Part 2 (1/2)

Studying life in the light of our modern understanding, we find that man pa.s.ses by natural law through the objective, the surface zone, then on to the subjective or inner zone, and then to a centralized position between both zones where he lives, moves and has being in both zones, uniting the laws of the two kingdoms into a new zone of consciousness, then using the laws of both, he pa.s.ses at will to the very edge of matter, and back to the very center of the cosmic mind; standing here in life's master position, he is lord of both zones. This middle zone of power and mastery is the path of the modern transcendentalist, and the one who walks it and lives in unification with its laws is the _modern transcendentalist_ of the new civilization. It has been written--

”_For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat” because_

”_Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life_.”

We know today that this is true, for on the broad path of the objective life man must pa.s.s through the law of change which destroys, that it may create again and through which he is crowded on to seek the narrow path of subjective senses which are built on the law of verities.

Man's first lessons are in the objective zone of mind, and he remains positive in this zone until he masters its laws and the lessons which they bring.

In this objective zone of mind we find the ma.s.s man of the old civilization, he is in the _broad way_ of the surface consciousness, and in his midst there dwells the specialized individuals who are approaching the central zones of mind; they are called the scientist, the physicist, the materialist, the agnostic, the mentalist, the reasoner, and the atheist, all true and perfect for their type but all more or less unconscious of the latent states of mind within themselves and the universe to which they must some day respond.

As human consciousness intensifies through use, man finds himself pa.s.sing on through his surface zones to the concealed states of mind within himself, ”the narrow way,” and slowly, almost unconsciously at first, he begins manifesting the law of these zones. In these states of mind we find the philosopher, the idealist, the emotionalist, the psychist, the sensitive, the intuitionist, the revelator, the transcendentalist and the seer.

Watching race evolution we see that the day of surface consciousness and its power is waning only as it is controlled and manipulated through the subjective states of man's mind. The hour for subjective research and subjective introspection is at hand,--men have mastered the external world and its laws, and are now following the cosmic urge which is pus.h.i.+ng them toward the center and away from the _apparent_ to the _absolute_ laws of life.

The external evolution of form is complete for this hour; men go down into the bowels of the earth, they sail the seas, they mount the air on wings, and the external world has seen ”the son of man coming in clouds of glory”

and now the eternal man must have his hour, and come in ”trailing robes of power and brightness,” to pour new revelation through the external world and its laws.

Books, paintings, pictures, science, music have all had their day in external exaltation, and now the attention of man is mounting higher and turning inward; the study of the surface and sub-consciousness has been transferred, and while part of the world's eyes are yet peering through the microscope at the _sub-life_ and plenty are looking at the laws of life around them, the transcendentalist with these truths locked fast in his mind, is turning to the undiscovered states within himself, and is everywhere launching out into the unfathomed states of the supra-mind of man.

Man has evolved like a planet through the stone age of mind and today with the planet in the vibratory zone of water and _air_ he has risen with it into the transcendent states of his own being.

Many transcendentalists are living so naturally in the beginning manifestations of the supra-mind that they hardly recognize them as uncommon and the world is becoming peopled with a race of supra-men and supra-women who are using the subtle laws of the transcendentalists of the past, but not using them _alone_, or in _hidden cloisters_, or through separate states of living, but using them as simple human attributes of their own mind, and using them in the common marts of the surface life with more real understanding than did the olden transcendentalist in his specialized separated environment, a.s.sisted by _secluded study_ and _special opportunities_.

The modern transcendentalist is a post graduate of the surface consciousness, and uses it as simply a wireless machine with which he registers his deeper perceptions, and with it links himself and his revelation naturally to the natural world. He stands in natural communion with both zones, and in this communion with deeper laws he attains a supra-power, he walks his human pathway in human form, but he manipulates his surface life with the power born of his supra-wisdom.

The modern transcendentalists form the corner-stones of the new civilization. ”For the new age will come quickly to its birth when this His world, will know itself divine” and in this new civilization the ma.s.s man will have for his surface consciousness, the deep subtle union of both zones, and the specialized teacher, leader and messenger of this new age, will forge ahead on the great white way of prophecy and seers.h.i.+p which is born from the union of the finite and infinite mind.

To the mind of the old civilization this will not seem true, for it is still in the swaddling clothes of its old inheritance; in the thoughts of the past, man and G.o.d, matter and spirit, finite and infinite have been so long divorced and separated that it will be found difficult to accept the union of incense and wors.h.i.+p and reverence in the same breath with the real, the apparent and the formed, but this is the hour for higher prophecy, and that hour when the ”lion and the lamb shall lie down together.”

To those who are really able to read the signs of the times, human consciousness everywhere offers the greatest proof of this truth, for looking with eyes that can see, we find that every individual is in possession of eight distinct states of consciousness with which he can operate in the subjective and objective zones.

There may be still greater stretches of the human mind into union with the universal which the oncoming races will discover, but that there are eight distinct levels of mind activity many know because they have touched them and know them within themselves.

Some minds are active in one, some in two, some in three, and some in four, and some are more or less distinct in all.

The ma.s.s man of the new civilization is awake in the _third_ and _fourth_ dimensions of his mind, and those in higher reaches are awake in the _fifth_ and _sixth_, a few are in the _seventh_ and _eighth_, but the rank and file are familiar to some degree with all these states.

The first or surface mind of man is in itself only cell consciousness, touched by man's own intellect, and it is known as _instinct_, his second expression of mind is known as _reason_, the third is _emotion_ or _feeling_, and the fourth is instinct, reason and emotion blended into one, and called _intuition_. The fifth and sixth are above the plane of thought and feeling and includes them in a still higher intensification; here thinking ceases and _registration_ is the law, and here is where _revelation_ is born. The seventh and eighth are still supra reaches of man's mind, and include the union or surface consciousness with the higher states, in which the brain becomes the wireless machine, through which flashes of divine wisdom comes; this is called _Prophecy_ and _Seers.h.i.+p_ and this is the product of the ”mirror-mind.”

There are bodies and atmospheres to fit each transcendent state of mind, and the transcendentalist can suspend any, or all of his states of mind, one after another, and pa.s.s into direct atonement with any level with which he wishes to function; he can at will live in a new world, and speak with a new tongue, and fill his surface mind with a glory not its own, ”but which it had with Him before the world was.”

These new states of mind in action extends man's world into the wider reaches of the universal and adds to him new levels of wisdom and power.

There are reaches of intelligence far below and beyond the common intelligence as the microscope and the telescope have shown, and at the fourth and fifth dimension of consciousness man dispenses with all material aids and uses the adjustments of his own being. He has found the eyes, the cars, and the understanding of the supra-self, and by suspending his surface mind through concentration and meditation he can enter any sphere of thought at will and be in the land of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and in the astral and atmospherian, or pa.s.s farther out and register in his surface brain the wonders and laws of etherian, and celestial worlds. He is at one with the world of the sensitive, the impressionist and the medium, and in the deeper states of vision he can see and read the memory tablets of the universe. In the higher registrations he becomes cosmo-voyant and cosmo-audient, he can see and hear through s.p.a.ce and through ethers as the common eye looks through air.

These are not special gifts from G.o.d, but simply the gifts man gives himself through the conscious use of what is already in his possession.

The power to extend sight and hearing far above and below the so-called senses is latent within every individual and when the point of transcendental development is reached he uses it naturally.