Chapter XVI (part 9)

In our language only an eternally becoming universe exists. The "Eternal Now" cannot be expressed in language. Thus our language pictures to us beforehand a false universe— dual , when in reality it is one ; and eternally becoming when it is in reality eternally being . And if we come to realize the degree to which our language falsifies the real view of the world, then the understanding of this fact will enable us to see that it is not only difficult, but even absolutely impossible to express in language the correct relation of the things of the real world. p. 190 This difficulty can be conquered only by the formation of new concepts and by extended analogies. Later on the principles and methods of this expansion of what we already have, and what we can extract from our stores of knowledge will be made clear. For the present it is only import-ant to establish one thing—THE NECESSITY FOR UNIFORMITY: the monism of the universe. As a matter of principle it is not important which one we regard as first cause , spirit or matter. It is essential to recognize their unity. ______ — But what then is matter ? From one point of view, it is a logical concept , i.e., a form of thinking . Nobody ever saw matter , nor will he ever—it is possible only to think matter. From another point of view it is an illusion accepted for reality. Even more truly, it is the incorrectly perceived form of that which exists in reality. Matter is a section of something; a non-existent, imaginary section. But that of which matter is a section, exists. This is the real, four-dimensional world. Wood, the substance from which this table (for example) is made, exists; but the true nature of its existence we do not know. All that we know about it is just the form of our receptivity of it. And if we should cease to exist, it would continue to exist, but only for a receptivity acting similarly to ours. But in itself this substance exists in some other way—HOW, we do not know . Certainly not in space and time, for we ourselves impose these forms upon it. Probably all similar wood , of different centuries, and different parts of the world, constitutes one mass—one body—perhaps one being . Certainly that substance (or that part of it) of which this table is made, has no separate existence apart from our receptivity . We fail to understand that a particular thing is merely an artificial definition by our senses, of some indefinable cause infinitely surpassing that thing . But a thing may acquire its own individual and unique soul; and in that case the thing exists quite independently of our receptivity. p. 191 [paragraph continues] Many things possess such souls, especially old things —old houses, old books, works of art, etc. ______ But what ground have we for thinking that there is psychic life in the world other than our human one, that of animals and of plants? First of all, of course, the thought that everything in the world is alive and animated and that manifestations of life and animatedness would naturally exist on all planes and in all forms. But we can discern the psychic life only in forms analogous to ours. The question stands in this way: how could we know about the existence of the psychic life of other sections of the world if they exist? By two methods: through COMMUNICATION, EXCHANGE OF THOUGHTS, and through CONCLUSIONS BY ANALOGY. For the first, it is necessary that our psyche should become similar to theirs, should transcend the limits of the three-dimensional world, i.e., it is necessary to change the form of receptivity and perception. The second may result as a consequence of the gradual expansion of the faculty of drawing inferences by analogy.