lease and content your SPIRIT. When it failed of that, the whole of its
value was gone. There are no MATERIAL values; there are only spiritual
ones. You will hunt in vain for a material value that is ACTUAL,
REAL--there is no such thing. The only value it possesses, for even a
moment, is the spiritual value back of it: remove that end and it is at
once worthless--like the hat.

Y.M. Can you extend that to money?

O.M. Yes. It is merely a symbol, it has no MATERIAL value; you think
you desire it for its own sake, but it is not so. You desire it for the
spiritual content it will bring; if it fail of that, you discover that
its value is gone. There is that pathetic tale of the man who labored
like a slave, unresting, unsatisfied, until he had accumulated a
fortune, and was happy over it, jubilant about it; then in a single week
a pestilence swept away all whom he held dear and left him desolate. His
money's value was gone. He realized that his joy in it came not from
the money itself, but from the spiritual contentment he got out of his
family's enjoyment of the pleasures and delights it lavished upon them.
Money has no MATERIAL value; if you remove its spiritual value nothing
is left but dross. It is so with all things, little or big, majestic
or trivial--there are no exceptions. Crowns, scepters, pennies, paste
jewels, village notoriety, world-wide fame--they are all the same, they
have no MATERIAL value: while they content the SPIRIT they are precious,
when this fails they are worthless.

A Difficult Question

Y.M. You keep me confused and perplexed all the time by your elusive
terminology. Sometimes you divide a man up into two or three
separate personalities, each with authorities, jurisdictions, and
responsibilities of its own, and when he is in that condition I can't
grasp it. Now when _I_ speak of a man, he is THE WHOLE THING IN ONE, and
easy to hold and contemplate.

O.M. That is pleasant and convenient, if true. When you speak of "my
body" who is the "my"?

Y.M. It is the "me."

O.M. The body is a property then, and the Me owns it. Who is the Me?

Y.M. The Me is THE WHOLE THING; it is a common property; an undivided
ownership, vested in the whole entity.

O.M. If the Me admires a rainbow, is it the whole Me that admires it,
including the hair, hands, heels, and all?

Y.M. Certainly not. It is my MIND that admires it.

O.M. So YOU divide the Me yourself. Everybody does; everybody must.
What, then