Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/151

 *ing clearly that he had not been in a condition to mark succession of events.

The inmost principle of consciousness which identifies me of to-day with what I was thirty years ago, does not, of itself, notice time, except as it is connected with this outward part of me. It counts time by changes; but when you come into itself and separate it from those changes, it does not know time at all. Between my infancy and the present time it has been a constant now. It is the presence of the infinite and eternal in man, and the means by which he is connected with the infinite and eternal. It is by the presence of this infinite and eternal consciousness that man knows that he possesses a finite and changeable nature. It is a lamp within, which shines out and reveals to him his finite consciousness, and the changes transpiring there. So man has two selfhoods, an inward, and an outward which is changing from day to day.

When I speak of you as an individual being who differs from me, I speak of your outward, changing selfhood. But when I speak of you in your inmost consciousness, I speak of you in your inmost selfhood, in which you do not differ from me.

It is by this inmost consciousness that I know that I am. It reveals myself to myself by just the same law by which you are revealed to yourself. There are two methods of addressing the outward selfhood—from without, and from the infinite within. Where the individual consciousness is addressed from within, the communication is made to the affections, whence it flows into the understanding. When it is addressed