Book 4 (Part I)

Io habit of fixity of attention having become independent of the will, and thus enabled to act freely of its own accord. This is the same phenomenon referred to above as being a good sign. Finally something happens Whose nature may form the subject of a further discussion later on. For the moment let it suffice to say that this consciousness of the Ego and the non-Ego, the seer and the thing seen, the knovver and the thing known, is blotted out. There is usually an intense light, an intense sound, and a feeling of such overwhelming bliss that the resources of language have been ex- hausted again and again in the attempt to describe it. It is an absolute knock-out blow to the mind. It is so vivid and tremendous that those Who experience it are in the gravest danger of losing all sense of proportion. By its light all other events of life are as darkness. Owing to this, people have utterly failed to analyse it or to estimate it. They are accurate enough in saying that, compared with this, all human life is absolutely dross; but they go further, and go wrong. They argue that “since this is that which transcends the terrestrial, it must be celestial.” One of the tendencies in their minds has been the hope of a heaven such as their parents and teachers have described, or such as