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From Intellect to Intuition - Chapter Eight - The Universality of Meditation
Through this vital experience and through the process of sensory desire and subsequent awareness, the man exhausts that aspect of his nature and penetrates deeper until he arrives at a third factor, the mind. At this point of investigation man now stands, and the close consideration of the mental processes and the study of mind reactions, their causes and objectives, are engrossing the attention [180] of psychologists everywhere. Amongst them are many schools of thought, holding widely opposing views, but that a something called the mind exists, and that it is increasingly influencing the race, is now universally recognized. Whither do we go from this point? It has been a steady progression down the ages of the evolving human consciousness, and a steady growth of awareness of nature, of the world in which men live, and an increasing grasp of the Whole, until now the entire world is knit together through the radio, the telegraph and television. Man is omnipresent, and the mind is the main factor in the bringing about of this apparent miracle. We have arrived at an understanding of the laws which govern the natural world, and some of those which govern the psychical. The laws of the spiritual realm, so-called, remain to be scientifically discovered and utilized. A few have known them and spoken to humanity about them, but they are only utilized by the pioneering spirits of our race. Among these few who stand out as the eminent Knowers, are the Buddha, the Christ, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, Spinoza - the list is long. We are now beginning to ask the pertinent question: Is it not possible that many hundreds now are at the point where they can coordinate the brain, the mind and the soul, and so pass through the portal of mental awareness into the realm of light, of intuitive perception, and the world of causes? From the standpoint of the mental world into which we have now penetrated, [181] leaving behind us the veils of the physical body and the psychical nature, may we not be able now to pass on to our next evolutionary development? Having arrived at some understanding of the nature of humanity and the mind, can we not begin to grasp the nature of the intuition and to function in another kingdom in nature with as much realization and facility as we function as men? The Knowers say that we can, and they tell us of the way. Third: In the language of some of the pioneers into the spiritual realm, the third result of meditation is that we find God. It is relatively unimportant what we mean in detail by that little word of three letters. It is but a symbol of Reality. Every world religion posits a Life that is immanent in form, and a Cause that has brought all things into being. Every human being is conscious within himself of the dim struggles (becoming more fierce as the intellect develops) to know, to understand, and answer the questions of Why and Wherefore. The majority of men, no matter what their theology, when they stand before the portal of death, assert their belief in the Father of Beings and accept the implications of that Fatherhood. Let us regard God as that "High and Unknown Purpose" which can be recognized as the sumtotal of all forms which express the Life, of all states of consciousness, and as the Life itself; let us regard Deity as that in which we live and move and have our being, and which is working out through every form in nature (including the human form), His own inclusive and [182] synthetic Plan. The Knowers tell us that when they have arrived, through a method at a Way, and through the following of that Way have entered into a new state of being, the Divine Purpose and Plan stands revealed to them. They can enter into active participation with it, and become conscious and intelligent workers on the side of evolution. They know what is happening, for they have seen the blue prints. Fourth: In the words of all schools of mystics in both hemispheres, these results are summed up in the words: Union with God, or At-one-ment with Divinity. God and man are at-one. The Self and Not-Self are unified. Tauler expresses it thus: "In this union... the man does not attain to God by images or meditations, nor by a higher mental effort, nor as a taste or a light. But it is truly Himself that he receives inwardly, and in a manner that greatly surpasses all the savor, all the light of created beings, all reason, all measure, all intelligence." - Quoted by Poulain, R. P., S. J., The Grams of Interior Prayer, page 80. All other factors below the spiritual reality are but ways to the center, and must be entirely superseded in the contemplative state wherein the man slips out of the form consciousness into that of the spiritual reality, the soul. This, being a conscious indivisible part of the Universal Soul (paradoxical as those words may be), is devoid of all sense of separateness; hence the union with God is a realization of a fact in nature which has always been. The [183] soul consciously knows itself to be one with God. With this idea in our minds and with an understanding of the part that intellection has played, the words of St. Paul take on a new clarity, when he says: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God."
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