If you should happen some day to reach that state of mind in connection with which this revelation comes, then you will find the experience a most extraordinary one. You will become conscious that there is no barrier in your path; that the way is open in all directions; that all men and women belong to you, are part of you. You will feel that there is a great open immense world around, which you had never suspected before, which belongs to you, and the riches of which are all yours, waiting for you. It may, of course, take centuries and thousands of years to realize this thoroughly, but there it is. You are just at the threshold, peeping in at the door. What did Shakespeare say? "To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou can'st not then be false to any man." What a profound bit of philosophy in three lines! I doubt if anywhere the basis of all human life has been expressed more perfectly and tersely.

One of the Upanishads (the Maitrayana-Brahmana) says: "The happiness belonging to a mind, which through deep inwardness[1] (or understanding) has been washed clean and has entered into the Self, is a thing beyond the power of words to describe: it can only be perceived by an inner faculty." Observe the conviction, the intensity with which this joy, this happiness is described, which comes to those whose minds have been washed clean (from all the silly trumpery sediment of self-thought) and have become transparent, so that the great universal Being residing there in the depths can be perceived. What sorrow indeed, what, grief, can come to such an one who has seen this vision? It is truly a thing beyond the power of words to describe: it can only be PERCEIVED--and that by an inner faculty. The external apparatus of thought is of no use. Argument is of no use. But experience and direct perception

are possible; and probably all the experiences of life and of mankind through the ages are gradually deepening our powers of perception to that point where the vision will at last rise upon the inward eye.

[1] The word in the Max Muller translation is "meditation." But that is, I think, a somewhat misleading word. It suggests to most people the turning inward of the THINKING faculty to grope and delve in the interior of the mind. This is just what should NOT be done. Meditation in the proper sense should mean the inward deepening of FEELING and consciousness till the region of the universal self is reached; but THOUGHT should not interfere there. That should be turned on outward things to mould them into expression of the inner consciousness.

Another text, from the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad (which I have already quoted in the paper on "Rest"), says: "If a man worship the Self only as his true state, his work cannot fail, for whatever he desires, that he obtains from the Self." Is that not magnificent? If you truly realize your identity and union with the great Self who inspires and informs the world, then obviously whatever you desire the great Self win desire, and the whole world will conspire to bring it to you. "He maketh the winds his angels, and the flaming fires his ministers." [I need not say that I am not asking you to try and identify yourself with the great Self universal IN ORDER to get riches, "opulence," and other things of that kind which you desire; because in that quest you will probably not succeed. The Great Self is not such a fool as to be taken in in that way. It may be true--and it is true--that if ye seek FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven all these things shall be added unto you; but you must seek it first, not second.]

Here is a passage from Towards Democracy: "As space spreads everywhere, and all things move and change within it, but it moves not nor changes,

"So I am the space within the soul, of which the space without is but the similitude and mental image;

"Comest thou to inhabit me, thou hast the entrance to all life--death shall no longer divide thee from whom thou lovest.