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 pushing 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 seership 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 worship 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 _Seership_ 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.
There are some people who can see birds in the air, ships at sea, stars in the sky, while others standing beside them see only empty s.p.a.ce. Just so there are many everywhere on life"s pathway who can extend their normal vision and hearing to such an intensified vibratory rate that it not only includes all the things of the physical plane but the things of the finer ethers.
The transcendentalist standing on the streets of New York can extend his vision and look at a street or building in Chicago or Cairo or London, while the surface man alongside of him can scarcely read the signs on the other side of the street.
The modern transcendentalist does only what the surface man does--he looks to see and brings one hundred percent of his vision to bear upon his desire, while the surface man has less than ten percent of himself in action and that _only_ on one plane.
There are enough people on the planet today who can use these deep states of mind, and induce the extended vision and hearing at will to make it more than a mere hypothetical conclusion; there are X-ray beings among us who have come into contact with a great fundamental principle both within and without themselves.
The time will come in the near future, when the operator with the Roentgen ray will stand beside his machine and look with wide open eyes and find the X-ray in his own vision, and will work unlimited by the bondage of his material machine.
Comparing the modern transcendentalist and his pathway with that of the olden transcendentalist with his ascent of travail and pain, we find a profound satisfaction in the picture of power, peace and love of the modern supra-man.
The pathway of the elder supra-man was one of crucifixion, self-denial, renunciation, affliction, poverty, disease and self-mortification. He found the steps to the higher consciousness and its power only through slow self-conquest and comradeship with pain, and this was the inheritance he handed down through the centuries. To think in terms of mystical wisdom meant human denial of all sentient life. Unification was bought through total consecration to the subjective and the absolute, in which the diverse could have no part.
Today "we are free where our sires were serfs, we can see where He left them blind," and we know that G.o.d-consciousness is man"s immortal birthright and that the son of man must somewhere on his pathway become the son of G.o.d, and as he pa.s.ses on in his unfoldment he will contact every atom of G.o.d-mind in all lines of expression, and from the world of matter he will turn in time naturally to those levels of mind which lead him into reverence, illumination and worship, and through this he finds the whole of life.
Man in his immersion into cosmic consciousness puts forth profound tests of his oneness and faces life in larger and larger proportions, and as he ascends he carries all with him, so that he can give back to all a profound and heroic response.
Every man is transcendent when the hour dawns for his transcendent self to tremble into action.
With these wider reaches of consciousness the modern transcendentalist finds the larger LIFE and the true way of living, and in this brings the new message of the "One life in all and through all" into the ma.s.s mind, and the new song of joy and thanksgiving into their hearts. He is never sad, never agonizing, never renouncing; he has made contact with all life and through this with the universal joy; there is no denial, no separateness,--there is "no more crying," he conquers and ascends not through separateness but through increasing degrees of union. He lives in glad comradeship with G.o.d, in joy and perfected self-expression, both in the objective and in the subjective world.
The ancient transcendentalist was always sad, always separate, always worshipping in beatific loneliness, in seclusion and renunciation of the world; the modern supra-man pa.s.ses from end to end of the pole of being and stops at any point and functions normally. "He stands and works, then kneels and prays." He is lord of the outside external world and partaker of all its divine joys and pleasures, and he is lord of all the deeper reaches of subjective consciousness within himself and the absolute in which he lives, and he brings out from these deeper levels all the intensified power of illumination and revelation, and pours it over his daily pathway illumining it with a glory not its own.
Many olden transcendentalists lived on in entranced states of divine wisdom with diseased flesh and bodies that shrieked with pain, while they mortified and rejected that divine wisdom. The modern transcendentalist brings all his G.o.d-consciousness to bear upon his flesh and raises it to the transcendent heights of his own mind and heals it until bone and muscle and tissues gleam and scintillate with a new found beauty and youth.
The olden transcendentalist dragged on in barren cells and dreary poverty in order not to divert his glorified vision of the formless by the beauty of the _ever present form_; the modern transcendentalist brings his higher laws into play, conquers his poverty and commands around himself the beauty and luxury and freedom of the world of form, and it speaks to him in matchless raiment, luxuriant flowers, gems, material comforts and soft ease. He lives in rapturous companionship with the glory and beauty and majesty of G.o.d in the world _He has projected from Himself_, and with this beneath him, he can rise to the very pinnacle of infinite selfhood.
The olden transcendentalist, ascending into the transcendental heights of his own mind, ascended alone, and from these obscure heights he shed his wisdom back upon the evolving race; he was pioneer in the lands of cosmic consciousness and the first revelator of the path; he showed the race that the path was there to tread, and his messages have fallen as a benediction on the race mind even while he himself bought his wisdom with pain, renunciation and suffering built from the limited recognition of his own mind.
The path winds onward and upward still, but the feet of those climbing it today are led by still waters and in the paths of righteousness. They are no longer in the part but are in the middle of the Divine Channel of G.o.d-consciousness. To know _one_ part was the mission of the _past_; to know _all parts_ and join them in a divine unity is the mission of the _present_.
The modern transcendentalist does not love life less, he loves it more!
The world is alive with a new majesty; the pa.s.sing mult.i.tude, the pa.s.sing face, every human attribute of life calls forth from him a deeper interpretation; he walks out into the race mind, and with the power of a new word, and a new touch heals it from its infirmity. He does in truth give "absent treatments," and his word is accomplished; the old diseased flesh trans.m.u.tes in answer to his command. He speaks to the barren walls of poverty and they stretch away into stately halls, for he knows that wherever man posits his consciousness, substance must gather round it; his new words of power and majesty fall like a benediction on the heart of the listening mult.i.tudes, and they turn round to face a new tomorrow with a new hope born of a larger understanding.
The transcendentalist walks often in our midst; sometimes he a.s.sumes the simplicity of a child to disguise the larger stretches of power within him, but he is out upon the pathway strong and beautiful, wholly replete with promises of perfection, doing the work of the human.
There is a royal road from _appearance_ to _reality_, from _objective_ to _subjective_, from the limited to the absolute.
Difference is merging into one _great white way_ through which the new civilization is thronging, led by the intensified vision of the supra-minds.
Unity has carried man above all things of human law, and he has found that Mighty Force of which all is a part, and he is out into the land of "naked visions" and _knows_.
He dwells securely upon the height and has ceased the long fight with the objective half of himself; he is one with matter because he has transcended and absorbed it; he is centralized in the formless and spiritualized in the formed, and can say from the level of his own Christ consciousness:
"_I and my Father are one."
"All that my Father hath is mine_."