Message for Sunday 28 March 2021

 Sunday 28 March 2021

}Ideality Embracing Reality{

Moon in Libra

For a long time I used to post on Sundays not an astrological forecast but a spiritual message culled from other writers.  I feel it may be the time to follow that procedure again.  

From the nonpareil philosopher Hegel (1770-1831):  "Ideality only has meaning when it is the ideality of something: but this something is not a mere indefinite this or that, but existence characterized as reality, which, if retained in isolation, possesses no truth.  The distinction between Nature and Mind is not improperly conceived, when the former is traced back to reality, and the latter to ideality as a fundamental category.  Nature, however, is far from being so fixed and complete, as to subsist even without Mind: in Mind it first, as it were, attains its goal and its truth.  And similarly, Mind on its part is not merely a world beyond Nature and nothing more: it is really and with full proof, seen to be Mind only when it involves Nature as absorbed in itself."  (Hegel's Logic, translated by Wallace, p. 180, quoted by Frederick G. Weiss in Hegel: The Essential Writings, perhaps the best introduction to Hegel anyone has ever put together, with Weiss's own generous commentaries wonderfully comprehensible.)  

From Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science):  "Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind.  The material and [finite] body is not the man.

    "The world would collapse without Mind, with the intelligence which holds the winds in its grasp.  Neither philosophy nor skepticism can hinder the march of the Science which reveals the supremacy of Mind.  The immanent sense of Mind-power enhances the glory of Mind.  Nearness, not distance, lends enchantment to this view."

    ". . . all must give place to the spiritual fact by the translation of man and the universe back into Spirit.  In proportion as this is done, man and the universe will be found harmonious and eternal."  (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 209)

Both of these writers are idealists, in a sense, but much more than that, and trying to classify them really does not do justice to the comprehensiveness of their vision.  I think that if Christian Scientists studied Hegel they would have a better understanding of their Science, and that if Hegelians studied Christian Science they would see far more practical applications of Hegel's thought.  

One who did a marvelous job of combining all transcendental and existential insights in a tapestry is Sri Aurobindo.  This is from his epic poem (720 pages) Savitri: 

"None was apart, none lived for himself alone,

Each lived for God in him and God in all,

Each soleness inexpressibly held the whole. 

There Oneness was not tied to monotone;

It showed a thousand aspects of itself,

Its calm immutable stability 

Upbore on a changeless ground for ever safe, 

Compelled to a spontaneous servitude,

The ever-changing incalculable steps, 

The seeming-reckless dance's subtle plan 

Of immense world-forces in their perfect play.

Appearance looked back to its hidden truth

And made of difference oneness' smiling play;

It made all persons fractions of the Unique,

Yet all were being's secret integers.

All struggle was turned to a sweet strife of love

In the harmonised circle of a sure embrace."

(p. 324)

Back to the regular forecast-meditations beginning with Monday's report.

H H H  /  C P