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The Consciousness of the Atom - Cosmic Evolution
We have seen that the goal for the atom of substance is self-consciousness; and that for the Entity Who is evolving through a planet, the goal may be God consciousness. Now, of course, when you consider the solar Logos words fail, yet for Him also there must be a goal. You can call this Absolute Consciousness, if you like. Let us again illustrate this. Our body, we have been told, is made up of a multiplicity of little lives, or cells, or atoms, each having its own individual consciousness. This corresponds to its self-consciousness. The consciousness of the physical body, viewed as a whole, might, from the atom's point of view, be regarded as its group consciousness. Then we have the consciousness of man, the thinker. He is the one who energizes the body, and turns it to his will - that is, to the atom in his body, analogous to what we might call God consciousness. Our self-conscious realization is as far removed from that of the atom as the consciousness of the solar Logos is from ours. Now to the atom in our body that consciousness of the solar Logos might be called Absolute Consciousness, might it not? This thought can be extended to the human atom, to the planetary atom, and you can further predicate that the solar Logos reaches out to a consciousness beyond His own analogous to that which stretches between the atom in your body and Him. Here [155] you have a very marvelous vista opening up. Yet this is, in itself, encouraging; for if we study closely the cell in a physical body, and consider the long road that has been traveled between its consciousness, and that which a man now knows to be his, we have for ourselves the promise and hope of future achievement, and the incentive to persist in our endeavor. The old books of the East have held secreted for many ages the truth about much which is only now beginning to sink into the consciousness of the Occidental. They taught the radioactivity of matter thousands of years ago, and so perhaps, after all, there may be an equal amount of truth in their teaching about the constellations. Perhaps in the stars that we can see in the distant heavens, and in the life that is evolving within them, we have the objective of our solar Logos, and the influences that are flowing towards him, attracting him towards them, and making him, in due course of time, radioactive. In the Eastern books they say that in the sun Sirius lies the source of wisdom, and that the influence or the energy of love emanates from there. Then they say that there is a constellation that is even more closely connected with our solar Logos, the reason being that He is not, as yet, sufficiently evolved so that He can respond completely to Sirius, but He can respond to the influence of the seven sisters of [156] the Pleiades. This group is a most interesting one. If you will go to the dictionary and look up the word "electricity," you will find it suggested that it may be traced back to the star Electra, one of the seven sisters, and supposed by some to be the little lost Pleiad. The Eastern teachers say that in the mystery of electricity is hidden all knowledge, and that when we have fathomed that we shall know all there is to be known. What the relationship of the Pleiades to our solar system may be, it is not possible for us to say, but even our Christian Bible recognizes it, and Job speaks of "the sweet influences of the Pleiades," whilst some of the Oriental Scriptures affirm that the connection lies in sound or vibration. Perhaps the Pleiades are the source of the atomic life of our Logos, the active intelligent aspect, that one which was first developed, and which we might call electrical matter. Then there is the Great Bear. There is much that is interesting said about the relation between the Great Bear and the Pleiades in Oriental writings. The seven sisters are said to be the seven wives of the seven stars of the Great Bear. Now what is perhaps the truth back of that legend? If the Pleiades are the source of the electrical manifestation, the active intelligent aspect of the solar system, and their energy that which animates all matter, they may perhaps [157] represent the negative aspect, whose polar opposite, or the positive aspect, is their seven husbands, the seven stars of the Great Bear. Perhaps the union of these two is what produces our solar system. Perhaps these two types of energy, one from the Pleiades and the other from the Great Bear, meet, and in their conjunction produce that blazing forth in the heavens which we call our solar system. The relationship of these two constellations, or rather their subjective relationship, must surely have some basis in fact, or we would not have it hinted at in the different mythologies. There must be something that connects them, out of all the myriads of constellations, with our solar system. But when we endeavor to give it a purely physical application we go astray. If we work it out along the lines of the subjective life, and connect it with energy, quality, or force, we are liable to stumble upon truth, and find out some of the reality which may underlie what appears at first sight to be a senseless fable. Anything that widens our horizon, that enables us to take a broader vision and a clearer view of what is going on in the evolutionary process, is of value to us, not because the accumulation of ascertained facts is of value, but because of what it enables us to do within ourselves; our ability to think in wider and larger terms is increased; [158] we are enabled to look beyond our self-centered point of view, and to include within our consciousness other and different aspects than our own. In doing this we are developing group consciousness, and we shall realize eventually that the apparently stupendous facts which we fought and died for down the ages, and emphasized as the entire truth, were after all but fragments of a plan, and infinitesimal portions of a gigantic sumtotal. Perhaps, therefore, when we come back to earth again, and can look back upon the things that interest us now, and which we consider so important, we shall find how erroneous facts were as we then apprehended them. Facts, after all, do not matter; the facts of the last century are not facts now, and in the next century scientists may laugh at our dogmatic assertions, and wonder how we could have looked upon matter as we did. It is the development of the life, and the relationship of the life to all that is around, that really matters; and, above all, the effect that we are having upon those with whom we are associated, and the work we do, which affects, for better or for worse, the group in which we find ourselves. In closing this series of lectures, I cannot do better than quote again from St. Paul, where he says: "I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the [159] glory which shall be revealed in us... for we are saved by hope... for I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God."
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