VI. The Law of Growth

EN

A CORRECT understanding of the law of growth is of the highest importance to the student of Mental Science. The great fact to be realized regarding Nature is that it is natural. We may pervert the order of Nature, but it will prevail in the long run, returning, as Horace says, by the back door even though we drive it out with a pitchfork; and the beginning, the middle, and the end of the law of Nature is the principle of growth from a vitality inherent in the entity itself. If we realize this from the outset we shall not undo our own work by endeavouring to force things to become that which by their own nature they are not. For this reason when the Bible says that "he who believeth shall not make haste," it is enunciating a great natural principle that success, depends on our using, and not opposing, the universal law of growth. No doubt the greater the vitality we put into the germ, which we have agreed to call the spiritual prototype, the quicker it will germinate; but this is simply because by a more realizing conception we put more growing-power into the seed than we do by a feebler conception. Our mistakes always eventually resolve themselves into distrusting the law of growth. Either we fancy we can hasten it by some exertion of our own from without, and are thus led into hurry and anxiety, not to say sometimes into the employment, of grievously wrong methods; or else we give up all hope and so deny the germinating power of the seed we have planted. The result in either case is the same, for in either case we are in effect forming a fresh spiritual prototype of an opposite character to our desire, which therefore neutralizes the one first formed, and disintegrates it and usurps its place. The law is always the same, that our Thought forms a spiritual prototype which, if left undisturbed, will reproduce itself in external circumstances; the only difference is in the sort of prototype we form, and thus evil is brought to us by precisely the same law as good.

JA

成長の法則を正しく理解することは、精神科学の学ぶ者にとって最も重要です。自然について認識すべき重要な事実は、それが自然であるということです。自然の秩序を歪め、それを私たちにとって不自然な条件を生み出す手段とすることはできますが、自然自体の作用は常に自然であり、したがって全き単純さをもっています。認識すべきことは、自然は常に生命の表現であり、精神は創造的法則を通じて常にそれ自体のより完全な表現に向かって働いているということです。こうした自然の秩序において、善でないものはすべて自然の法則の誤用から生じるのであって、法則そのものの本質に悪が含まれているからではありません。もし私たちが精神を善なるものとして考え始め、そして精神が万物の源であるならば、善のみが精神の自然な表現となり得ます。したがって、悪はすべて創造的法則の転倒した使用から生じることになります。法則自体は善でも悪でもなく、精神的であれ物理的であれ、あらゆる法則は私たちがどう使うかによって善にも悪にもなり得ます。電気の使い方を知っている者がいる一方で、不注意な者がそれによって命を落とすかもしれません。問題は電気にあるのではなく、使う者にあるのです。

EN

These considerations will greatly simplify our ideas of life. We have no longer to consider two forces, but only one, as being the cause of all things; the difference between good and evil resulting simply from the direction in which this force is made to flow. It is a universal law that if we reverse the action of a cause we at the same time reverse the effect. With the same apparatus we can commence by mechanical motion which will generate electricity, or we can commence with electricity which will generate mechanical motion; or to take a simple arithmetical instance: if 10/2 = 5, then 10/5 = 2; and therefore if we once recognize the power of thought to produce any results at all, we shall see that the law by which negative thought produces negative results is the same by which positive thought produces positive results. Therefore all our distrust of the law of growth, whether shown in the anxious endeavour to bring pressure to bear from without, or in allowing despair to take the place of cheerful expectation, is reversing the action of the original cause and consequently reversing the nature of the results. It is for this reason that the Bible, which is the most deeply occult of all books, continually lays so much stress upon the efficiency of faith and the destructive influence of unbelief; and in like manner, all books on every branch of spiritual science emphatically warn us against the admission of doubt or fear. They are the inversion of the principle which builds up, and they are therefore the principle which pulls down; but the Law itself never changes, and it is on the unchangeableness of the law that all Mental Science is founded. We are accustomed to realize the unchangeableness of natural law in our every day life, and it should therefore not be difficult to realize that the same unchangeableness of law which obtains on the visible side of nature obtains on the invisible side as well. The variable factor is, not the law, but our own volition; and it is by combining this variable factor with the invariable one that we can produce the various results we desire. The principle of growth is that of inherent vitality in the seed itself, and the operations of the gardener have their exact analogue in Mental Science. We do not put the self-expansive vitality into the seed, but we must sow it, and we may also, so to speak, water it by quiet concentrated contemplation of our desire as an actually accomplished fact. But we must carefully remove from such contemplation any idea of a strenuous effort on our part to make the seed grow. Its efficacy is in helping to keep out those negative thoughts of doubt which would plant tares among our wheat, and therefore, instead of anything of effort, such contemplation should be accompanied by a feeling of pleasure and restfulness in foreseeing the certain accomplishment of our desires. This is that making our requests known to God with thanksgiving which St. Paul recommends, and it has its reason in that perfect wholeness of the Law of Being which only needs our recognition of it to be used by us to any extent we wish.

JA

これらの考察は、人生についての私たちの考えを大いに単純化するでしょう。もはや二つの力ではなく、一つの力だけを万物の原因として考えればよいのです。善と悪の違いは、この一つの力を建設的に使うか破壊的に使うかの結果に過ぎません。その力とは精神であり、精神を使う方法は思考です。したがってすべては思考に帰着します。私たちの思考が建設的で調和的であれば、対応する結果が私たちの境遇に生じます。私たちの思考が破壊的で不調和であれば、対応する結果が同様に生じます。そこで実際的な問いが生まれます――どうすれば思考を常に建設的に保つことができるのか。その答えは、成長の法則を理解することにあります。もし一粒の種を土に蒔けば、成長の法則によってそれはその種類に従った植物を生み出します。私たちはこの法則に頼って、蒔いた種から適切な植物が育つことを期待します。まったく同じように、心に蒔かれた思考の種は、成長の法則によって、それ自身の種類に従った外的結果を生み出すでしょう。したがって、私たちがすべきことは、正しい種類の思考の種を蒔き、自然法則が残りを行うことを信頼することです。土に蒔かれた種を掘り返してその成長を確認する必要がないのと同じように、精神的な種を掘り返す必要もありません。自然法則に信頼を置き、成長を待てばよいのです。この過程において忍耐が不可欠です。種を蒔いた翌日に花を期待するのは愚かなことです。それぞれのものには成長の時間があり、しかし法則は確実です。蒔いたものを必ず刈り取ることになります。したがって、建設的で肯定的な思考を蒔くことに専心するならば、やがてそれに対応する条件が私たちの人生に現れることを確信できるのです。

EN

Some people possess the power of visualization, or making mental pictures of things, in a greater degree than others, and by such this faculty may advantageously be employed to facilitate their realization of the working of the Law. But those who do not possess this faculty in any marked degree, need not be discouraged by their want of it, for visualization is not the only way of realizing that the law is at work on the invisible plane. Those whose mental bias is towards physical science should realize this Law of Growth as the creative force throughout all nature; and those who have a mathematical turn of mind may reflect that all solids are generated from the movement of a point, which, as our old friend Euclid tells us, is that which has no parts nor magnitude, and is therefore as complete an abstraction as any spiritual nucleus could be. To use the apostolic words, we are dealing with the substance of things not seen, and we have to attain that habit of mind by which we shall see its reality and feel that we are mentally manipulating the only substance there ultimately is, and of which all visible things are only different modes. We must therefore regard our mental creations as spiritual realities and then implicitly trust the Law of Growth to do the rest.

JA

視覚化の能力、すなわち事物の精神的な絵を描く力を、他の人よりも高い程度で持っている人々がいます。そのような人々は、実現したいことの明確な精神像を形成することで、この能力を有利に活用することができます。しかし、視覚化が容易でない人々にとっても、思考を一つの明確な考えに集中させることによって同じ結果を得ることができます。要は、自分が望むものの明確な精神的パターンを維持し、それが表現されるための適切な水路を精神に開くことです。詳細はそれぞれの個人の性質と状況に従って自然に展開されるでしょう。偉大な事は、私たちが精神的により高い場所に立ち、創造的精神の力を認識し信頼して使用するという決意です。