universe, that that Self, creating for itself bodies, will be
able to know every material thing in the universe, just as you know
the things of the physical plane through the physical body. For it is
all on the same lines: that which enables you to know is not only
body--that is the medium between you and the physical world--but the
Knower in you is that which enables you to know, the power of
perception which is of consciousness, and not of body. When
consciousness vanishes, all the organs of consciousness are there, as
perfect as ever, but the Knower has left them, and knowledge
disappears with him; and so, whether it be in a swoon, in a fainting
fit, in sleep, or in death, the perfect instrument of the physical
body becomes useless when the hand of the master workman drops it. The
body is only his tool, whereby he contacts the things in a universe
which is not himself; and the moment he leaves it, it is a mere heap
of matter, doomed to decay, to destruction. But just as he has that
body for knowledge here, so he has other bodies for knowledge
otherwhere, and in every world he can know, he who is the Knower, and
every world is made up of objects of knowledge, which he can perceive,
examine, and understand.

And the world into which you shall pass when you go through the portal
of death, that is around you at every moment of your life here, and
you only do not know it because your instrument of knowledge there is
not yet perfected, and ready there to your hand; and the heavenly
world into which you will pass out of the intermediate world next to
this, that is around you now, and you only do not know it because your
instrument of knowledge there has not yet been fashioned. And so with
worlds yet higher, knowledge of them is possible, because the Knower
is yourself and is God, and you can create your instruments of
knowledge according to your wisdom and your will.

Hence Theosophy includes the whole of this vast scheme or field of
knowledge; and the whole of it is yours, yours to possess at your
will. Hence Theosophy should be to you a proclamation of your own
Divinity, with everything that flows therefrom; and all the knowledge
that may be gathered, all the investigations that may be made, they
are all part of this great scheme. And the reason why all the
religions of the world teach the same, when you come to disentangle
the essence of their teaching from the shape in which they put it, the
reason that they all teac