Title page of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Copy D, in the Library of Congress).
1790 (Public Domain)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a book by the English Romantic and Mystical poet William Blake. Written between 1790 and 1793, the book lays out in poetry and song Blake’s philosophy in matters religious, spiritual, and temporal. Written in imitation of biblical prophecy, Blake's beliefs were revolutionary for the time and continue to be so today.
The book includes many famous quotes, including this one:
If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite.
For man has closed himself up,
till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
This quote was later used by Aldous Huxley for the title of his book on his psychedelic experiences, The Doors of Perception. And, in turn Huxley’s title was taken and used as the name of the psychedelic rock band, The Doors.
Seeing everything (or what we believe is everything) through the eyes of the body, through these narrow chinks, we are limited in our sight, until our perception is washed clean.
In the famous passages on love often recited in weddings, we are told that:
.... now we see only a reflection as in a mirror darkly; but then we shall see face to face.
From time immemorial, humans have wrestled with questions regarding the nature of reality. What is truth? What is illusion? What is the nature of physical matter? Of energy?
Is there something, something invisible to the human eye, that stands beyond (or under, or parallel to) the tangible, knowable, measurable phenomenon of the physical world?
In basic Unity Church teachings, God is (among other things) the Substance that stands under all material things. From the Latin sub – meaning “under” and stare – to stand, God is the very underpinning, the substance from which all things are formed.
Substance is not so generally recognized as some of the other attributes or ideas of God, such as life, love, wisdom and power, but It is very necessary to the well-being of man, and It should be recognized and studied and used.
Substance is Mind Essence, the body of God; it is Omnipresence, all penetrating, all potential, all intelligent, all providing, all sustaining, everywhere present. It is the foundation of the universe, all things being formed from it, the structure upon which all things are made; it is that in which ideas live and move and have being just as a fish lives and moves and has being In water.
Although substance or Mind Essence is invisible and Intangible to the outer eye of manifest man, man has the power of thought or of image-making by which he can attune himself to Spirit and by this mind activity come to see and feel divine substance as a living reality.
In other words, considering God as love, wisdom, life, or power is usually how people might describe this unseen energy, but another way is to think of It as the very Substance that is everywhere present, that can be shaped and molded, by the power of mind action, to form our physical reality!
Like fish in the water, we are swimming in God! God is in and all around us!
This same concept is found in quantum mechanics, which posits that particles are not the be-all and end-all of our physical reality. Instead, there are quantum fields everywhere present (sound familiar?) and from which all possibilities appear, take form and to which they eventually return.
It’s common to think of the universe as being built from fundamental particles: electrons, quarks, photons and the like. But physics long ago moved beyond this view. Instead of particles, physicists now talk about things called “quantum fields” as the real warp and woof of reality.
These fields stretch across the space-time of the universe. They come in many varieties and fluctuate like a rolling ocean. As the fields ripple and interact with each other, particles emerge out of them and then vanish back into them, like the fleeting crests of a wave.
“Particles are not objects that are there forever,” said David Tong. “It’s a dance of fields.”
This concept is also found in Taoism, which envisions the Tao as a bellows, or a flute -- that which is infinitely empty yet infinitely capable, capable of producing great power, never exhausted and always available to us to use.
"Heaven and Earth have no humanity; They regard all things as straw-dogs. The sage has no humanity; He regards the people as straw-dogs. Between Heaven and Earth, it is like a bellows or a flute! Empty, but not exhausted; With movement, more comes out. Too much talk always exhausts; It is better to keep to the inside." - Translated by Yi Wu, Chapter 5 (Emphasis added)
The very nature of the Tao is one of infinite possibilities, all things existing in potential until they come into existence, hang out for a while, and then return to their Source.
The nature of physical reality is that of birth and death, growth and decay, impermanence, change, construction, and destruction. “Nothing lasts forever,” you’ll hear people say, wistfully.
A Course in Miracles tells us in the very beginning the entire Course summed up in theses short lines:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
This is how A Course in Miracles begins. It makes a fundamental distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception. Knowledge is truth, under one law, the law of love or God. Truth is unalterable, eternal and unambiguous…. It applies to everything that God created, and only what He created is real.
The world of perception, on the other hand, is the world of time, of change, of beginnings and endings. It is based on interpretation, not on facts. It is the world of birth and death, founded on the belief in scarcity, loss, separation and death.
One of my favorite affirmations is, I am rooted in the invisible.
It is an extremely poignant irony that what seems substantial and permanent: the Himalayas, the pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Earth, the Sun, the galaxies… are in fact temporary and insubstantial over time (another illusion constructed by the human mind).
And those things that are seemingly insubstantial, that are invisible, unable to be seen or touched, but which can be felt, are the real Reality: love, hope, faith, joy, forgiveness, peace, happiness, beauty and Truth.
Blake’s observation that we see through narrow slits just a tiny slice of the entire picture of the Universal was not a new one. Plato illustrated it 2,000 years earlier in his Allegory of the Cave. Plato gives us a scenario that attempts to illustrate that we see (and think is "reality") is but shadows cast on the wall. It is a ghostly image of the real, substantial reality that lies beyond our sight, but which can be “seen” felt or understood through reason, logic, deduction, mathematics, etc.
These ideas of Reality and unreality, which can we count on and what is all shifting sand and changing fads, is fundamental to a subject that is dear to my heart….
Understanding the nature of metaphysical reality is necessary to practicing true prosperity and abundance.
It is time to shift our vision away from the impermanent and insubstantial to those things (Reality-based things) that last through all eternity. These are the things that bring us real joy, a full life, health and wealth and the ability to help others.
In future posts, we will see how we can “form and shape substance” consciously to create an amazing fabulous, rich, and prosperous, healthy and vibrant life. From a Unity pamphlet on Living Substance:
You are unified with the one living substance, God all-sufficient. From the substance of God you were created. In the substance of God you live. By the substance of God you are fed and clothed and prospered.
God substance does not fluctuate with market conditions. It does not decrease in times of unemployment. It cannot be hoarded by one person to cause a deficiency in the supply of another, neither is it doled out in skimpy portions.
Your God is a munificent God. Your Father has bestowed on you the gift of living substance; for you are the love and the rich substance of God made manifest. Therefore your supply is a living thing.
You deserve it and you deserve it all!! Let me show you how!
Happy Sunday,
Johnny
I am available to do Prosperity Now! individual or group sessions or general life-coaching, I Ching readings, dream interpretation or join us for our weekly Wednesday Course in Miracles group. Please contact me at prosperitynowlifeofdreams@yahoo.com or sign up on my website: http://www.johnafrederick.com
Rev. Johnny……Thank you for the uplifting gift this am. One of my recent thoughts running through my own private Universe is, “Doubt or curiosity are the two constant choices”.
You either believe that you are eternal, infinite, and whole…or not. Of course, my own egotistical mind cannot understand the word “infinite“. Like you pointed out—we cannot see but a tiny portion of the picture. That is like looking through a small hole in a fence and you see two arms reaching toward one another. You don’t know if one person is trying to harm the other or reaching to help the other. Experiencing the meaning of “prosperity” is another lifelong blessing.