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Cosmic Consciousness by Ali Nomad

XIV ILLUMINATION AS EXPRESSED IN THE POETICAL TEMPERAMENT

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In explanation of why he chose to put out so much of the creative work of his brain under the signature of a woman, and how he happened to use the name _Fiona Macleod_, Sharp explained that when he began to realize how strong was the feminine element in the book _Pharais_, he decided to issue the book under a woman's name and _Fiona Macleod_ "flashed ready-made" into his mind. "My truest self, the self who is below all other selves must find expression," he explained. The Self that is _above_ the other self is what he should have said. The following extracts are from the _Fiona Macleod_ phase of William Sharp and are characteristic of the Self, as evidenced in all instances of Illumination, particularly as these expressions refer to the nothingness of death, and the beauty and power of Love. "Do not speak of the spiritual life as 'another life'; there is no 'other life'; what we mean by that, is with us now. The great misconception of death is that it is the only door to another world." This testimony corroborates that of Whitman as well as of St. Paul, notwithstanding all the centuries that separate the two. St. Paul did not say that man _will have_ a spiritual body, but that he _has_ a spiritual body as well as a corporeal body.

After the experience of his illumination, William Sharp, writing as _Fiona Macleod_ constantly testified to the ever-present reality of his spiritual life; a life far more real to him than the sense-conscious life although he alluded to it as his dream. In one place he says:

"Now truly, is dreamland no longer a phantasy of sleep, but a loveliness so great that, like deep music, there could be no words wherewith to measure it, but only the breathless unspoken speech of the soul upon whom has fallen the secret dews."

Of the impossibility of adequately explaining the mystery of Illumination and the sensations it inspires, he says, speaking through the Self of _Fiona Macleod_: "I write, not because I know a mystery, and would reveal it, but because I have known a mystery and am to-day as a child before it, and can neither reveal nor interpret it."

This is comparable with Whitman's "when I try to describe the best, I can not. My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots."

Another sentence from _Fiona_:

"There is a great serenity in the thought of death, when it is known to be the gate of Life."

Like all who have gained the Great Blessing, the revelation to the mind of that higher Self, that _we are_, William Sharp suffered keenly. The despair of the world was his, co-equal with the Joy of the Spirit. Indeed, his is at once the gift and the burden of the Illuminati.

Mrs. Mona Caird said of him: "He was almost encumbered by the infinity of his perceptions; by the thronging interests, intuitions, glimpses of wonders, beauties, and mysteries which made life for him a pageant and a splendor such as is only disclosed to the soul that has to bear the torment and revelations of genius."

The burden of the world's sorrow; the longings and aspirations of the soul that has glimpsed, or that has more fully cognized the realms of the Spirit which are its rightful home; are ever a part of the price of liberation. The illumined mind sees and hears and feels the vibrations that emanate from all who are travailing in the meshes of the sense-conscious life; but through all the sympathetic sorrow, there runs the thread of a divine assurance and certainty of profound joy--a bliss that passes comprehension or description.

Mrs. Sharp, in the final conclusion of the _Memoirs_ says "to quote my husband's own words--ever below all the stress and failure, below all the triumph of his toil, lay the _beauty of his dream_."

In accordance with an oft-repeated request, these lines are inscribed on the Iona cross carved in lava, which marks the grave wherein is laid to rest the earthly form of William Sharp:

"Farewell to the known and exhausted,
Welcome the unknown and illimitable."

And this:

"Love is more great than we conceive, and death is the keeper of unknown redemptions."

They are from his higher Self; from the illumined "Dominion of Dreams."