Immortal Mind

“ This is a high and great thing, and when the general mind and imagination live in it, the mood of the world will undergo an unparagoned change.
I am now to answer the question, What is the source of this immortal soul with its flaming Hell and glowing Heaven? These dozen mysterious, mutable forms of Matter the indestructible, being the principal constituents of the whole Universe, have become in man conscious; and man, before he understands, calls this indestructibility of the Matter of which he consists immortal soul. ”

“ Mid mortal men he is the light immortal. Here was he born, firm-seated in his station Immortal, ever waxing in his body. 5. A firm light hath been set for men to look on: among all things that fly the mind is swiftest. All Gods of one accord, with one intention, move unobstructed to a single purpose. ”

“ “’Tis true, ’tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains: The form subsists without the body’s aid, Aerial semblance, and an empty shade! ”

“ Not for mortal mind is any resisting of force beyond human imagination. Not for immortal spirit is any conquering of that which hath probed the depths and made of immortality a transient moment. The end? ”

“ The unreasonable mind that would persist in claiming for it the popular meaning of "immortal soul" would be forced to acknowledge that there would be eleven testimonies in favor of the immortality of the soul of the beasts to two in that of man. Many, we are sorry to say, are so unreasonable that, rather than abandon a theory that has become popular, will rest their belief upon the most absurd claims. ”

“ Only by losing the false sense of Soul can we gain the eternal unfolding of Life as immortality brought to light.
XX. Mind is the divine Principle, Love, and can produce nothing unlike the eternal Father-Mother, God. The one divine Mind Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal. Nothing unspiritual can be real, harmonious, or eternal. ”

“ I believe that the mind may make its own immortality: thought is the spiritual part of existence; and so long as my mind influences others, so long as my thoughts remain behind, so long shall my spirit be conscious and immortal. The body may perish—not so the essence which survives in the living and lasting page." ”

“ As set forth in the various Scriptures we have given, when the word is used otherwise than of the person or being, it is always employed to express the variety of aspects in which a living being can be contemplated, such as life, individuality, mind, disposition, breath, etc.; but it never expresses the idea of immortality, and is never used in the popular form, "immortal soul." ”

“ If Truth is immortal, error must be mortal, because error is unlike Truth. Because Soul is immortal, Soul cannot sin, for sin is not the eternal verity of being.
Question. — What is the scientific statement of being?
Answer. — There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material ”

“ Mortal thought transmits its own images, and forms its offspring after human concepts. Immortal models Immortal models. — pure, perfect, and enduring — are transmitted by the divine Mind through Science, which corrects error with the ideals of Truth, and demands spiritual thoughts, divine concepts, to the end that they may produce harmonious results. ”

“ To those who Dream of Immortality.—So you desire the everlasting perpetuity of this beautiful consciousness of yourselves? Is it not [pg 225] shameful? Do you forget all those other things which would in their turn have to support you for all eternity, just as they have borne with you up to the present with more than Christian patience? Or do you think that you can inspire them with an eternally pleasant feeling towards yourself? A single immortal man on earth would imbue everyone around him with such a disgust for him that a general epidemic of murder and suicide would be brought about. ”

“ But here's the thing I could never get out of the way—and if I only could! If my soul is immortal, why did it have a beginning? If I'm to know eternal life, why don't I reach out to infinity behind as well as before? How can a thing be immortal that has its moment of birth? ”

“ Swept on and up in ecstasy, perception becoming ever clearer, he beheld the so-called soul-self of man unravelled into its component parts and laid before him like the unwoven threads of a garment, and behold in these was no durability nor immortality, for there is but one Immortal, one Infinite, and the man who claims his own, his separate immortality, is dying and reborn through the ages and but the fierce desire of life gives him its simulacrum and the long-linked chain of births and deaths and griefs immeasurable. ”

“ But do you not think this should strengthen one’s faith in the soul’s immortality? Are we not spirits living in material bodies? And when the material body dies, if our spirits are immortal, why should not they seek to manifest themselves to their friends on earth? ”

“ How can the spirit of man, deprived of virtue, cognition, will, personality and life, remain immortal? Still more, how can he enjoy such immortality? The dim feeling of such eternal rest we all can understand, who have gone suddenly from a lighted room into the vast night, and have felt our souls suddenly invaded and possessed by a sense of mystery and silence. We have felt this; but in his final beatitude the Mystic must not feel: “He must be as one dead.” ”

“ Upon such a tissue of absurdities is built the marvellous opinion of the immortality of the soul. If I ask, what are the motives for believing the soul immortal, they immediately answer, that it is because man naturally desires to be immortal: but, because you desire a thing ardently, can you infer that your desire will be fulfilled? By what strange logic can we dare affirm, that a thing cannot fail to happen, because we ardently desire it? Are desires, begotten by the imagination, the measure of reality? ”

“ DOES NATURE TEACH THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL?
We behold man a living, breathing, thinking creature, possessed of what we call the five senses--seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting. Viewing him as we see him in the exercise of his various functions, forbidding the play of imagination, and excluding the influence of theological training, do we find anything in him that may be set down as proof that he is possessed of an immortal, or immaterial soul? ”

“ Answer, if thou canst, or rather question thy heart, and thou wilt believe.
Secondly. If all die with the body, who has been able to persuade all men, of every age, and of every country, that their soul was immortal? From whence has this strange idea of immortality descended to the human race? How could an opinion, so distant from the nature of man, were he born only for the functions of the senses, have pervaded the earth? ”

“ Yes, and that it was immortal, too! You see a body, and therefore you believe in it. You see that it is mortal and therefore you believe in its mortality. You do not see the soul--therefore you believe in one? ”

“ They believe the soul to be both immaterial and immortal. They say that it keeps fluttering about the lips during the pangs of death; and that then it ascends and mixes with, or, as they express it, is eaten by the deity. ”

“ A man’s spiritual comprehension being clouded by the illusions of self, he says, "I was born on such a day, so many years ago, and shall die at my allotted time." But he was not born, neither will he die, for how can that which is immortal, which eternally is, be subject to birth and death? Let a man throw off his illusions, and then he will see that the birth and death of the body are the mere incidents of a journey, and not its beginning and end. ”

“ These, in just so far as they are real, are immortal, and any real relation between them is immortal also, for the conclusive test of immortality is just reality, reality here and now. Whatever is real in your life or in mine, whatever reality our present personality may possess, be it physical or spiritual, be it both or neither of these, that and only that is immortal. ”

“ Can parts, be they two or many more, ever be unmixedly what the whole is? There is immortality, then, yet nothing, not the body nor the soul, is wholly or selfishly immortal. Reflect, to take an illustration from the practice, if not from the conscious thinking of men, how through the centuries of the dualistic view of human nature, the saving, or the losing, of the separate soul has been a keen human interest, and how the separate body, living, has been neglected and despised, and, dead, has been cherished and honoured. ”

“ Souls are indeed immortal—why should we ever have imagined otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it? I see the death-side now as I saw the life-side then; and one has as little meaning as the other. As it has been, so it will be, now, henceforth, and for ever, in and out, in and out, without pause or stint, futile, trivial, silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and vain!' The long pre-occupation of men with religion, philosophy, and art, seemed to me now as incomprehensible as it was ridiculous. ”

“ Ponder over the following questions and see the folly of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul:
Since the Bible speaks of a living man (Gen. 2:7) as a living soul, and a dead man as a dead soul, (Num. 6:6; 9:10) (the word body in these verses is from nephesh) , and since Paul defines a living soul to be a natural body (I Cor. 15:44, 45) , how can you speak of the soul as immortal, deathless? ”

“ The Belief in Immortality has been made a Curse.—This belief, so full of delight and rainbowed with anticipations, has been made, from the dawn of man’s religious nature, the means of inflicting unspeakable tortures, both of mind and body. ”

“ Can we conceive a more potent stimulus to rectitude, to daily and hourly striving after a true life, than this ever-present sense that we are indeed immortal; not that we have an immortal something within us—but that in very truth we ourselves, our thinking, feeling, acting personalities, are immortal?' MR. FREDERIC HARRISON.
'As we live for others in life, so we live in others after death.... How deeply does such a belief as this bring home to each moment of life the mysterious perpetuity of ourselves! For good, for evil, we cannot die. ”

“ Immortality in this world, immortality in another! Suppose that we were as certain of the latter as we are of getting to Paris [Pg 68] by the 11 a.m. from Victoria. Either the world would be emptied by suicide, or—it wouldn’t! Suppose that immortality for a poem was a matter of formula. Take of universality so much, of heart so much, of grace so much: add tears, so much, and simmer gently till done ...! What would be the result? Everybody’s poems would be immortal. The Golden Treasury would stretch from here to Easter. ”

“ It is a fanciful idea, that whatever we say or think, is immortal; that every word we utter goes ringing through the universe forever; that every thought of the heart becomes a creation, a thing of vitality in some shape, starting forward among the things of some sort of life, never to die! I have sometimes, in my dreamy hours, speculated upon the truth of such a theory, and reasoned with myself in favor of its reality. ”

“ It would, therefore, have the same effect as unbelief arising from a want of knowledge, or a lack of the intellectual power to conceive the idea of immortality. The soul, in either case, could not have a consciousness of its own existence or individuality.
It may be asked, What becomes of the soul when deprived of a conscious existence? Does it actually die, disintegrate, and return to its original elements? Is it possible that a human soul, created by God and endowed with the power and potency of immortal life, can fail of accomplishing its mission, and become extinct? ”

“ We watched the women, drank a great deal, and conversed on the immortality of the soul.
“It’s foolish,” said one of my comrades who was older than I, “it’s foolish to believe that it would be a blessing to have an immortal soul. Look at that old harridan dancing there, whose head and hands tremble if she stays still a moment. One sees directly that she is wicked and ugly and entirely worthless, and that she’s getting more and more so every day. How ridiculous it would be to imagine that she had an immortal soul! ”

“ I shall, however, remark upon this subject, that the writers in favour of the immortality [21] of the soul have done that truth great injury, by connecting it necessarily with its immateriality. The immortality of the soul depends upon the will of the Deity, and not upon the supposed properties of spirit. Matter is in its own nature as immortal as spirit. It is resolvable by heat and mixture into a variety of forms ”

“ We should know at once that such a being must be immortal; such a life could never be lived by an ephemeral creature; of all possible proofs of immortality he is himself the sublimest. This is true, but not the whole truth. The resistless assurance, the Divine inspiration, the sublime repose, with which he enunciates the various thoughts connected with the theme of endless existence, are indeed marvellous. ”

“ The question for man most momentous of all is whether or no he has an immortal soul; or—to avoid the word immortal, which belongs to the realm of infinities—whether or no his personality involves any element which can survive bodily death. ”