Reality underlying the Whole--it is the consciousness of the Whole,
manifesting through your point or Centre of Consciousness. The advanced
student or Initiate finds his consciousness gradually enlarging until it
realizes its identity with the Whole. He realizes that under all the
forms and names of the visible world, there is to be found One Life--One
Force--One Substance--One Existence--One Reality--ONE. And, instead of
his experiencing any sense of the loss of identity or individuality, he
becomes conscious of an enlargement of an expansion of individuality or
identity--instead of feeling himself absorbed in the Whole, he feels that
he is spreading out and embracing the Whole. This is most hard to express
in words, for there are no words to fit the conception, and all that we
can hope to do is to start into motion, by means of our words, the
vibrations that will find a response in the minds of those who read the
words, to the end that they will experience the consciousness which will
bring its own understanding. This consciousness cannot be transmitted by
words proceeding from the Intellect, but vibrations may be set up that
will prepare the mind to receive the message from its own higher planes.

Even in the early stages of this dawning consciousness, one is enabled to
identify the _real_ part of himself with the _real_ part of all the other
forms of life that pass before his notice. In every other man--in every
animal--in every plant--in every mineral--he sees behind the sheath and
form of appearance, an evidence of the presence of the Spirit which is
akin to his own Spirit--yea, more than akin, for the two are One. He sees
Himself in all forms of life, in all time in all places. He realizes that
the Real Self is everywhere present and everlasting, and that the Life
within himself is also within all the Universe--in everything, for there
is nothing dead in the Universe, and all Life, in all of its varying
phases, is simply the One Life, held, used and enjoyed in common by all.
Each Ego is a Centre of Consciousness in this great ocean of Life, and