X
A LESSON IN CREATION
‘HOW,’ I asked Roger, ‘would you regard this house and everything that’s in it, and all that you can see from these windows? As something pretty solid?’
‘I certainly should,’ he answered. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because, my dear fellow, there are people on earth who will have it that all this is a condition built by thought, and therefore having no concrete existence, as they would term it. Odd, isn’t it?’
‘I think I can understand it, in a way,’ said Roger, ‘because when I woke up on your couch, it did occur to me that it might be a dream.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Well, I saw you sitting at the foot of the couch, and there was Ruth at my side, and you spoke sense.’
‘Thank goodness for that!’
‘You know what I mean.’
We laughed at the boy’s confusion. ‘Of course, Roger. You mean that the whole situation was sensible, and not the sort of crazy things that usually happen in dreams.’
‘Yes, that’s it. At once it was all very real. You remember I put my foot on the ground. After that there could be no suggestion that everything here is not real and solid.’
Real and solid, Roger; that is the vital point. The trouble would seem to be that folk on earth have not yet fully realized the true significance of the power of thought. Within limits they have some idea, and a good idea, but it’s my opinion that they don’t carry the matter far enough.
‘Take your mind back to the time when Ruth and I came into your bedroom on earth. We just came in, as it were. Nothing was solid to us. The walls meant nothing. And we meant nothing to you—as yet. Even when you did see us, we were pretty unsubstantial. The whole of these lands were as yet invisible to you, though you did begin by seeing us.
‘Then what happened? One life ended for you there, and another began—in your bedroom, or to be precise, in the spot where your room was situated, and we took charge of you for the time being. Had you remained awake—it was Ruth put you into a nice little nap—you would have seen what we two saw—a vapory room, with rather vapory people in it. We could have said with similar justification, that the room was only a condition, and not a state. But we know differently. That room was real and solid to your folks there in it. You had changed your condition, from earthly to spirit life, but you had not turned yourself into a state, nor had we done it for you. You see what I mean?
‘Now, had you anything in mind about a future life? No, you’ve told us you hadn’t, so that you could not have found yourself in some kind of thought creation of your own, based upon what you supposed the spirit world to be.’
‘No, but couldn’t I have found myself in some kind of state or condition that someone else had created?’
‘Well said, my lad. That’s precisely what did take place. So that, to use definite terms, it must be a solid type of place that others can see and feel and experience—and enjoy.’
‘Then where comes the difference between this and the earth?’
‘The difference lies in the fact that here there is no solid earth condition to interpose itself between us and our thoughts. Whatever is created or made on earth has to be thought about first, planned, perhaps drawings made if it is something a bit elaborate, and then fashioned by machinery or by hand, as the case may be. Here we dispense with the intermediaries, as it were, and let thought do the job, which it does very capably.
‘Thought has direct action here. That’s where the real difficulty is. Because thought has such direct action, folk on earth think that the results must be intangible, dream-like, and capable of being, or liable to be, dispersed upon the slightest provocation, or upon none at all. Our thoughts in these lands have far greater power and scope than on earth. To make things concrete on earth, one had to get past the thinking stage. Here one is always in the thinking stage because that is the last stage, if you follow me.
‘Immediately upon the thought there follows the concrete article. I don’t mean for one moment that we merely think of what we need or desire, and hey presto, there it is. Dear me, no. This house, Roger, was carefully thought about, planned, and then the masons and builders got to work. But their work was performed by thought alone. There were no intermediaries in the form of the procuring of materials, and the erection of scaffolding, and so on. Those friends thought, and thought produced this very real and solid house. And here it will remain.
‘We’re not sitting on nothing. We’re sitting in comfortable chairs, and they are resting on the floor. This is not a thought condition were living in—and a good thing, too!’
‘Then if you want to make something, you have to learn how to make it; is that it, Monsignor?’
‘Very much so. Do you think you could make a table like that, this very minute?’
‘I’m sure I couldn’t.’
‘No, neither could Ruth nor I. Ruth makes tapestries— you’ve seen some of them here, Roger; but she makes them on a machine, itself made by an expert, with materials also made by experts. But they’re none the less real for that. How do you suppose the flowers and things come?’
‘I haven’t the faintest notion.’
‘Would you care to see some being made?’
‘I should, very much indeed.’
‘Then let us go and call on the man—or one of them—who does it.’
As we made our way thither we explained to Roger that the friend upon whom we were calling, keeps what on earth would be called a nursery-garden; that when he was incarnate he had done similar work.
‘I imagined.’ said Roger, ‘that the flowers grew here in much the same way as on earth—from seed, and so on. That doesn’t appear to be so from what you say. What happens, then?’
‘Let us wait until we get there, Roger, and our friend will tell you all about it. Look, now; you can see where the gardens are.’
In front of us we could perceive great tracts of brilliant colours, each colour separate, stretching far away in field after field. There were trees of all kinds in every stage of growth, from mere saplings to veritable patriarchs. We followed a path that led directly to a large house.
As I had already sent a message to the ‘owner’ of the nursery, he was awaiting our arrival. Roger was therefore surprised when the opening words of our friend clearly indicated that he already knew of our impending visit. Ruth briefly told Roger about the thought process of sending messages, to which he replied by saying that that was something further that had to be investigated!
We introduced Roger to our host as a new arrival who was following the usual procedure of seeing things for himself.
‘So you’ve come to see the flowers made, young friend. Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ he said with a merry twinkle.
Roger had by now completely overcome any shyness he may have had, and plied people with questions with a right good will. He commenced operations at once upon our gardener friend.
‘Do you supply the flowers for all these lands?’ he queried.
‘Oh, no. Only for this area, as you might call it. There’s lots more people doing the work in other parts. This is just one. Now where shall we begin? First come and see some of our products.’
Surrounding us were hundreds of flower-beds each containing a different kind of flower, and each arranged in orderly rows.
‘We don’t make any attempt to be properly artistic in what we call our stock beds, though, mind you, the colours themselves attract great admiration, as well as the long lines of flowers and plants. It is the masses of flower and colour that folk find so fascinating. Our own gardens, over yonder, we laid out for pure pleasure purposes.’
We noticed particularly the enormous number of blooms that grew upon a single stem of each plant.
‘You see,’ explained the gardener, ‘in the old earth plants the flowers fade in due course, and seed pods form, so that you might have half the stem with blooms and half with seeds. You can see for yourself that, without this happening, and the whole stem being filled with blooms for its right length, there’s no comparison. There’s nowhere else but here —I mean, the spirit world—where flowers could be grown like these.
‘Cast your eye on those hollyhocks. Did you ever see such beauties as those—with blooms from the top reaching down all that way? And no fading or dying. That’s how we make them and that’s how they stay.’
As far as we could see were bed upon bed of such perfect flowers as incarnate eye never beheld. Ruth and I had visited this beautiful place often before, but to Roger it was new, and such a revelation as to hold him almost speechless.
There were flowers of every variety known on earth, all the old cherished blooms that have been familiar to earth folk time out of mind—the ‘old-fashioned’ flowers, as one liked to regard them: the hollyhocks and pansies, the snapdragons, Canterbury bells, and wallflowers, stocks, and a hundred other kinds. As may be imagined, the scent from this great collection was superb; not overpowering, but sufficient to make its presence pleasantly felt, and enjoyable.
‘You can understand this work is more like a holiday when we compare it to the labor that would be required on earth for such large gardens as these. I doubt if there are any as big as these on earth, and these aren’t the biggest by any means. Still, we have everything that may be called for here.
‘As I was saying, it’s more like a holiday here. We’re not bothered with all the troubles of things on earth, the weather for instance—most of all the weather; or the right soil; and everything to do with the planting, and so on. It’s a long process on earth from the moment the seed is planted to the time you come to pick the blooms for the market. But here bless you, we make our plant with its blooms already on it, in all varieties and mixtures of colors. We can have single blooms or double, as we fancy, or as others fancy. And once we’ve made them and planted them out, well, there’s nothing more to do, so to speak. But we’re not idle for all that, even if it’s merely showing people round.’
‘You would think, Roger,’ I said, ‘that our gardener here had precious little to do. Don’t be deceived. He is the genius behind all our gardens, the designer-in-chief. He and his colleagues, brothers in the art, are responsible for the loveliness of the many gardens you’ve seen.’
We followed our guide along path after path, from flower-beds to avenues of trees and shrubs. The super-abundance seemed overwhelming, but our friend assured us that everything we saw would be put to good use, and was not there merely for display.
Roger put a question to him: ‘If the flowers and trees never fade and die,’ he asked, ‘how is it so many are wanted? The demand must be enormous.
‘You’re right; the demand is enormous. Some people like to expand their gardens, or put in new beds. That’s one way we come in. Then there’s the gardens in the city. They’re often reconstructed or otherwise changed about. So we come in again. Then people feel the urge to change what’s growing in their gardens, and we supply them with new stuff, bringing back here what they have discarded. When you come to look around you, you can see there’s still plenty of room to make more beds—and fill them. Now come indoors, and see some of our treasures.’
We were shown into a spacious apartment containing many shelves filled with large volumes. Our friend took down one volume and opened it at random. It showed a picture of a tulip, exquisitely drawn in colour. It was not an artistic reproduction in the strict sense of the term; it was a purely botanical picture, without background, and revealed full details of the flower and its foliage, so that anyone viewing it would know exactly how the flower was composed. Especially true was the colouring of it, so we were informed.
‘It is from these paintings that our pupils learn all the details of the flowers before they commence the actual process of creation. Before you can begin to build a flower, or anything else, if it comes to that, you must know precisely all the details necessary for a faithful reproduction. “Near enough” is not good enough. It’s got to be perfect. And the only way to make it so is to know by heart every twist or turn of the object that is to be created. You could take it right off the drawing, so to speak; in fact, that is what the beginner always does. But afterwards, he will study the picture—or an original, if he prefers it—and that leaves him free, when the work commences, to devote his whole mind to the object in hand.
‘In all these volumes you will find coloured pictures of every flower we make here, both the earthly kinds and those that belong to the spirit world alone.
‘In addition to these books, we have the prints hanging separately on the walls in another room. That’s done for the convenience of anyone who wishes to view them without looking through the volumes. Come across the hail into the big room.’
We entered a very large chamber where, hanging upon the walls, were magnificent pictures of every type of garden to be seen in these lands. It was impossible to assess the greater beauty of any one over that of another. They were all equally wonderful.
‘Most of these gardens,’ our host pointed out, ‘have actually been built somewhere or other in this area. Inventive faculties don’t seem to have any limit, as you can see.
‘Some of these sketches have been presented to us from other nursery-gardens, in the same way as we pass on drawings and sketches that portray some particularly happy novelty. A regular exchange goes on, for you know, young friend, in these lands we are always on the move in things. We don’t “stick in the mud”!’
At length our gardener friend led us into a smaller room where there were a number of young people busily occupied, and we were told that these were pupils in the art of horticulture.
We perceived that Roger had all this time been immensely attracted and interested in what he was being shown. Not that he had exhibited any signs of boredom hitherto, but here there was an especial attraction, which, to the eyes of Ruth and me—and the gardener—showed very plainly that he would like to take up this work himself.
Our friend at last brought us to the climax of our visit: the actual creation of a flower.
For this purpose he seated us around him, while he placed upon a table a small vessel similar to the ordinary flower-pot. Into this he poured some ‘soil’, and without further preliminary, he requested us to watch the vessel upon the table.
At first there was little to be seen beyond a slight haze of light round about the pot. Gradually, however, this formed itself into a distinct shape, which one could see was the outline of a stem with a flower upon it. This became more and more firm, until there was the complete adumbration of a flower, even to the colour, though this latter was as yet rather pale. But there was sufficient formation to be able to observe unmistakably the kind of flower it was, namely, a tulip.
The gardener rose from his seat, took up the pot, and examined it minutely, before he pronounced his satisfaction, and then passed it round for us to inspect.
It was a beautiful object, shapely yet delicate, so that one could see clearly through it. I handed it back to its creator, who placed it upon the table once more, and with one final effort of concentrated thought brought the flower up to its full solidity and color, with apparently little effort.
‘There you are, Roger. There’s a nice flower for you. Can you see anything wrong with it?’
The boy replied that he could see absolutely nothing whatever the matter with it.
‘There is, though. Monsignor and Ruth know, but we’ve not let you into the secret yet.’ Roger re-examined the tulip, but again confessed himself unable to detect anything amiss.
‘As a flower merely to look at, it’s the best we can do, but there is something missing: there is no animation to preserve it. We can’t give it—or any flower—that. That must come from another realm, and we don’t ask for it until we are sure that what we have made is fitted to receive it.
‘Oh, we make our mistakes, you know; especially my young pupil boys and girls. You expect to have some mishaps when you’re learning, but no harm is done. We return the elements to their source, and begin again.
‘Sometimes we find a petal, for instance, has not been shaped truly; perhaps one side of the bloom is a shade higher than the other, or the colour may not be exactly as we want it. And so we have to begin again.
‘My students find an enormous amount of pleasure in their learning, but the greatest satisfaction comes when they are fully proficient, and can turn out a flower or plant as perfect as the picture.
‘How does the animation come?’ asked Roger. ‘Do you have to perform some sort of service for it?’
‘Do you mean a religious service?’
‘Yes, something of the kind.’
‘Oh, no. What we do is to send to that higher realm I mentioned, where someone receives our message; after that, all we know is that there is a rapid descent of the power we ask for. Of course, originally, it comes from the Source, but it is passed on to us from another personage. It is a natural process and procedure, and the fact that we have created the flower or plant is sufficient. Our desire for its complete animation is fulfilled; our request is answered without fail, and without question. We shouldn’t ask for it for an inferior article, though we could have it even for that, but our natural pride wouldn’t allow us to do so.
‘At first I examine all my pupils’ work. If any slight modification or improvement is needed, that can be done, but if it’s too bad for improvement, then it’s started anew, and the mis-formed work is discarded.
‘It’s very simple when once you are in the running of it, so to speak. As with many other things, it’s easy when you know how.’
‘I shouldn’t like to say that—at least as far as I’m concerned,’ I said. ‘I’m convinced I should turn out a flower such as had never been seen before, and was never likely to be seen again.’
‘Oh, come now, Monsignor. Would you like to try for yourself?’
‘Indeed, I should not. I should be far too nervous, especially with the three of you gazing at me—and waiting for trouble.’
They laughed at my frank expression of plain cowardice.
‘As a matter of practice, we don’t go about it that way. Every new pupil retires with me into our little sanctum, where we make our experiments and first essays at creation in seclusion. So there’s no embarrassment at all.’
‘Of course, my dear friend, I know that, but all the same I don’t somehow think I should make a great success of it,’ I affirmed.
‘Would there be, do you think, a vacancy of any sort for another learner,’ asked Roger, ‘because, if so, I should very much like——?’
‘To become one,’ said the gardener, finishing Roger’s sentence for him. ‘There’s plenty of room, and to spare. But before we go into that, let me finish off this tulip. It won’t take a moment. So.’
He held the tulip in his hand, and instantly we saw a flash of light descend upon it. It came and was ended almost before one realized it.
Now,’ said he, ‘we have something very different. Smell.'
He gently waved the flower to and fro before us, and we were at once aware of the most subtle perfume.
‘Place your hands round the bloom, friend Roger.’ Roger did so. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘it’s alive! I can feel the—what is it; sort of electricity?—running up my arms.’
‘No, it’s not electricity, but it is power. That is actually the life you feel, and it’s passing some on to you, for your benefit. We’ve not finished yet. Put the pot on the table, then take hold of the stem of the plant, and give it a little shake, as though you were trying to shake a drop of water off the petals. That’s the way.’
As Roger performed this simple action, a most perfect sound issued forth, as of the striking of a small silvery bell, of clear and sweet tone.
He repeated the experiment over and over again, such was his surprised delight.
‘Do all the flowers make that sound when this is done to them?’ he asked.
‘All the flowers, and many other things beside. The water for instance. You can bring out some lovely sounds from that when it is disturbed. But before the tulip was given life, it was silent.
‘Well, now, you would like to join us. We shall be delighted to have you whenever you feel disposed to come. Ruth and Monsignor are showing you round for the present. There’s plenty of time. See the world—our world—first, eh Monsignor?
‘That is so, Roger,’ I said. ‘Do you feel you want to start here immediately?’
‘Oh, no, not this instant.’
‘Good; then we can continue our perambulations, and see some more, and then our friend will be happy to make you one of his pupils. I can give you any details that you might want to know, without taking up too much of our friend’s time.’
And so that matter was pleasantly settled, and another happy soul made happier still.