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THE UNIVERSE
THE Buddhist maintains that the Universe is unreal. It is unreal only so long as you are caught in its web, governed by its laws, controlled by its matter or by that invisible substance I have called an air of matter.
The term "unreal" implies falsehood, sham, humbug. The soul, when he manifests himself in form, is limited by that form. He cannot know truth because he is imprisoned in that shape. He has, during his life on those first five planes, a limited view. Like a horse, wearing blinkers, he has a very poor idea of the world about him. The essential unreality arises through this specialized view merely of a piece of the road before him. Further, the form lies in the picture of this road which it conveys to the soul. So the Buddhist is in one sense right when he claims that the Universe is unreal.
But when the sage claims that the ultimate goal is one of extinction within Nirvana--extinction though not annihil-ation--he is using dangerous terms. He claims that we are extinguished once we reach this state of grace, this World of the Absolute. He suggests, however, that at any rate we are existing in unconditioned being; we are entirely apart from the Universe, freed from its essential unreality.
Actually, only on the Seventh plane when we are one with the Supreme Idea do we realize the reality of the Universe. It is unreal so long as it imprisons soul and spirit. It is real once these are merged and freed from it, dwelling in the infinite liberty of Pure Intelligence.
Once that state is attained we perceive that old masterpiece, the Universe, as a Whole. We realize it in every microscopic detail, and in its greatest proportions. We perceive the Whole of it as an intellectual concept within the Supreme Idea. We perceive the part of it that is playing out its drama. And thus we exist as the seer and the lover, experiencing all that life as an act of thought. So we reach the zenith of experience. We know the reality of the material Universe, we are aware of the other reality, the Idea, which contains its duplicate from the beginning to the end as a thought. We cannot be said to be extinct. We are one in the great harmony of Mind, we are individual in the love of the Creator for His creation which is contained within him, which is manifested in part.
We receive from all those myriad spirits who control parts of the material universe the complete impression of it in its least, in its greatest aspects. Therefore we live as never before, we are caught in no Nirvanic swoon. And we join in that contemplation of the destruction of the present Universe, of the creation, life and extinction of other universes, and so on endlessly. We live in the intellectual concept of them all and we are aware of that part which now plays out its drama on the stage of eternity.
Try to realize the dual character of existence when you think of the word "Universe"; then it may be easier to understand the nature of life.
There are physical atoms and there are psychic units. The psychic unit develops as it dwells within and without the physical atoms, in the various stages of existence. The psychic unit dwells within the fantasy of ever finer and finer substance, gaining all the while. The psychic unit escapes from that substance, returns to its home in the Idea. But this escape does not mean annihilation. It is one now and yet many, just as the physical atoms of the human body are one and yet many.
Understand, therefore, that the Universe is only unreal so long as you dwell within its confining web, within form. It is real when you are free from it and are able from Out Yonder to survey it as a whole and to know it as an act of pure thought.