blank space, but
pulsating with living being, in all of which he knows that the true essence
is nothing but good. This is the very opposite to a selfish
self-centredness; it, is the centre where we find that we both receive from
all and flow out to all. Apart from this principle of circulation there is
no true life, and if we contemplate our central position only as affording
us greater advantages for in-taking, we have missed the whole point of our
studies by missing the real nature of the Life-principle, which is action
and re-action. If we would have life enter into us, we ourselves must enter
into life--enter into the spirit of it, just as we must enter into the
spirit of a book or a game to enjoy it. There can be no action at a centre
only. There must be a perpetual flowing out towards the circumference, and
thence back again to the centre to maintain a vital activity; otherwise
collapse must ensue either from anaemia or congestion. But if we realize
the reciprocal nature of the vital pulsation, and that the outflowing
consists in the habit of mind which gives itself to the good it sees in
others, rather than in any specific actions, then we shall find that the
cultivation of this disposition will provide innumerable avenues for the
universal livingness to flow through us, whether as giving or receiving,
which we had never before suspected: and this action and re-action will so
build up our own vitality that each day will find us more thoroughly alive
than any that had preceded it. This, then, is the attitude of repose in
which we may enjoy all the beauties of science, literature and art or may
peacefully commune with the spirit of nature without the aid of any third
mind to act as its interpreter, which is still a purposeful attitude
although not directed to a specific object: we have not allowed the will to
relax its control, but have merely altered its direction; so that for
action and repose alike we find that our strength lies in our recognition
of the unity of the spirit and of ourselves as individual concentrations of
it.

XIII.

IN TOUCH WITH SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND.

The preceding pages have made the student in some measure aware of the
immense importance of our dealings with the sub-conscious mind. Our
relation to it, whether on the scale of the individual or the universal, is
the key to all that we are or ever can be. In its unrecognized working it
is the spring of all that we can call the automatic