Spiritual world

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our author parallels this fact of "life from life" in the spiritual world, and holds it to be as rigidly true in the one world as in the other. "The Spiritual Life," he holds to be "the gift of the Living Spirit." ”

“ As the literal sense is intended for men in a simple, natural state, so the internal or spiritual sense is for those men whose minds are in a more elevated and spiritual state; and also for those who were once men in this world, but are now dwelling in the spiritual world, good and happy—angels of heaven. ”

“ Thus, by that instinctive and warmly devoted direction of its behaviour which is love, and that willed attention to and communion with the spiritual world which is prayer, all the powers of the self are united and turned towards the seeking and finding of the Eternal. It is by complete obedience to this exacting love, doing difficult and unselfish things, giving up easy and comfortable things—in fact by living, living hard on the highest levels—that men more and more deeply feel, experience, and enter into their spiritual life. ”

“ Or religious still even more than they—for those were mental, these spiritual—you beheld there men, whose heads before their time were becoming grey, meditating on their own souls, and in holy hope and humble trust in their Redeemer, if not yet prepared, perpetually preparing themselves for the world to come! ”

“ But when we shall stand, in all the nakedness of pure, unfettered spirit, within the confines of the spirit land, and gaze with all the clearness of unveiled spiritual vision upon the wonderful mechanism of the universe and of the spirit world; when we see—as we shall see—laws and principles, and even abstract truths, as plainly as we now look upon the material objects around us ”

“ Now by these divine and spiritual senses, which are distinct and distinguishable from all the natural faculties of the soul, whether of imagination, or natural reason, spiritual minded men do behold the glory and beauty of God, in respect whereof, and for which, all the glory of this world is despicable to them; yea, even as dross and dung. And they also hear God inwardly speaking in their souls, words truly divine and heavenly, full of virtue and divine life; and the savour and taste of divine things, and do, as it were, handle them with the hands of their souls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And yet for those in these days who can "look through the vayle or shell within which the Eternal Spirit works its Wonders," the visible things of the world prove to be "a glasse wherein the similitude of spirituall things are represented" and "the Minde of man is a most clear and undeceiving glasse wherein we may perceive the motions and activities of that Work-Master, the Spirit who hath created everything in the world." ”

“ I have said this to explain the stanza that follows, in which the soul replies to those who call in question its holy tranquillity, who will have it wholly occupied with outward duties, that its light may shine before the world: these persons have no conception of the fibers and the unseen root whence the sap is drawn, and which nourish the fruit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In considering the ideal human fellowship it is vital to remember that the spiritual, here as elsewhere, is built upon the natural, the spiritual entering into, interpreting and developing the natural. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So believing, so aspiring, so meditating, divinely sweet and beautiful will be your spiritual experiences, and glorious the revelations that will enrapture your inward vision. As you realize the divine Love, the divine Justice, the divine Purity, the Perfect Law of Good, or God, great will be your bliss and deep your peace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ This influence of individual subjects will be all the greater, of course, the nearer and more intimately they are united with the true centre of the universal spiritual life, the spirit of spirits, about which the universe gravitates, whether with or without the conscious will of the individual. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Give attention, first, to the liberation and inspiration of man's spiritual nature. Next, illuminate the darkened human intellect, heal the souls of men, and emancipate their minds from age-old fears. And then, in accordance with your mortal wisdom, minister to the physical well-being and material comfort of your brothers in the flesh. Live the ideal religious life for the inspiration and edification of all your universe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ How, then, should we act on these facts? Plainly we must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible, and we must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows to be favorable to such indrawal. ”

“ Yes, Sir; there is an inseparable connection between the influence of religious truth on the heart, and the highest degree of mental enjoyment; it brings the soul into a new world of being, where objects, unseen by the natural eye, disclose their beauties; and truths, unfelt by the unrenewed mind, excite a joy which is unspeakable. Now I can understand the Scriptures; the Saviour is invested with overpowering charms, and the futurity which stretches beyond the grave, presents a clear and spacious scene of bliss to my imagination. ”

“ Which, then, shall be our choice, — the sinful, material, and perishable, or the spiritual, joy-giving, and eternal?
The spiritual sense of Life and its grand pursuits is of itself a bliss, health-giving and joy-inspiring. This sense of Life illumes our pathway with the radiance of divine Love ”

“ 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. ”

“ O happy soul that is wasted and worn to a shadow, if that could be, in this study and exercise, which at length will enliven, and, as it were, bring in a new heavenly and spiritual soul into the soul, so that it shall look no more like a dead dis-spirited thing out of its native soil and element, but as a free, elevated, and spiritualized spirit, expatiating itself and flying abroad in the open air of its own element and country. ”

“ The nature and genesis of the soul, its awakening to a consciousness of responsibility, the steps which it first takes on its upward pathway, the experience of moral failure, its second awakening, which is to an appreciation that the universe is on its side, the part of Christ in promoting its awakening, the sense of spiritual companionship by which it is ever attended, the discipline of struggle, and the nurture and culture best fitted to promote its growth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But let them be elevated into the spiritual mind, where they are spiritually received, understood and rejoiced in, and they give the eternal freshness of spring to life in all its varieties and degrees, from the spiritual above to the earthly below. ”

“ When once the inward core of things has been grasped and the transforming experience has occurred, making a new man—freed, illuminated, sin-delivered, with "God the Life of the life and the Soul of the soul" [25] —the outward forms and the external things will fall into the right perspective and will receive their proper emphasis. ”

“ Thro’ the operation of his Spirit, they humble more and more, and abase the soul before God. They calm and meeken our turbulent spirit, tame the fierceness of our nature, soften our obstinacy and self-will, crucify us to the world ”

“ He finds this principle, as we have seen, in the Word of God, which is a divine reality, an eternal and self-existent activity, opening upward into all the resources of God, and at the same time forming the fundamental nature and ground-structure of the soul. ”

“ Natural life, which consists in the union of the soul and body. Spiritual life, which consists in the union of God and the soul, by faith and love. Eternal life, which consist in the communion of the body and soul with God, by holiness, in the realms of bliss. ”

“ The same thing happens in the realm of spiritual light with respect to the sight of the soul, which is the understanding, and which this general and supernatural knowledge and light whereof we are speaking strikes so purely and simply. ”

“ If we are to experience a deepening of spiritual life, we want to discover clearly what is the spiritual life that God would have us live, on the one hand; and, on the other, to ask whether we are living that life ”

“ 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. ”