The Creative Process in the Individual | Page 4

lady who goes
to be fitted might be seen by her dressmaker as a cow. Generations of
people have seen the Great Pyramid on the same spot; but on the
supposition that each individual is projecting his own material world in
entire independence of all other individuals there is no reason why any
two persons should ever see the same thing in the same place. On the
supposition of such an independent action by each separate mind,
without any common factor binding them all to one particular mode of
recognition, no intercourse between individuals would be
possible--then, without the consciousness of relation to other
individuals the consciousness of our own individuality would be lost,
and so we should cease to have any conscious existence at all. If on the
other hand we grant that there is, above the individual minds, a great
Cosmic Mind which imposes upon them the necessity of all seeing the
same image of Matter, then that image is not a projection of the
individual minds but of the Cosmic Mind; and since the individual
minds are themselves similar projections of the Cosmic Mind, matter is
for them just as much a reality as their own existence. I doubt not that
material substance is thus projected by the all-embracing Divine Mind;
but so also are our own minds projected by it, and therefore the relation
between them and matter is a real relation and not a merely fictitious
one.
I particularly wish the student to be clear on this point, that where two
factors are projected from a common source their relation to each other
becomes an absolute fact in respect of the factors themselves,
notwithstanding that the power of changing that relation by substituting
a different projection must necessarily always continue to reside in the
originating source. To take a simple arithmetical example--by my
power of mental projection working through my eyes and fingers I
write 4 X 2. Here I have established a certain numerical relation which
can only produce eight as its result. Again, I have power to change the
factors and write 4 X 3, in which case 12 is the only possible result, and
so on. Working in this way calculation becomes possible. But if every
time I wrote 4 that figure possessed an independent power of setting

down a different number by which to multiply itself, what would be the
result? The first 4 I wrote might set down 3 as its multiplier, and the
next might set down 7, and so on. Or if I want to make a box of a
certain size and cut lengths of plank accordingly, if each length could
capriciously change its width at a moment's notice, how could I ever
make the box? I myself may change the shape and size of my box by
establishing new relations between the bits of wood, but for the pieces
of wood themselves the proportions determined by my mind must
remain fixed quantities, otherwise no construction could take place.
This is a very rough analogy, but it may be sufficient to show that for a
cosmos to exist at all it is absolutely necessary that there should be a
Cosmic Mind binding all individual minds to certain generic unities of
action, and so producing all things as realities and nothing as illusion.
The importance of this conclusion will become more apparent as we
advance in our studies.
We have now got at some reason why concrete material form is a
necessity of the Creative Process. Without it the perfect
Self-recognition of Spirit from the Individual standpoint, which we
shall presently find is the means by which the Creative Process is to be
carried forward, would be impossible; and therefore, so far from matter
being an illusion, it is the necessary channel for the self-differentiation
of Spirit and its Expression in multitudinous life and beauty. Matter is
thus the necessary Polar Opposite to Spirit, and when we thus
recognize it in its right order we shall find that there is no antagonism
between the two, but that together they constitute one harmonious
whole.
CHAPTER II
THE SELF-CONTEMPLATION OF SPIRIT
If we ask how the cosmos came into existence we shall find that
ultimately we can only attribute it to the Self-Contemplation of Spirit.
Let us start with the facts now known to modern physical science. All
material things, including our own bodies, are composed of

combinations of different chemical elements such as carbon, oxygen,
nitrogen, &c. Chemistry recognizes in all about seventy of these
elements each with its peculiar affinities; but the more advanced
physical science of the present day finds that they are all composed of
one and the same ultimate substance to which the name of Ether has
been given, and that the difference between an atom of