ning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored
cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration
somewhere close by in that great city; the next, I knew that the fire
was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of
exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed
by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other
things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe
is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living
Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a
conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I
possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal; that the
cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work
together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of
the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love, and that the
happiness of each and all is in the long run {391} absolutely certain.
The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone; but the memory of it and
the sense of the reality of what it taught has remained during the
quarter of a century which has since elapsed. I knew that what the
vision showed was true. I had attained to a point of view from which I
saw that it must be true. That view, that conviction, I may say that
consciousness, has never, even during periods of the deepest
depression, been lost."[244]

[244] Loc. cit., pp. 7, 8. My quotation follows the privately printed
pamphlet which preceded Dr. Bucke's larger work, and differs verbally a
little from the text of the latter.

We have now seen enough of this cosmic or mystic consciousness, as it
comes sporadically. We must next pass to its methodical cultivation as
an element of the religious life. Hindus, Buddhists, Mohammedans, and
Christians all have cultivated it methodically.

In India, training in mystical insight has been known from time
immemorial under the name of yoga. Yoga means the experimental union
of the individual with the divine. It is based on persevering
exercise; and the diet, posture, breathing, intellectual concentration,
and moral discipline vary slightly in the different systems which teach
it. The yogi, or disciple, who has by these means overcome the
obscurations of his lower nature sufficiently, enters into the
condition termed samadhi, "and comes face to face with facts which no
instinct o