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