the oldest religion

Ralph Waldo on mind and the endless river from "Natural History of the Intellect."

"In my thought I seem to stand on the bank of a river and watch the endless flow of the stream, floating objects of all shapes, colors and natures; nor can I much detain them as they pass, except by running beside them a little way along the bank. But whence they come or whither they go is not told me. Only I have a suspicion that, as geologists say every river makes its own valley, so does this mystic stream. It makes its valley, makes its banks and makes perhaps the observer too. Who has found the boundaries of human intelligence? Who has made a chart of its channel or approached the fountain of this wonderful Nile ?


I am of the oldest religion. Leaving aside the question which was prior, egg or bird, I believe the mind is the creator of the world, and is ever creating ; - that at last Matter is dead Mind ; that mind makes the senses it sees with ; that the genius of man is a continuation of the power that made him and that has not done making him."

Blessings
(Note: Riverbank painting by Maxfield Parrish)