before an event occurs of what that event will be; and yet that event will be the only event that is logically possible and which could occur, considering all of the existent conditions past and present. There is no arbitrary Fate decreeing this or that result; but yet there exists Law that causes everything to happen in exact and invariable consequence of all the conditions of the case. Fate cannot compel an unlawful, disorderly, or illogical happening or event. Fate is but a shadow of Law, which men have mistaken for the real thing. Universal Mind is compelled to manifest logical law in its activities by the very fact of its being Universal Mind. From these things arise what is called Natural Law, which thoughtful men have ever recognized and which modern science as well as ancient and modern philosophy positively asserts to exist. Everything in the Universe is under Law. Nothing great or small can escape Law. The fact of Universal Law is a positive proof of the mental origin of Nature.

OMNIPRESENT CHANGE.

Moreover, the fact of the mental origin of Nature is shown by the ever-present and ever-active manifestation of Change in all natural things. We have seen elsewhere that consciousness is possible only where there is a constant change of the object of consciousness. This is true of Universal Mind as well as of Sense-Mind. Consequently we need not feel surprised when we see that all Nature, and all the Universe, is in a constant state of flux, everything changing its shape, form, or activities from the very moment of its birth or creation. Everything is in constant motion, from atoms to suns, from Universes to the particles of which atoms are composed. Shape, forms, position, activities, conditions, and all else, physical and mental, are ever changing. Nothing remains the same for two consecutive moments, and no two things are ever the same at the same moment. Infinite variety and infinite change, this is the order of Nature. Everything is born, rises, declines, and perishes—everything, from atoms to universes. There is nothing changeless save Spirit. And this change is seen by the wise to arise from the manifestation of consciousness on the part of the Infinite Mind of SPIRIT. And this consciousness is the "lifeness of life" of the Spirit of Life, which is SPIRIT.

And so proceeds the course of Nature; so manifests the Universe; so evolves the Cosmos. Under the veil of the form and shape of Matter may ever be seen the Spirit of Life striving, moving, changing, pulsating, evolving, building up, tearing down, rebuilding, creating, destroying, resolving, and dissolving its outward forms and shapes, and yet ever remaining constant itself.

EVERYTHING "BECOMING."

Men have sought to personify these activities of Nature and to explain them by human desires. Heraclitus said that Nature evidently finds pleasure in creating and pain in holding created forms rigid, for she is ever creating and yet ever destroying or changing her creations. Others picture the constructive and destructive forces of Nature as engaged in a titanic warfare and struggle,—one striving to build up, and the other to tear down,—the result being that nothing is stable but everything is ever changing. The Hindu mythology pictures a Trinity of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. Cycles follow cycles. Worlds, nations, families, and individuals have their birth, their growth, their decline, their death. Like the tides, everything created, large and small, has its rise and fall, its ebb and flow. The Law of Change is ever in operation. The Law of Activity is always evident. Nothing stands still. Everything moves. Everything changes. Everything flows. Everything passes. Everything rises. Everything falls. Everything has its reappearance in new form. Nature experiences a million millions of births each second of time. In the same time she experiences a million millions of deaths, and yet Nature exists ever, birthless and deathless.

SPIRIT IN NATURE.

Nature is the outward manifestation of the nature of Spirit. Her activities are the expression of the consciousness of the Universal Mind of Spirit. Her energies are the expressions of the power of Spirit. Her Law and Orderly Sequence are the manifestations of the Law of Spirit. And yet, outside of the Universal Mind of SPIRIT, Nature has no existence whatsoever. In herself she is as Nothing, and yet in her manifestation she is as Everything. An American playwright makes her speak through the lips of one of his characters, saying: "I am to-day this; yesterday, a pine upon a mountain crag; to-morrow, a butterfly, a blade of grass, a rainbow over a waterfall, a lizard warming on a rock, the rock itself, a beam of the moon. I am nothing because I am everything; everything because I am nothing."

And from this consciousness of Nature's universal everythingness comes to some souls that sense of the joy of life, the Spirit of Nature, which identifies one's self with The All, and The All with one's self. The ancient Greeks deified Nature because they saw in her activities the expression of the life of the World-Spirit. Blessed indeed is he who can feel this great joy of Nature's Life flowing through his veins, thrilling his pulses and throbbing his heart. To such a one has come a great joy; for, at the last, the wise know that,—

"The All is One, and all are part,

And not apart as they seem to be; And the blood of life has a single heart, Beating through God, and cloud, and Me."

Table of Content

STATEMENT: SPIRIT is Immanent In all of its Creation, and In every part thereof; and In essence, nature, substance, and principle is identical therewith.

STUDENTS OF Truth are often so carried away with the almost absolute distinction between SPIRIT and its finite Creation that they lose sight of the essential fact of the Oneness and the Only-ness of SPIRIT, and of the fact that Creation is an expression of SPIRIT—SPIRIT in outward activity. Creation is not pure illusion, though many have so taught in absence of the view of the other side of Truth. It is the most real thing that can be, with the exception of SPIRIT-in-Itself. Creation is really SPIRIT-in-Manifestation, not a separate thing. Just as all Creation is in SPIRIT, so is Spirit immanent in all Creation. (By "immanent" is meant "remaining within; inherent; internal.") Therefore, Creation cannot be mere illusion or delusion. Though its forms are but phantasmal appearances, fading away even as they appear, its essence, nature, substance, and very being is Spirit itself.