a good citizen of the community feels the life of the
community as his own life, and so becomes conscious of a larger Self
than the narrow self of the family. And the man who loves his nation,
his Self widens out to the boundaries of the nation, and he is
conscious of a larger Self than the self of the family, or the
community within the State. And just in proportion as the love
widening does not grow superficial and shallow (for if you have only a
certain amount of water and you make your dish wider and wider, the
water will become shallower and shallower) does it approach spiritual
love. Too often love becomes unreal with those who try to love the
far-off when they do not love the near. But if you avoid the
temptation, and remembering that the Spirit has no limitations, and
that you can draw and draw and draw on the love within you and never
find the bottom of the source of love; if you are strong enough to do
that, then the love of the family, of the community, of the State,
will widen out into the love of humanity, and you shall know yourself
as one with all, and not only with your family, or your community, or
your nation. All these local loves are schoolmasters to bring us to
the wider love of man. But do not blunder in the idea that you can
have the wider unless you have gone through the narrower; for the bad
husband, the bad citizen, the bad patriot, will never make a real
lover of humanity. He must learn his alphabet before he can read in
this book of love, and must spell out the letters before he may
pronounce the word. None the less, these successive stages are all
stages towards the spiritual life, and prepare the man for the
consciously spiritual realisation. And if you would really train
yourself for the unfolding of this life within you, practise it on
those who are nearest to you by meeting them with love and sympathy in
the daily paths of life. Not only those whom you like, but those you
care not for as well; not with those who love you only, but with those
who dislike you also. Remember that you have to break down
barriers--barriers of the bodies that bar you out from your fellow
Selves in the worlds around you, and that breaking down of the
barriers is part of the training in the spiritual life. Only as
barrier after barrier is broken down, only as wall after wall is
levelled to the ground, will the freedom of the Spirit become possible
in manifestation on every plane and in every world. The Spirit is