Page:The Pathway of Roses, Larson (1913) image of page 185.jpg



CHAPTER XVII

A SUBLIME STATE OF EXISTENCE

There never existed an awakened soul that did not believe in a spiritual state of being; and there never existed a soul in any condition of human understanding that did not have glimpses, at times, of what appeared to be another world. To those who had simply gained the simplest form of human consciousness, this other world seemed to be far away, a place we could not inherit until we had taken our departure from this visible state of existence; but to those who were on the verge of spiritual consciousness, this other world was not a far away place. Those awakened souls could discern that it was a spiritual realm in which all might dwell to-day—the kingdom of heaven that is ever at hand.

This other world is the soul of the universe, permeating the limitless vastness of the entire cosmos. It is the sublime essence of all reality, the real reality of all that is; it is the infinite spiritual sea in which we live and move and have our being, the divine counterpart of everything that was, is, or is to be. It is that world which we find on the supreme heights of all existence, and is therefore the cosmic world, orderly, harmonious, complete,