Studies In The Cosmo-Conception

Is There Feeling in Matter?

Question: What other forces besides Attraction and Repulsion operate in the Desire World?
Answer: The twin feelings of Interest and Indifference.

Question: Where do these function?
Answer: The fourth Region of the Desire World is the "Region of Feeling." From it comes the feeling concerning the already described forms, and upon the feeling engendered by them depends the life which they have for us and also their effect upon us.

Question: Does this apply to ideas good and bad?
Answer: Whether the objects and ideas presented are good or bad in themselves is not important at this stage. It is our feeling that is the determining factor as to the fate of the object or idea.

Question: What is the effect of Interest?
Answer: If the feeling with which we meet an impression of an object or an idea is Interest, it has the same effect upon that impression as sunlight and air have upon a plant. The idea will grow and flourish in our lives.

Question: What is the effect of Indifference ?
Answer: If we meet an impression or idea with Indifference, it withers as does a plant when put in a dark cellar.

Question: How is this Region related to our physical life?
Answer: From this central Region of the Desire World comes the incentive to action, or the decision to refrain therefrom, for at our stage of development the twin feelings Interest and Indifference furnish the incentive to action and are the springs that move the world.

Question: How does Interest operate in the Desire World?
Answer: Interest starts thc force of Attraction or Repulsion.

Question: What is its effect on Repulsion?
Answer: If our interest in an object or an idea generates Repulsion, that naturally causes us to expurgate from our lives any connection with the object or idea which is aroused.

Question: How does Interest affect the force of Attraction?
Answer: When the feeling of Interest arouses the force of Attraction and it is directed toward low objects and desires, these work themselves out in the lower Regions of the Desire World, where the counteracting force of Repulsion operates.

Question: How is the opposition related to our physical life?
Answer: From the battle of the twin forces- Attraction and Repulsion-results all the pain and suffering incident to wrongdoing or misdirected effort, whether intentional or otherwise.

Question: How can this knowledge profit us?
Answer: It should make us realize how very important is the feeling we have concerning anything, for upon that depends the nature of the atmosphere we create for ourselves.

Question: What must be specifically kept in mind ?
Answer: That if we love the good, we shall keep and nourish as guardian angels all that is good about us; if the reverse, we shall people our path with demons of our own breeding.

Question: Is this literally true?
Answer: Yes, because the Desire World, with its innumerable inhabitants, good and bad, permeates the Physical World, everywhere present and potent as the cause of everything in the Physical World.

--Cosmo-Conception, pp. 45-48