all that man's mind can dream of, and that the very wildest
images that man can make fail far short of the realities that actually
existed in the past kalpas through which the universe has gone. That
word of warning is necessary, and also the warning that on the higher
planes things look very different from what they look down here. You
have here a reflection only of part of those higher forms of existence.
Space there has more dimensions than it has on the physical plane, and
each dimension of space adds a new fundamental variety to form; if to
illustrate this I may use a simile I have often used, it may perhaps
convey to you a little idea of what I mean. Two similes I will take each
throwing a little light on a very difficult subject. Suppose that a
picture is presented to you of a solid form; the picture, being made by
pen or pencil on a sheet of paper, must show on the sheet, which is
practically of two dimensions--a plane surface--a three dimensional
form; so that if you want to represent a solid object, a vase, you must
draw it flat, and you can only represent the solidity of that vase by
resorting to certain devices of light and shade, to the artificial
device which is called perspective, in order to make an illusory
semblance of the third dimension. There on the plane surface you get a
solid appearance, and the eye is deceived into thinking it sees a solid
when really it is looking at a flat surface. Now as a matter of fact if
you show a picture to a savage, an undeveloped savage, or to a very
young child, they will not see a solid but only a flat. They will not
recognise the picture as being the picture of a solid object they have
seen in the world round them; they will not see that that artificial
representation is meant to show a familiar solid, and it passes by them
without making any impression on the mind; only the education of the eye
enables you to see on a flat surface the picture of a solid form. Now,
by an effort of the imagination, can you think of a solid as being the
representation of a form in one dimension more, shown by a kind of
perspective? Then you may get a vague idea of what is meant when we
speak of a further dimension in space. As the picture is to the vase, so
is the vase to a higher object of which that vase itself is a
reflection. So again if you think, say, of the lotus flower I spoke of
yesterday, as having just the tips of its leaves above water, each tip
would appear as a separate ob