MIND MATTERS

for Ervin Laszlo

I

          Though other theories have prevailed till now,          
          With matter being assumed the building block          
          Of all there is, a thing and not a Thou,           
          The universe not spirit but a clock, 
          
          An older view has lately been revived:           
          That Mind’s the elemental guiding force
          By which the budding cosmos is contrived,          
          And Spirit is its fundamental Source.

               Mind matters more than we have long believed
               Being the womb in which the world’s conceived.

II

          That we are here is evidence enough 
          The universe is made of more than stuff,          
           But rather is invested with a mind 
           By which the blooming cosmos is designed.  
         
          Mere random rolls of dice could never build 
          The complex universe we’re here to see, 
          And such an enterprise was clearly willed
          Then surely through invention came to be. 
           
          The proof of this is that we’re here to show 
          By our own deeds the way a mind proceeds:
          This very poem demonstrates the flow
          Of thought that fills a certain pattern’s needs,

               And thus it is the universe is made
               From form and matter thoughtfully arrayed.

   III

          It’s Mind that finds or generates the stuff          
          From which materiality is made,          
          But matter in itself is not enough,          
          So Mind decides how it is best arrayed, 
         
          And thus it was the Cosmos came to be          
          And thence evolved to what it is today,          
          A function of expressed mentality           
          That may, through us, have more still to display. 
          
          For all we know, we’re evolution’s edge,           
          On whom the growing cosmos now depends,          
          For it’s our duty and our privilege           
          To realize where cosmic progress tends—

              Taking the greatest stride we’ve ever stridden,
              Revealing those deep secrets Mind has hidden.

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