ever
free in his own nature and his own life, but, confined within the
barriers of the body, he has to learn to transcend them, before, on
these planes of matter, he can realise the divine freedom which is his
eternal birthright. So long as you feel yourself separate from others,
so long are you shut out from the realisation of the unity; so long as
you say "my" and "mine," so long the realisation of the Spirit is not
yet possible for you. Love of individual possessions, not only
physical but moral and mental, not the vulgar pride of physical wealth
only, but moral pride, intellectual pride, everything that says "I" as
against "you," and does not realise that I and you are one--all this
is against the spiritual life. Hardest of all lessons when brought
down to practical life; most difficult of all attainments when effort
is made to realise it, and not only to talk about it and imagine it.
It is best practised by continual renunciation of the individual
possessions on every plane, and the constant thought of unity. When
you are trying to live the life of the Spirit, you will try to be
pure. You do well, but why? In order that you may be pure, and leave
your impure brethren in their impurity? Oh no! You must try to be
pure, in order that there may be more purity in the world to share
amongst all men, because you are pure. You are not wanting to be purer
than others, but only gathering purity that you may spread it in every
direction, and most joyous when your own purity lifts someone from the
mire, who is trampled into it under the feet of the world. You want to
be wise. You do well; for wisdom is a splendid possession. But why? In
order that you may look down on the ignorant and say: "I am wiser than
thou," as the pure man might say: "I am holier than thou"? Oh no! but
in order that the wisdom that you gather may enlighten the ignorant,
and become theirs and not only yours. Otherwise it is no spiritual
thing; for spirituality does not know "myself" and "others"; it only
knows the One Self, of whom all forms are manifestations.

We dare not call ourselves spiritual until we have reached that point
which none of us as yet has reached, for to reach it means to become a
Christ. When, looking at the lowest and basest and most ignorant and
vilest, we can say: "That is myself, in such-and-such a garb," and say
it feeling it, rejoicing in it--because if there are two of you, and
one is pure and the other impure, and the two are