In the higher philosophy the existence of the world is not denied, as it is by Indian Vedantins and Christian Scientists. It is no less real than humanity. Only it must be understood that it is a manifestation of Mind, not an illusion. This being the One Reality, it follows that the world cannot be unreal. The form it takes is transient, however, but its absence is not.
Also, as far as world-manifestation is concerned, causality is not denied but accepted. However, it cannot be separated from succession in time. When, by ultramystic methods, the Mind-in-itself is known in its unmanifest state--that is to say, its timeless state--causality disappears.
The human mind as ordinarily known is certainly incapable of inventing so many marvellous processes in Nature. The world is the invention of Universal Mind. But the latter functions in and through the human mind. What it presents is common for all men. But it enters into humanity in consciousness only and is therefore an idea. Owing to individual uniqueness the idea is not quite the same for all; each gets an aspect, as it were. But even the disappearance of humanity from the earth would not entail the disappearance of all natural phenomena, for this cannot happen if other beings exist, such as animals.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 3 : The Individual and World Mind > # 14
