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the outcome of activities in previous lives. It is as we have made it; we cannot change it save slowly, we cannot transcend it by an effort of the will, we cannot cast it aside, nor instantaneously remove its imperfections. Such as it is, it is ours, a part of the Not-Self appropriated and shaped for our own using, and only through it can we know.

All the results of our past thinkings are present with us as mind, and each mind has its own rate of vibration, its own range of vibration, and is in a state of perpetual motion, offering an everchanging series of pictures. Every impression coming to us from outside is made on this already active sphere, and the mass of existing vibrations modifies and is modified by the new arrival. The resultant is not, therefore, an accurate reproduction of the new vibration, but a combination of it with the vibrations already proceeding. To borrow again an illustration from light. If we hold a piece of red glass before our eyes and look at green objects, they will appear to us to be black. The vibrations that give us the sensation of red are cut off by those that give us the sensation of green, and the eye is deceived into seeing the object as black. So also if we look at a blue object through a yellow glass, shall we see it as black. In every case a coloured medium will cause an impression

of colour different from that of the object looked at by the naked eye. Even looking at things with the naked eye, persons see them somewhat differently, for the eye itself modifies the vibrations it receives more than many people imagine. The influence of the mind as a medium by which the Knower views the external world is very similar to the influence of the coloured glass on the colours of objects seen through it. The Knower is as unconscious of this influence of the mind, as a man who had never seen, except through red or blue glasses, would be unconscious of the changes made by them in the colours of a landscape.

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It is in this superficial and obvious sense that the mind is called the creator of illusion." It presents us only with distorted images, a combination of itself and the external object. In a far deeper sense, indeed, is it the "creator of illusion,” in that even these distorted images are but images of appearances, not of realities; shadows of shadows are all that it gives us. But it will suffice us at present to consider the illusions caused by its

own nature.

Very different would be our ideas of the world, if we could know it as it is, even in its phenomenal aspect, instead of by means of the vibrations modified by the mind.

And this is by no means

impossible, although it can only be done by those who have made great progress in controlling the mind. The vibrations of the mind can be stilled, the consciousness being withdrawn from it; an impact from without will then shape an image exactly corresponding to itself, the vibrations being identical in quality and quantity, unintermixed with vibrations belonging to the observer. Or, the consciousness may go forth and ensoul the observed object, and thus directly experience its vibrations. In both cases a true knowledge of the form is gained. The idea in the world of noumena, of which the form expresses a phenomenal aspect, may also be known, but only by the consciousness working in the causal body, untrammelled by the concrete mind or the lower vehicles.

The truth that we only know our impressions of things, not the things-except as just stated-is one which is of vital moment when it is applied in practical life. It teaches humility and caution, and readiness to listen to new ideas. We lose our instinctive certainty that we are right in our observations, and learn to analyse ourselves before we condemn others.

An illustration may serve to make this more clear. I meet a person whose vibratory activity expresses itself in a way complementary to my

own.

When we meet, we extinguish each other; hence we do not like each other, we do not see anything in each other, and we each wonder why So-and-so thinks the other so clever, when we find each other so preternaturally stupid. Now, if I have gained a little self-knowledge, this wonder will be checked, so far as I am concerned. Instead of thinking that the other is stupid, I shall ask myself: "What is lacking in me that I cannot answer his vibrations? We are both vibrating, and if I cannot realise his life and thought, it is because I cannot reproduce his vibrations. Why should I judge him, since I cannot even know him until I modify myself sufficiently to be able to receive him?" We cannot greatly modify others, but we can greatly modify ourselves, and we should be continually trying to enlarge our receptive capacity. We must become as the white light in which all colours are present, which distorts none because it rejects none, and has in itself the power to answer to each. We may measure our approach to the whiteness by our power of response to the most diverse characters.

THE MENTAL BODY AND MANAS.

We may now turn to the composition of the mind as an organ of consciousness in its aspect as

Knower, and see what this composition is, how we have made the mind in the past, how we can change it in the present.

The mind on the side of life is manas, and manas is the reflection, in the atomic matter of the third or mental plane, of the cognitional aspect of the Self-of the Self as Knower.

On the side of form it presents two aspects, severally conditioning the activity of manas, the consciousness working on the mental plane. These aspects are due to the aggregations of the matter of the plane drawn round the atomic vibratory centre. This matter, from its nature and use, we term mind-stuff, or thought-stuff. It makes one great region of the universe, interpenetrating astral and physical matter, and exists in seven subdivisions, like the states of matter on the physical plane; it is predominantly responsive to those vibrations which come from the aspect of the Self which is Knowledge, and this aspect imposes on it its specific character.

The first-and higher-aspect of the form-side of mind is that called the causal body. It is composed of matter from from the fifth and sixth subdivisions of the mental plane, corresponding to the finer ethers of the physical plane. This causal body is little developed in the

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