Spiritual manifestation

“ But from that Divine Love and Wisdom there proceed goodness and truth, which are spiritual heat and light: these flow from the Lord down into the heavens, and into the minds of angels there, and also into the minds of men on earth, giving light to the understanding and warmth to the heart. ”

“ Into his spiritual sight will come the Principles of the divine Life, and as he approaches them, their incomparable beauty and majestic symmetry will astonish his vision, and gladden his heart with a gladness hitherto unknown. ”

“ So, the rich experiences of the religious consciousness seem to be resumed in these three outstanding types of spiritual awareness. The cosmic, ontological, or transcendent; finding God as the infinite Reality outside and beyond us. The personal, finding Him as the living and responsive object of our love, in immediate touch with us. The dynamic, finding Him as the power that dwells within or energizes us. These are not exclusive but complementary apprehensions, giving objectives to intellect feeling and will. ”

“ During the first stages of spiritual illumination the mind feels the nearness of a higher world, and here is the soul's opportunity to take many steps towards the heights. Whenever these sublime moments appear, enter the stillness of the spirit, and place body, mind and thought in touch with the soul's eternal calm. Then when in the peace that passeth understanding, open the eyes of the spirit, and in faith, desire to meet Him face to face. ”

“ Accordingly, we deem it philosophical to consider words as symbols of mental faculties, and to classify together such spiritual unities as joy, hope, faith, and love, the tendencies of which are to quicken and transform the ultimates of carnal life into the rudiments of an immortal one, the beginning of heaven on earth. ”

“ As a draught diffuses itself through all the members and veins of the body, so this communication of God diffuses itself substantially in the whole soul, or rather, the soul is transformed in God. In this transformation the soul drinks of God in its very substance and its spiritual powers. In the understanding it drinks wisdom and knowledge, in the will the sweetest love, in the memory refreshment and delight in the thought and sense of its bliss. ”

“ A heart purified by the grace of God, and firmly rooted in truth as its ground, is the source and common fountain for the successful development of all the main activities and functions of human life, those belonging to the sphere of sense, as well as to the psychical and spiritual realms, and this must more and more manifest itself as such a centre of the personality, sending forth light and life.—Lange’s Commentary. ”

“ But afterwards confirmed by use, it introduces the soul into a higher world, where the most pure, essential essence meeting it, fills the soul with the image of the spiritual world, while the majesty of deity evolves and discovers itself. ”

“ Spiritual knowledge, the unfoldment of the highest from within, this alone can change the ‘shadowed states’ of Earth into brightness. Every life must be reached; every mind touched and awakened by the spirit ”

“ As the descending stages of reality are three, so the stages of the ascent are three. They are called in the Enneads purification, the work of reason, which marks the transference of interest from sense to soul; enlightenment—the work of spiritual intuition—which lifts life into communion with the eternal world of spirit; and ecstasy, that profound transfiguration of consciousness whereby the “spirit in love” achieves union with the One. ”

“ By this incoming spiritual power and life-substance the entire personality of the recipient is affected. The {72} recreative energy which pours in transforms both soul and body. The inner eternal Word of God, who became flesh, acts upon the inner nature of man, so that the believing man is changed into something spiritual, divine and heavenly, and like Jesus Christ, the incarnated Word of God. ”

“ Stress must be laid upon those last words; for Religion, according to its full and catholic ideal, is the perfection and consecration of man's whole nature, intellectual and physical, as well as moral and spiritual. All that is lovely, splendid, moving, heroic, even enjoyable, in human life—all health and vigour and beauty and cleverness and charm—all nature and all art, all science and all literature—are among the good and perfect gifts which come down from the Father of Lights. ”

“ Is there really a spiritual world, inhabited by spirits who are not mere phantoms, but real, substantial, human beings, with spiritual bodies in human form? If so, where is it, and of what concern is it to us? ”

“ For when the power of the mind is absorbed in this purity, so to speak, and is transformed from an earthly nature into the spiritual or angelic likeness, whatever it receives into itself, whatever it is occupied with, whatever it is doing, it will be pure and sincere prayer. ”

“ By means of such discipline the mental horizon can be flooded with the sunshine of beauty, wholeness, and harmony. To inaugurate pure and lofty thinking may at first seem difficult, even almost mechanical, but perseverance will at length render it easy, then pleasant, and finally delightful.
“The soul's real world is that which it has built of its thoughts, mental states, and imaginations. If we will, we can turn our backs upon the lower and sensuous plane, and lift ourselves into the realm of the spiritual and Real, and there gain a residence. ”

“ But to enter the spiritual is not simply to provide those essentials through which we may realize the ideal in the physical and the mental; to enter the spiritual is to enter another and a greater world—the transcendent kingdom of the soul—the sublime world of cosmic consciousness. ”

“ They are spiritual in their nature, and are spiritually conveyed, whether by means of the printed page, the glance of an eye, the touch of a hand, or in that holy mystery of the inbreathing of the Divine Spirit, of which we cannot tell whence it comes nor whither it goes. ”

“ When we think of that which is spiritual, everything in life begins to ascend towards the higher spiritual states; that is, when our thinking of the spiritual is inspired with a deep soul desire to rise and live on the heights. ”

“ The good receive that Divine life, (for the Divine life, as before shown, is love and wisdom) into a mental organisation or form which is correspondent thereto; they receive that love or spiritual heat, and bring it forth again in the delicious fruits of good and benevolent actions; and they reflect that wisdom or spiritual light in the beautiful lights and colours of true, wise, and sparkling thoughts. ”

“ This common way a man can take in his dressing-gown. But spiritual elation in the eternal, the sacred, the infinite, moves along the highway of truth in the robes of the high priests—a road that, from the first, is itself immediate being in its innermost, the inspiration of profound and original ideas and flashes of elevated thought. ”

“ All exalted lives (spiritually) moving and living in similar planes of thought—born of their spiritual states—are attracted to each other in spirit life for the interchange of perceptions of Truth and bearing forward the work of illuminating such minds on Earth as are ready to receive along the lines of human progress and unfoldment, imparting “the things they are ready to know.” ”

“ The possibility of the interior vision being expanded and illuminated by spiritual beings, so as to enable the possessor to forestall the occurrence of future events, we, however, by no means deny, since we have abundant proof of it in connection with the practical history of modern spiritualism. ”

“ We are so accustomed to connect the spiritual with the ideal and invisible, that it will need time and thought and faith to realize how the physical and the sensible influence our spiritual life, and must be under the mastery and inspiration of God’s Spirit. ”

“ The heart in its own purity, tenderness, and strength recognizes the Divine Presence. "The soul gives itself, alone, original, and pure, to the Lonely, Original, and Pure, who, on that condition, gladly inhabits, leads, and speaks through it." The order of physical nature is the symbol and the instrument of a moral order. The beauty and sublimity of nature are the manifestation through sense of the Divine Reality. ”

“ And it is surely here in the spiritual things, in the heart and centre of human existence, in the stress of sin and suffering, rather than amongst the gentle growing things, and flaming lights, and songs, and blameless creatures of Nature that the Beatific Vision on earth is at its highest. ”

“ Thus the sum of spiritual life consists in observing and fortifying the ways and movements of the Spirit of God in our soul, employing for this purpose all the exercises of prayer, spiritual reading, sacraments, the practice of virtues, and good works. ”

“ But from this vision which the spirit had, it passed to climb to still greater heights—it was spiritual, it might attain divinity. The change from the original transcendental state of vision to that other state of being, of all-pervading consciousness, could only be accomplished by what is known as the descent into matter where spirit identifies itself with every form of life, and assimilates their essences. ”

“ If the author uses this expression to denote reflection and contemplation of the inward feelings, it is not strange, for the Apostle said: “A moment’s reflection is better than sixty years of devotion,” 109and spiritual actions are in truth more excellent than bodily actions, and the effect produced by inward feelings and actions is really more complete than the effect produced by outward actions. ”

“ Through {177} this eternal process of self-differentiation and outgoing activity, the inner spiritual universe comes into being—as an intermediate Nature or world, between the ineffable Abyss of God on the one hand, and our world of material, visible things on the other hand. ”

“ For no less certainly does the mind see in spiritual light than does the body in natural light. The spirit sees, feels, tastes, perceives, and hears spiritual forces, as surely as the senses of the body cognize natural things. The inner eye sees truth, an inner sense feels kindness, an inner sense tastes love, an inner sense perceives a Divine Providence, an inner sense hears the voice of righteousness. ”

“ It is a medium of those divine and heavenly influences, the reception of which is spiritual regeneration and eternal life. It is true, it comes to us clothed in words formed from the appearances of the external world. ”

“ What may the practical fruits for life have been, of such movingly happy conversions as those we heard of? With this question the really important part of our task opens, for you remember that we began all this empirical inquiry not merely to open a curious chapter in the natural history of human consciousness, but rather to attain a spiritual judgment as to the total value and positive meaning of all the religious trouble and happiness which we have seen. ”

“ What would the soul in its perfection mirror? Would it reflect within itself the myriad life of humanity? Would the spirit mirror the heavens, and the imaginations of the Divine Mind well up within it in mystic and transcendental ideations? ”

“ The spiritual life contains real life, real power, real wisdom, real love, real harmony, real health, real purity, real peace, real joy, and to develop spirituality is to realize more and more of the real of these things until the perfection of divine being is unfolded and lived in the present personal form. ”

“ These seers tell us further that this spirit has its definite course to run, its definite consummation: 95that it emerges within the physical order, grows, spreads, and at last enters into perfect union or communion with the real and spiritual world. How much attention do we pay to this statement, which, if true, is the transcendent fact of human history, the key to the nature of man? ”

“ To be spiritual he must discern the spirit that is within things, back of things, above things; while his senses admire the outer symbol, his spiritual discernment must understand the interior significance of that symbol, otherwise he has not found real religion or real spirituality. ”

“ What of that soul which, feeling compelled by its intuitions to recognise the essential divinity of man, yet find no expression in the churches which will fit into its emotional nature? What of him whom, for want of a better word, I shall call a Symbolist, who is always striving to express in some form of art or thought, that divine energy which is wisdom, consciousness, and energy all in one? ”

“ You come here, and you think that we are busy and active, but only live your religion, and you will feel the power, spirit, and fulness thereof, as you have never felt it previous to this. What I mean by the spirit is the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, which you can feel from the crown of your heads to the soles of your feet. ”

“ Last—and here is the aspect of religious experience which is specially to concern us—Spirit is felt as an inflowing power, a veritable accession of vitality; energizing the self, or the religious group, impelling it to the fullest and most zealous living-out of its existence, giving it fresh joy and vigour, and lifting it to fresh levels of life. ”

“ Further, man’s spiritual history primarily meant for them, as it means for us, the emergence of this transcendental sense; its capture of the field of consciousness, and the opening up of those paths which permit the inflow of a larger spiritual life, the perception of a higher reality. ”

“ The adjutant of wisdom—the manifestation in a worshipful mind of the tendency to direct its adoration in higher channels of expression and toward ever-expanding concepts of Deity reality.
3. The Holy Spirit—this is the initial supermind bestowal, and it unfailingly appears in all bona fide human personalities. This ministry to a worship-craving and wisdom-desiring mind creates the capacity to self-realize the postulate of human survival, both in theologic concept and as an actual and factual personality experience. ”