“Nothing is ever lost, and infinite space is but a phase of infinite mind. All that is necessary to review such a picture is to change our point of consciousness from the brain to a point in space or mind, where the vibratory movement is still in progress. In other words, to overtake the scene by transposing our consciousness. Granted these powers, which are born of the soul, and we may behold any event in history with the clearness of its original force. Man is mind, and mind is one; but all mind is not self-conscious. The consciousness of mind is in spots, as it were, and here its consciousness is fixed in a spot called brain, where with most men it remains until the will, or some abnormal condition or the event called death, liberates it from its prison. You believe that with your God, the scenes of yesterday, to-day, and forever are alike visible?”
“Even admitting all that you say,” answered Paul, “I can not see how it was that I, who have no such power, could see clearly an event in your life.”
“Again the power of sympathetic vibration. The scene was reflected from my mind to yours.”
“But you just now said there was but one mind.”
“Perhaps then it would be more correct to say, from my point of consciousness to yours; or, to be still more accurate, to say that the intensity of my thoughts struck a sympathetic chord in yours, and vibrated through you as one consciousness. Without undue familiarity, Mr. Henley, I have found in you a responsive temperament. There are few men I can not influence, and with some the effort is trifling.”
Paul was interested, and sat quietly reflecting upon what he had heard. Naturally the ideas were not so clear as they would have been had he given more thought to the conditions of spirituality, which for so many years had been a part of Ah Ben's existence, and which state was as familiar to him as the body in which he appeared. Time and reflection alone, as this strange man had declared, could bring one to comprehend and realize a condition of existence so totally differing from that of our material plane. The inability of language to express that of which we have no parallel, and of which we can not conceive, is a grave obstacle to our understanding; but the man was ever ready to exert himself to make the matter clear when he found his listener interested.
“If I am not tiring you,” continued Paul, “I should like to call your attention to another point. You said that nothing was absolute; that all was relative; and yet when it comes to fixed measures, I think you must admit that this is not so. For example, a mile is a mile, and a mile must always be a mile under every conceivable condition. Am I not right?”
“At first thought it would seem so,” answered Ah Ben. “A mile certainly appears to be an absolute unchanging quantity of so many feet, which must always and under every circumstance affect us in the same way; and yet a little reflection will show that this can not be so, and that a mile, after all, is only fixed so long as our mind is fixed. In other words, it is a mental conception, and relative to other mental conceptions. Let us, for example, suppose that the world and all its contents, and, in fact, the entire universe, were exactly twice as large as it is, the mile would then be twice as long as it is now; and that which we now call a mile would only make the impression of half as much distance as it now does. And so with all material conditions; I say material, for in the spiritual life we see these things more truly as they are, and not as they appear. There is but one class of facts which is absolute. I speak of the emotions. These are the realities of life—the soul qualities. Could we measure love, hate, or happiness, the standard would be fixed.”
“Do not forget your promise to show me something more of your power in the region of occultism,” said Henley, “for I am greatly interested.”
“I will keep my word, but I warn you to prepare for a shock!”