The following diagram is intended to give a rough idea of the changes which occur in man in the course of his development. The first figure indicates the condition of an undeveloped man, in whom the physical nature is dominant and the will is weak, the second that of one very advanced in whom the balance is reversed, other people lie between the two.

The diagram also indicates what I explained before. In early stages of human growth desires are few. The savage accepts the comforts that nature gives, and only occasionally stirs his body into great activity for the satisfaction of desires. He is ruled by the immediate surroundings of his body. But a little later we find that life has become more complex; the desire-nature has considerably awakened, and, seeking to gratify desire more and more, men have multiplied life’s activities to a great extent. It is the man’s desire that is now the strongest thing in him — immediate physical ease must take second place. Desire causes him to select one of the many lines of action that are possible at a given moment. At this stage the mind, so far as it is developed, works only as a servant of desire, planning for its fulfilment in action.

But in the course of development the mind grows until it becomes the higher authority and begins to select among desires. Desires and emotions multiply to such an extent that a conflict arises among them, as they cannot all be satisfied at once. Then each prefers its claim before the intellect, and by thought a man begins to select the desires that are desirable and separate them from the desires that are undesirable, and to say to himself: “I will allow myself to desire this, not that”. Thus the man learns to follow law.

We may carry the argument a step further, and declare that when the processes of the thinking mind are controlled by the ethical nature a man will begin to value life-contacts more than thing-contacts. Next he begins to discover the spiritual will that lies behind, between and above even the ethical life, and to know what it is that he is doing and has to do. This attainment means that the man is conscious that he is something above mind and thought, even while mental activity is going on, just as a cultured man may recognize that he is something above and beyond his body, even while he is walking down the street.

Let us distinguish clearly between modes of knowing and knowledge itself. Language is a mode of knowing. When we have formulated facts in satisfactory words it is our habit to believe that we then know those facts. But words are only a lower vehicle of knowledge, a substitute for facts, like the terms in algebra; at best they only suggest ideas, they cannot replace them and they must be transcended as we approach closer to a real knowledge of the relations between things. All the forms that we see and that we can visualize are only an imperfect mode of knowledge, and they also will be transcended in due course. This does not mean, however, that intuitional knowledge is less definite than what is embodied in words; though it might seem so to one who approaches it by metaphysical argument, it certainly does not appear so to one who reaches it directly by the practice of meditation. It is not difficult to give reasons why the lower mind must sooner or later yield its place of authority in human life to a higher intuition. Here are several:

(I) Carefully analyze the analytical faculty of mind. How do we observe things? By comparison; by noting points of similarity and of difference. But to distinguish one thing perfectly its comparison with all others is required ; and as this is true of all things perfect perception sees them all to whatever it turns, and discrimination of the many things as different thus disappears. Analysis is analyzed away.

(2) Again, in the current of events one thing is what and where and when it is because all things are so; and since this is true of all things, particular causality disappears. We are indeed whirling through space, mentally as well as physically, on a ball which has itself no foundation or support.

(3) The conception of the object of contemplation as something outside of me, which I am observing, is absurd. There is no line where “I” leaves off and “that” begins. The distinction between the subject and the object vanishes when we realise that these are only two ends of one stick, or that the “I” is the unchanging, unmodified witness of all the changes and modifications within itself.

There is another state of existence, or rather another form of life, beyond the mind, with its labored process of discernment of comparisons and causal relations between things. That higher state is only to be realized when the activities of consciousness are carried, in all their earthly fervor and vigor, beyond the groping cave life in which they normally dwell. That higher consciousness will come to all men sooner or later; and when it comes to any one of us all his life will suddenly appear changed. We shall no longer be staggered by the thought of eternal life in an ever-changing universe of time; we shall not now be appalled by the fearful possibility of eternal rest in changelessness; for these are but the conceptions of the little mind, applying its, puny standards to the limitless glory of the life divine.

desire nature, emotions, fulfilment, intellect, meditation, physical nature