from an Edgar Cayce reading—curated from “There is a River” by Thomas Sugrue.
In the beginning there was a sea of spirit, and it filled all space. It was static, content, aware of itself, a giant resting on the bosom of its thought, contemplating that which it was. Then it moved! It withdrew into itself, until all space was empty, and that which had filled all space was shining from its center, a restless, seething mind. This was the individuality of the spirit; this was what it discovered itself to be when it awakened -- this was God.
God projected the cosmos and built it with the tools of music, arithmetic, geometry, harmony, system, and balance. The building blocks were life essence. It was a power sent out from God, which by changing the length of its vibration became a pattern of differing forms, substance and movement. This created the law of diversity which supplied endless patterns. Each design carried within it the plan of its evolution, which was accomplished by movement, growth, and change. God played this law of diversity as a person plays on a piano. The sounds of several notes unite to make a chord; chords in turn become phrases; phrases become melodies; melodies intermingle and move back and forth, across and between and around each other, to make a symphony.
Everything moved, changed, and assumed its own design. Activity was begun and maintained by the law of attraction and repulsion. All this was a part of God, an expression of thought. Mind was the force which propelled and perpetuated it. Everything that came into being was an aspect of Mind.
Souls were created for companionship with God. The pattern used was that of God Itself: spirit, mind, individuality. First there had been spirit; then there had been the action which withdrew spirit into itself; then there had been the resulting individuality of God. In building the soul there was spirit, with its knowledge of identity with God; there was mind; and there was the ability to experience the activity of mind separately from God.
To the new individual there was given the power to choose and direct its own activity—free will. Mind, issuing as a force from God, fulfilled all thoughts. The record of this free will is the soul. The soul began with the first expression which free will made of its power, through the force of mind. The first thought which it generated, the first diversion of mind force from its normal path, was the beginning of the soul. Thus the soul consisted of two states of consciousness: that of the spirit, bearing a knowledge of its identity with God, and that of the new individual, bearing a knowledge of everything it experienced.
The soul has a cycle of experience, unlimited in scope and duration, in which the new individual would come to know creation in all its aspects, at the discretion of will. The plan is that the desire of will shall no longer be different from the thought of God. The soul would retain its consciousness of a separate individuality and would be aware that of its own free will it acts as an essential part of God.
12/01/24