Infinite mind

“ Must we discard all belief in an infinite mind because we cannot understand it, and therefore say we are not a part of it because there is no Infinite? Should we discard the belief in the infinitude of number, because we cannot understand it, and therefore say that finite number is not a part of the infinite? ”

“ Finite mind manifests all sorts of errors, and thus proves the material theory of mind in matter to be the Inexhaustible divine Love antipode of Mind. Who hath found finite life or love sufficient to meet the demands of human want and woe, — to still the desires, to satisfy the aspirations? Infinite Mind cannot be limited to a finite form, or Mind would lose its infinite character as inexhaustible Love, eternal Life, omnipotent Truth. ”

“ The faintest Thought of the Infinite One would be far more real than anything man could create—as solid as the mountain—as hard as steel—as durable as the diamond—for, verily, even these are emanations of the Mind of the Infinite, and are things of but a day, while the higher Thoughts—the soul of Man—contains within itself a spark from the Divine Flame itself—the Spirit of the Infinite. ”

“ Although these arguments in favor of the existence of the idea of the infinite, if we examine our own mind, we cannot deny that we find there a certain vagueness and confusion which inspire strong doubts as to the reality of this idea. What is presented to our mind, when we think of the infinite? The imagination abandoned to itself, extends space, expands dimensions, multiplies numbers indefinitely, but it offers nothing to the intellect which has the marks of infinity. ”

“ As we throw off sheath after sheath, we approach nearer and nearer to the SPIRIT within us, which is the One Spirit pervading all things. This is the Meaning of Life—the Secret of Evolution. All the Universe is contained Within the Mind of The One. There is Nothing outside of that Infinite Mind. There is no Outside, for the One is All in All; Space, Time, and Laws, being but Mental Images in that Mind, as are likewise all shapes and forms, and phenomena. And as the Ego unfolds into a realization of Itself—Its Real Self—so does its Wisdom and Power expand. ”

“ It is infinite mind’s suppositional opposite. And it imitates the infinite mind, but in a very stupid, blundering way. And so the whole physical universe manifests evolution, too––an unfolding, or revealing, of material types, or mental concepts. And all these manifest the human mind’s sense of life, and its equally strong sense of death. The universe, animals, men, are all human types, evolved, or unfolded, or revealed, in the human mind. And all are the human mind’s interpretations of infinite mind’s real and eternal and perfect ideas. ”

“ The Infinite is twofold, the Father and the Son, the Dark and the Light, the Senses and the Mind, the Soul and the Spirit, the self and the not-self, the Eagle and the Dove, the Tiger and the Lamb. The consummation of man is twofold, in the Self and in Selflessness. By great retrogression back to the source of darkness in me, the Self, deep in the senses, I arrive at the Original, Creative Infinite. By projection forth from myself, by the elimination of my absolute sensual self, I arrive at the Ultimate Infinite, Oneness in the Spirit. ”

“ But, he continued to reflect, when we accept the conclusion that the universe is the product of an infinite mind, we are driven to certain other inevitable conclusions, if we would be logical. The minds of men manifest themselves continually, and the manifestation is in mental processes and things. Mental activity results in the unfolding of ideas. Does the activity of an infinite mind differ in this respect? And, if not, can the universe be other than a mental thing? For, if an infinite mind created a universe, it must have done so by the unfolding of its own ideas! ”

“ We can have but one Mind if that one is infinite. We bury the sense of infinitude, when we admit that, although God is infinite, evil has a place in this infinity; for it could have no place — where all space is filled with God — except in Him. ”

“ Grant the axiom that the power of Infinite Mind to realize in us, and express through us, and externalize love in the circumstances of our life, is strictly conditioned by our appreciation of what Infinite Mind is in Itself, then the more familiar, the more reverently tender, our estimate of Originating Spirit, the more will It be able to manifest in our lives. ”

“ Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality? Can it imagine a beginningless being, infinitely powerful and intelligent? If such a being existed, then there must have been an eternity during which nothing did exist except this being; because, if the Universe was created, there must have been a time when it was not, and back of that there must have been an eternity during which nothing but an infinite personality existed. Is it possible to imagine an infinite intelligence dwelling for an eternity in infinite nothing? ”

“ Our infinite model would be taken away. What is in Eternal Mind must be reflected in man, Mind's image. How then could man escape, or hope to escape, from a knowledge which is everlasting in his Creator? ”

“ Just as you, student, may create a Universe of your own in your mentality, so does THE ALL create Universes in its own Mentality. But your Universe is the mental creation of a Finite Mind, whereas that of THE ALL is the creation of an Infinite. The two are similar in kind, but infinitely different in degree. We shall examine more closely into the process of creation and manifestation, as we proceed. But this is the point to fix in your minds at this stage: THE UNIVERSE, AND ALL IT CONTAINS, IS A MENTAL CREATION OF THE ALL. Verily, indeed, ALL IS MIND! ”

“ Here we must remember that we have before us, not the infinite mind, but the finite. The finite mind is that which only becomes active through the passive, only arrives at the absolute through limitation, and only acts and fashions in as far as it receives matter. Accordingly, a mind of this nature must associate with the impulse towards form or the absolute, an impulse towards matter or limitation, conditions without which it could not have the former impulse nor satisfy it. ”

“ Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. ”

“ Can a stinted limited being imagine and invent the infinite, if there be no infinite at all? Our weak and short-sighted mind cannot of itself form that image, which, at this rate, should have no author. ”

“ And if this be true in the case of our finite minds, what must be the degree of Reality in the Mental Images created in the Mind of the Infinite? Oh, friends, to mortals this Universe of Mentality is very real indeed—it is the only one we can ever know, though we rise from plane to plane, higher and higher in it. ”

“ It is only to a mind upon the march that the great perspective of the infinite is thrown open. At bottom this conception of infinity is less due to any direct experience of mere things than to a sense of one’s own personal activity, to a belief in the perpetual progress open to human thought ”

“ To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible without denying the infinite. This we have demonstrated.
The denial of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything becomes "a conception of the mind." ”

“ It limits all things, and would compress Mind, which is infinite, beneath a skull-bone. Such belief can neither apprehend nor worship the Infinite, and seeks to divide the one Spirit into many, to accommodate its finite sense of the divisibility of soul and substance. ”

“ This is to make our comprehension infinite, or God finite, when what he can do, is limited to what we can conceive of it. If you do not understand the operations of your own finite mind, that thinking thing, within you, do not deem it strange, that you cannot comprehend the operations of that 53eternal, infinite mind, who made and governs all things, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. ”

“ A limitless Mind cannot proceed from physical limitations. Finiteness cannot present the idea or form of Infinity. A mind originating from a finite or material Limitless Mind. source must be limited and finite. Infinite Mind is the Creator, and creation is the infinite idea emanating from this Mind. If Mind is within and without all things, then all is Mind ”

“ But all the time one has to be living on the true plane as well, which is eternity and infinity. If you come to think of it, the one thing which the human mind cannot grasp is the finite, not the infinite, the temporary, not the eternal. ”

“ The Infinite never entered the finite, and Intelligence never passed into non-intelligence; so Mind never passed into matter, the unlimited into limits, the eternal into the temporal, and the immortal into mortality, therefore Mind was never in personal man or matter. ”

“ Thus, we may never know and understand the infinite, whether in nature, in the ultimate deductions from the laws of nature in time and in space, or beyond nature, on such transcendental conceptions as God and immortality. But we may approach these subjects as far as the limitations of our mind permit, reach the border line beyond which we cannot go, and so derive some understanding of how far these subjects may appear nonexisting or unreasonable, merely because they are beyond the limitations of our intellect. ”

“ And therefore, although to those modifications of mind and extension which we call ourselves, there are corresponding modifications under C and D, and generally under each of the Infinite attributes of God, each of ourselves being in a sense Infinite—nevertheless, we neither have nor can have any knowledge of ourselves in this Infinite aspect; our actual consciousness being limited to the phenomena of sensible experience. ”

“ If the soul life, that which relates us to Infinite Spirit, is always active, even while the body is at rest, why may not the mind so direct conditions as one falls asleep, that while the body is at rest, it may continually receive illumination from the soul and bring what it thus receives over into the conscious, waking life? ”

“ All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. ”

“ And there are patient naturalists, but they freeze their subject under the wintry light of the understanding. Is not prayer also a study of truth,—a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation.
It will not need, when the mind is prepared for study, to search for objects. ”

“ From the beginning of time, man, in spite of his bodily appetites and desires, in the midst of all his clinging to earthly and impermanent things, has ever been intuitively conscious of the limited, transient, and illusionary nature of his material existence, and in his sane and silent moments has tried to reach out into a comprehension of the Infinite, and has turned with tearful aspiration toward the restful Reality of the Eternal Heart. ”

“ What is the verdict of the vastest mind?
Silence: the book of fate is closed to us.
Man is a stranger to his own research; [262]
He knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes.
Tormented atoms in a bed of mud,
Devoured by death, a mockery of fate.
But thinking atoms, whose far-seeing eyes,
Guided by thought, have measured the faint stars,
Our being mingles with the infinite;
Ourselves we never see, or come to know. ”

“ Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infinite; and because, if it lacked matter it would be bounded; necessarily intelligent, since it is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would end there? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we can attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? ”

“ We have seen that the Idea of Infinity is a necessary result of our finite senses, that the only Reality is the Spiritual, the Here and the Now; that the Riddle of the Universe is not to be solved by the Intellect but by that method which is employed by those who are earnestly following the "Quest of the Grail"—namely, by realising that our True Personality or Transcendental Ego is an emanation from the Absolute ”

“ The infinite distance between body and mind is a figure of the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity, for this is supernatural. ”

“ Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know. Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make us drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were drowned in the depths of our own vanity. ”

“ But, for all that, there is a Beyond, and he who has once caught a glance of it, is like a man who has gazed at the sun—wherever he looks, everywhere he sees the image of the sun. Speak to him of finite things, and he will tell you that the Finite is impossible and meaningless without the Infinite. Speak to him of death, and he will call it birth; speak to him of time, and he will call it the mere shadow of eternity. To us the senses seem to be the organs, the tools, the most powerful engines of knowledge ”

“ I can only give a negative description of the infinite by saying what it is not, and ask you to pursue the positive in your inmost consciousness; and after a little while you will see some glimmering of the instinct infinite. Then all your doubts about the infinite will cease. You will then be able to perceive, although not able to describe, how it is that there is an infinite Father whose love and wisdom is over all his works. ”