Science and the Infinite - Sydney T. Klein (free e books to read online .txt) 📗

the world go round. It is the most powerful incentive on earth, and is implanted in our natures for the good and furtherance of the race; it is, in fact, the manifestation on the material plane of that craving of the Inner self for union with, and being perfected in loving and knowing, that Infinite Love of which it is itself the likeness. If we can realise that everything on the physical plane is a shadow, symbol, or manifestation of that which is in the Transcendental, the Mystical Sense, through contemplating these as symbols, enables us at certain times, alas! too seldom and fleeting in character, to get beyond the Physical; but those of my readers who have been there will know how impossible it is to describe, in direct words, which would carry any meaning, either the path by which the experience is gained or a true account of the experience itself. I will try, however, and I think I may be able to lead my readers, by indirect inductive suggestion, to a view of even these difficult subjects, by using the knowledge we have already gained in our first view through this Window. If an artist were required to draw a representation of the Omniscient Transcendental Self, budding out new forms of thought in response to the conscientious efforts of, and the providing of suitable clothing by, the Physical Ego, as referred to in View No. 1, he would be obliged to make use of symbolic forms, and I want to make it quite clear that the description I am attempting must necessarily be clothed in symbolic language and reasoning, and must not be taken as in any way the key by which the door of "the sanctuary" may be opened; it is only possible by it to help the mind to grasp the fact that there is a Window through which such things may be seen, the rest depends upon the personality of the seer.

Now bear in mind that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature, but that it is the Reality, which, by means of the physical, is persistently striving to enter into our consciousness, to tell us what? Θεος αγαπη εστιν (God is Love). As in Thompson's suggestive poem, "The Hound of Heaven"—the Hidden which desires to be found—the Reality is ever hunting us, and will never leave us till He has taught us to know and therefore to love Him, and, as seen in our first view, the first step is to try to see through the woof of nature to the Reality beyond. To this may also be added the attempt to hear the "silence" beyond the audible. Try now to look upon the whole "visible" as a background comprising landscape, sea, and sky—we shall get help in this direction in a later View—and then bring that background nearer and nearer to your consciousness. It requires practice, but it can be done; it may help you if you remember the fact that the whole of that visible scene is actually depicted on the surface of your retina and has no other existence for you. The nearer you can get the background to approach, the more clearly you can see that the whole physical world of our senses is but a thin veil, a mere soap film, which at death is pricked and parts asunder, leaving us in the presence of the Reality underlying all phenomena. The same may be accomplished with the "audible," which is indeed part of the same physical film, though this is not at first easy to recognise. As pointed out in View No. 1, there is little in common between our sense of sight and hearing; but the chirp of birds, the hum of bees, the rustle of wind in the leaves, the ripple of a stream, the distant sound of sheep bells, and lowing of cattle form a background of sound which may be coaxed to approach you; the only knowledge you have of such sounds is their impression or image on the flat tympanum of your ear; they have no other existence for you; and again you may recognise that the physical is but a thin transient film. With the approach of the physical film all material sensation becomes as it were blurred, as near objects become when the eye looks at the horizon, and gradually escapes from consciousness.

I have tried in the foregoing to suggest a method by which our Window may be unshuttered; it has necessarily been only an oblique view and clothed in symbolic phraseology, but those who have been able to grasp its meaning will now have attained to what may be called a state of self-forgetting, the silencing or quieting down of the Physical Ego; sight and sound perceptions have been put in the background of consciousness, and it becomes possible to worship or love the very essence of beauty without the distraction of sense analysis and synthesis or temptation to form intellectual conceptions.

We are now prepared to attempt the last aspect of our view—namely, the description of what is experienced when the physical mists have been evaporated by the Mystical Sense. Again we find that no direct description is possible, language is absolutely inadequate to describe the unspeakable, communications have to be physically transmitted in words to which finite physical meanings have been allocated. The still small voice which may at times of Rapture be momentarily experienced in Music, is something much more wonderful than can be formed by sounds, and this perhaps comes nearest to the expression necessary for depicting the vision of the soul; but it cannot be held or described, it is quickly drowned by the physical sense of audition. As the Glamour of Symbolism can only be transmitted to one who has passed the portal of Symbolic Thought, the Rapture of Music can only be truly understood by one who has already experienced it, and the Ideal of Art requires a true artistic temperament to comprehend it, so it is, I believe, impossible to describe, with any chance of success, this wonderful experience to any but those whom Mr. A. C. Benson, in his Secret of the Thread of Gold, very aptly describes as having already entered "the Shrine." Those who have been there will know that it is not at all equivalent to a vision, it is not anything which can be seen or heard or felt by touch; it is entirely independent of the physical senses; it is not Giving or Receiving, it is not even a receiving of some new knowledge from the Reality; it has nothing to do with thought or intellectual gymnastics; all such are seen to be but mist. The nearest description I can formulate is:—A wondrous feeling of perfect peace;—absolute rest from physical interference;—perfect contentment;—the sense of Being-one-with-the-Reality, carrying with it a knowledge that the Reality or Spiritual is nearer to us and has much more to do with us than the Physical has, if we could only see the truth and recognise its presence;—that there is no real death;—no finiteness and yet no Infinity;—that the Great Spirit cannot be localised or said to be anywhere, but that everywhere is God;—that the whole of what we call Creation is an instantaneous Thought of the Reality;—that it is only by the process of analysing in Time and Space that we imagine there is such a thing as succession of events;—that the only Reality is the Spiritual, the Here embracing all Space and the Now embracing all Time.

How few of us who are now drawing towards the end of our sojourn here, have not, at certain times during our lives, experienced something akin to what I have tried to put before you in the above! Does not a particular scent, a beautiful country scene, a phrase in music, the beauty or pathos in a picture, symbolic sculpture in a grand cathedral, or even a chance word spoken in our hearing, every now and then waken in our innermost consciousness an enchanting memory of some wonderful happy moment of the past when the sun seemed to have been shining more brightly, the birds singing more merrily, when everything in nature seemed more alive, and our very beings seemed wrapped up in an intense love of our surroundings? On those occasions we were not far from seeing behind the veil, though we did not recognise it at the time; but when we now look back, with experience gained by advancing years, and consider those visions of the past, we cannot help seeing that the physical film was to our eyes more transparent at those times, and the very joy of their remembrance seems to be giving us a prescience of that which we shall experience, when for each one of us the physical film is pricked and passes away like a scroll.

VIEW THREE MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM

"Who can doubt that the Mystics know more than the Theologians, and that the Poets know more than the Scientists? for this inner apprehension is surely the highest and truest kind of Knowledge." Such were the words written to me lately by a clergyman of great learning and of unimpeachable orthodoxy, whose mature knowledge of the Higher Mysteries has been gained by a life-long study of the Divine. In View No. 1 we saw that the first step towards opening our Window, was to grasp the fact that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature, but that it is the Reality which is ever trying to enter and to come into touch with us, through our senses, and is persistently trying to wake within us a knowledge of the sublimest truths: but this has not yet been appreciated by the Theologian; he is looking outwards instead of inwards, and asks the question, based on intellectual conception, in the form "Can I find out the Absolute so that I may possess Him?" and the answer ever comes back, "No, because I am trying to storm the Sanctuary of the Unthinkable, the Infinite, by means of a Ladder which cannot reach beyond our finite conceptions, and can deal therefore only with the shadows, cast by the outlying ramparts, upon our physical plane." An example of this is surely seen in the lecture lately delivered by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore) to the University of Oxford (13th February 1912, reported in the Guardian of 16th February), when he made the statement that the greatest difficulty we have is to recognise that the Absolute is a God of Love. His exact words were: "I believe that there are a great many of us who know, perhaps from bitter experience, that whatever difficulties there are about religious belief are difficulties about believing in a God of Love; whatever is our experience, and however sunny is our disposition, any steady thinking will make it apparent that thought, apart from the Christian revelation, presumed and accepted, or reflected unconsciously, has never got at it, and even after it has been in the world, thought is continually finding it hard to retain the idea of God the Creator, or the truth that God is Love, partly owing to the limitations of human thinking, partly, and even more, owing to the experience of man and of nature."

On the other hand the Mystic, with introspection, asks the question in the form "Can the Absolute find me out and possess me and thus make me feel that that which is within me is akin to, is, in fact, a part of Him and that I am possessed thereby?" and the answer ever comes back from those who are on the true Quest:—"Yes; because the Unthinkable, the Hidden which desires to