Part 19 · Appearances Are Deceptive · points 7–12 of 29 in this Part
The same law in every department
Mind is the real and eternal. Matter is forever changing form.
6 numbered points · 2 study questions · 3 min read
Mind is the real and eternal. Matter is forever changing form.
Study questions for this sublevel
Haanel put a review question at the end of every part. Answer out loud first — the recall is what moves it into memory.
183. What is the one creative Principle in the physical, mental and spiritual world?
The Universal Mind, or the Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.
184. How are we related to this creative Principle?
By our ability to think.
Haanel's own words — points 7–12
Quoted exactly from The Master Key System (1912, public domain). The translation above is ours; this is his.
In the mental world we find the same law; we speak of knowledge and ignorance, but ignorance is only a lack of knowledge and is therefore found to be simply a word to express the absence of knowledge; it has no principle in itself.
In the Moral World we again find the same law; we speak of good and evil, but Good is a reality, something tangible, while Evil is found to be simply a negative condition, the absence of Good. Evil is sometimes thought to be a very real condition, but it has no principle, no vitality, no life; we know this because it can always be destroyed by Good; just as Truth destroys Error and light destroys darkness, so Evil vanishes when Good appears; there is therefore but one principle in the Moral World.
We find exactly the same law obtaining in the Spiritual world; we speak of Mind and Matter as two separate entities, but clearer insight makes it evident that there is but one operative principle and that is Mind.
Mind is the real and the eternal. Matter is forever changing; we know that in the eons of time a hundred years is as but a day. If we stand in any large city and let the eye rest on the innumerable large and magnificent buildings, the vast array of modern automobiles, cellular telephones, the electric lights, and all the other conveniences of modern civilization, we may remember that not one of them was there just over a century ago, and if we could stand on the same spot in a hundred years from now, in all probability we should find that but few of them remained.
In the animal kingdom we find the same law of change. The millions and millions of animals come and go, a few years constituting their span of life. In the plant world the change is still more rapid. Many plants and nearly all grasses come and go in a single year. When we pass to the inorganic, we expect to find something more substantial, but as we gaze on the apparently solid continent, we are told that it arose from the ocean; we see the giant mountain and are told that the place where it now stands was once a lake; and as we stand in awe before the great cliffs in the Yosemite Valley we can easily trace the path of the glaciers which carried all before them.
We are in the presence of continual change, and we know that this change is but the evolution of the Universal Mind, the grand process whereby all things are continually being created anew, and we come to know that matter is but a form which Mind takes and is therefore simply a condition. Matter has no principle; Mind is the only principle.
Put it to work
Guided stillness timer
The sit is the whole foundation of the course: still body, watched breath, no phone. Pick five minutes if fifteen feels like a hill.
Open the timerKeep going
Your current situation is not the truth about you