ed through and through. As we
climbed down hill for our pleasure, so must we climb up again for our
purification and restoration to our former high estate. The process is
painful, perhaps, yet indispensable.

38. Or a pondering on the perceptions gained in dreams and dreamless
sleep.

For the Eastern sages, dreams are, it is true, made up of images of
waking life, reflections of what the eyes have seen and the ears heard.
But dreams are something more, for the images are in a sense real,
objective on their own plane; and the knowledge that there is another
world, even a dream-world, lightens the tyranny of material life. Much
of poetry and art is such a solace from dreamland. But there is more
in dream, for it may image what is above, as well as what is below; not
only the children of men, but also the children by the shore of the
immortal sea that brought us hither, may throw their images on this
magic mirror: so, too, of the secrets of dreamless sleep with its pure
vision, in even greater degree.

39. Or meditative brooding on what is dearest to the heart.

Here is a thought which our own day is beginning to grasp: that love
is a form of knowledge; that we truly know any thing or any person,
by becoming one therewith, in love. Thus love has a wisdom that the
mind cannot claim, and by this hearty love, this becoming one with
what is beyond our personal borders, we may take a long step toward
freedom. Two directions for this may be suggested: the pure love of
the artist for his work, and the earnest, compassionate search into the
hearts of others.

40. Thus he masters all, from the atom to the Infinite.

Newton was asked how he made his discoveries. By intending my
mind on them, he replied. This steady pressure, this becoming one
with what we seek to understand, whether it be atom or soul, is the
one means to know. When we become a thing, we really know it, not
otherwise. Therefore live the life, to know the doctrine; do the will of
the Father, if you would know the Father.

41. When the perturbations of the psychic nature have all been stilled,
then the consciousness, like a pure crystal, takes the colour of what it
rests on, whether that be the perceiver, perceiving, or the thing
perceived.

This is a fuller expression of the last Sutra, and is so lucid that
comment can hardly add to it. Everything is either perceiver,
perceiving, or the thing perceived; or, as we might say, consciousness,
force, or matter.