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#3733 -
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Optimism—The
Lesson of the Ages
by Benjamin Paul
Blood
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979998913?ie=UTF8&tag=nondualitysal-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0979998913
Eirini Press has released a reprint of one of
the first non-dual treatises written by an American: Benjamin
Paul Blood. Published in 1860, on the eve of one of the darkest
periods in American history, Optimism is a stirring practical
guide to faith in, and acceptance toward, whatever life delivers.
Impassioned by his own mystical experiences, Blood’s
distinctly American voice had a profound effect on William James,
whose last published essay was a tribute to his mystical mentor.
As pessimism again darkens
"I have always held the opinion that one of the first duties
of a good reader is to summon other readers to the enjoyment of
any unknown author of rare quality whom he may discover in his
explorations. Now for years my own taste, literary as well as
philosophic, has been exquisitely titllated by...Benjamin Paul
Blood." — William James
Optimism-The
Lesson of Ages by Benjamin Paul Blood
Excerpts
He is the One-the
original-the all in all. All creeds acknowledge him. His name
needs no interpreter when they say "God created."
Boundless and incomprehensible, yet indisputable, the key of all
mystery, without form, without centre or circumference, beginning
or end, the life, space, and atmosphere wherein all being dwells,
words were not made to present him; we cannot show him to
another, nor another to us; yet in the human soul he has said
immemorially, "I am! And there is none beside me!"
~ ~ ~
We easily conceive
ourselves invested in bodies or spheres of palpitating, ethereal
lightness, which may fly, at will, around the pendant world; yet
the sense in which we were independent of God's consciousness in
our own world would be as mysterious as now. However we exist,
doubtless we shall feed only upon his bounty, and shall never
inspire ourselves.
~ ~ ~
Not God himself can be supposed to transcend his nature; nor can
any being that he has created: only the forced positions of an
erroneous system ever could have driven men to the invention of a
free will-free of the world, free of its creator, and free of its
own construction, without bounds or definition.
~ ~ ~
Tear away bravely the frightful background that fear has painted
in life's picture, and send your gaze out unobstructed through
the blue of eternal time.
~ ~ ~
Could we have proof of God's existence, there were no God worthy
to be proved. Proof shifts its object into other essence, or
other truth: but that which is infinite cannot be shifted to
aught that is within our capacity. Incomprehensible as eternity,
against what background shall our God stand relieved? Say space
is filled, and time is filled, and we are a portion of that
filling; how shall a part contain the whole?-how shall that which
cannot be compassed be known, whether it be entirely proved or
not? The poet cannot teach his poetry to a stone; nor can God
condense his being to a picture in our souls; he were not God,
nor we men. Yet God is in us, the assurance of his presence,
whose majesty is the birth of reason. He is not afar, that we
should see him. He is in the light of the eye, and in the object
that it shines on. He is not a curiosity, a member of a species,
or a thing to be represented by any device. He is the One-the
original-the all in all. All creeds acknowledge him. His name
needs no interpreter when they say "God created."
Boundless and incomprehensible, yet indisputable, the key of all
mystery, without form, without centre or circumference, beginning
or end, the life, space, and atmosphere wherein all being dwells,
words were not made to present him; we cannot show him to
another, nor another to us; yet in the human soul he has said
immemorially, "I am! and there is none beside me!"
Optimism—The
Lesson of the Ages
by Benjamin Paul
Blood
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979998913?ie=UTF8&tag=nondualitysal-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0979998913