can best get an idea by calling it Self-contemplation.
Now this may seem an extremely abstract conception and one with which we
have no practical concern. I fancy I can hear the reader saying "The Lord
only knows how the world started, and it is His business and not mine,"
which would be perfectly true if this originating faculty were confined to
the Cosmic Mind. But it is not, and the same action takes place in our own
minds also, only with the difference that it is ultimately subject to that
principle of Cosmic Unity of which I have already spoken. But, subject to
that unifying principle, this same power of origination is in ourselves
also, and our personal advance in evolution depends on our right use of it;
and our use of it depends on our recognition that we ourselves give rise to
the particular polarities which express themselves in our whole world of
consciousness, whether within or without. For these reasons it is very
important to realize that Evolution is not the same as Creation. It is the
unfolding of potentialities involved in things already created, but not the
calling into existence of what does not yet exist--_that_ is Creation.
The order, therefore, which I wish the student to observe is, first the
Self-contemplation of Spirit producing Polarity, and next Polarity
producing Manifestation in Form--and also to realize that it is in this
order his own mind operates as a subordinate center of creative energy.
When the true place of Polarity is thus recognized, we shall find in it the
explanation of all those relations of things which give rise to the whole
world of phenomena; from which we may draw the practical inference that if
we want to change the manifestation we must change the polarity, and to
change the polarity we must get back to the Self-contemplation of Spirit.
But in its proper place as the root-principle of all _secondary_ causation,
Polarity is one of those fundamental facts of which we must never lose
sight. The term "Polarity" is adopted from electrical science. In the
electric battery it is the connecting together of the opposite poles of
zinc and copper that causes a current to flow from one to the other and so
provides the energy that rings the bell. If the connection is broken there
is no action. When you press the button you make the connection. The same
process is repeated in respect of every sort of polarity throughout the
universe. Circulation depends on polarity, and circulation is the
_manifestation_ of Life, which we may therefore say depends on the
principle of polarity. In relation to ourselves we are concerned with two
great polarities, the polarity of Soul and Body and the polarity of Soul
and Spirit; and it is in order that he may more clearly realize their
working that I want the student to have some preliminary idea of Polarity
as a general principle.
The conception of the Creative Order may therefore be generalized as
follows. The Spirit wants to enjoy the reality of its own Life--not merely
to vegetate, but to enjoy giving--and therefore by Self-contemplation it
projects a polar opposite, or complementary, calculated to give rise to the
particular sort of _relation_ out of which the enjoyment of a certain mode
of self-consciousness will necessarily spring. Let this sentence be well
pondered over until the full extent of its significance is grasped, for it
is the key to the whole matter Very well, then: Spirit wants to Enjoy Life,
and so, by thinking of itself as _having_ the enjoyment which it wishes, it
produces the conditions which, by their re-action upon itself, give rise to
the reality of the sort of enjoyment contemplated. In more scientific
language an opposite polarity is induced, giving rise to a current which
stimulates a particular mode of sensation, which sensation in turn becomes
a fresh starting-point for still further action; and in this way each
successive stage becomes the stepping-stone to a still higher degree of
sensation--that is, to a Fuller Enjoyment of Life.
Such a conception as this presents us with a Progressive Series to which it
is impossible to assign any limit. That the progression must be limitless
is clear from the fact that there is never any change in the method. At
each successive stage the Creating Power is the Self-consciousness of the
Spirit, as realized at that stage, still reaching forward for yet further
Enjoyment of Life, and so always keeping on repeating the _one_ Creative
Process at an ever-rising level; and since these are the sole working
conditions, the progress is one which logically admits of no finality. And
this is where the importance of realizing the Singleness of the Originating
Power comes in, for with a Duality each member would limit the other; in
fact, Duality as the Originating Power is inconceivable, for, once more to
quote "Paddy's Philosophy," "finality would be reached before anything was
begun."
This Creative Process, therefore, can only be conceived of as limitless,
while at the same time strictly progressive, that is, proceeding stage by
stage, each stage being necessary as a preparation for the one that is to
follow. Let us then briefly sketch the stages by which things in our world
have got as far as they have. The interest of the enquiry lies in the fact
that if we can once get at the principle which is producing these results,
we may discover some way of giving it personal application.
On the hypothesis of the Self-contemplation of Spirit being the originating
power, we have found that a primary ether, or universal substance, is the
necessary correspondence to Spirit's simple awareness of its own being. But
though awareness of being is the necessary foundation for any further
possibilities it is, so to say, not much to talk about. The foundation
fact, of course, is to know that I Am; but immediately on this
consciousness there follows the desire for Activity--I want to enjoy my I
Am-ness by doing something with