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The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

III. THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLD

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_The Region of Concrete Thought._

The Region of concrete Thought is neither shadowy nor illusory. It is the acme of reality and this world which we mistakenly regard as the only verity, is but an evanescent replica of that Region.

A little reflection will show the reasonableness of this statement and prove our contention that all we see here is really crystallized thought. Our houses, our machinery, our chairs and tables, all that has been made by the hand of man is the embodiment of a thought. As the juices in the soft body of the snail gradually crystallize into the hard and flinty shell which it carries upon its back and which hides it, so everything used in our civilization is a concretion of invisible, intangible mind-stuff. The thought of James Watt in time congealed into a steam engine and revolutionized the world. Edison’s thought was condensed into an electric generator which has turned night to day, and had it not been for the thought of Morse and Marconi, the telegraph would not have annihilated distance as it does today. An earthquake may wreck a city and demolish the lighting plant and telegraph station, but the thoughts of Watt, Edison and Morse remain, and upon the basis of their indestructible ideas new machinery may be constructed and operations resumed. Thus thoughts are more permanent than things.

The sensitive ear of the musician detects a certain musical note in every city which is different from that of another city. He hears in each little brook a new melody, and to him the sound of wind in the treetops of different forests give a varying sound. In the Desire World we noted the existence of forms similar to the shapes of things here, also that seemingly _sound proceeds from form_, but in the Region of concrete Thought it is different, for while each form occupies and obscures a certain space here, form is nonexistent when viewed from the standpoint of the Region of concrete Thought. Where the form was, a transparent, vacuous space is observable. _From that empty void comes a sound_ which is the “keynote” that _creates_ and maintains the _form_ whence it _appears_ to come, as the almost invisible core of a gas-flame is the source of the light we perceive.

Sound from a vacuum cannot be heard in the Physical World, but the harmony which proceeds from the vacuous cavity of a celestial _archetype_ is “the voice of the silence,” and it becomes audible when all earthly sounds have ceased. Elijah heard it not while the storm was raging; nor was it in evidence during the turbulence of the earthquake, nor in the crackling and roaring fire, but when the destructive and inharmonious sounds of this world had melted into silence, “the still small voice” issued its commands to save Elijah’s life.

That “keynote” is a direct manifestation of the Higher Self which uses it to impress and govern the Personality it has created. But alas, part of its life has been infused into the material side of its being, which has thus obtained a certain will of its own and only too often are the two sides of our nature at war.

At last there comes a time when the spirit is too weary to strive with the recalcitrant flesh, when “the voice of the silence” ceases.

The earthly nourishment we may seek to give, will not avail to sustain a form when this harmonious sound, this “word from heaven” no longer reverberates through the empty void of the celestial archetype, for “man lives not by bread alone,” but by the WORD, and the last sound-vibration of the “keynote” is the death-knell of the physical body.