rm than that
in which it originated; but wherever it reappears, and in whatever new
form, the vivifying energy is still the same. This is nothing else than
the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy, and it is upon
this well-recognised principle that our perception of ourselves as
integral portions of the great universal power is based.

We do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have
taught that all power is in the "I AM," and to accept this teaching by
faith in their bare authority rather than not accept it at all; but the
more excellent way is to know _why_ they taught thus, and to realise for
ourselves this first great law which all the master-minds have realised
throughout the ages. It is indeed true that the "lost word" is the one
most familiar to us, ever in our hearts and on our lips. We have lost,
not the word, but the realisation of its power. And as the infinite
depths of meaning which the words I AM carry with them open out to us,
we begin to realise the stupendous truth that we are ourselves the very
power which we seek.

It is the polarisation of Spirit from the universal into the particular,
carrying with it all its inherent powers, just as the smallest flame has
all the qualities of fire. The I AM in the individual is none other than
the I AM in the universal. It is the same Power working in the smaller
sphere of which the individual is the centre. This is the great truth
which the ancients set forth under the figure of the Macrocosm and the
Microcosm, the lesser I AM reproducing the precise image of the greater,
and of which the Bible tells us when it speaks of man as the image of
God.

Now the immense practical importance of this principle is that it
affords the key to the great law that "as a man thinks so he is." We are
often asked why this should be, and the answer may be stated as follows:
We know by personal experience that we realise our own livingness in two
ways, by our power to act and our susceptibility to feel; and when we
consider Spirit in the absolute we can only conceive of it as these two
modes of livingness carried to infinity. This, therefore, means infinite
susceptibility. There can be no question as to the degree of
sensitiveness, for Spirit _is_ sensitiveness, and is thus infinitely
plastic to the slightest touch that is brought to bear upon it; and
hence every thought we formulate sends its vibrating currents out into
the infinite of Spirit, prod