REAL PERSONALITY OR TRANSCENDENTAL EGO. 



141 



quite clear that tlie description I am attempting must neces- 

 sarily be clothed in Symbolic language and reasoning, and must 

 not be taken as in auy way the key by which the door of "The 

 Sanctuary " may bj opened ; it is only possible by it to help the 

 mind to grasp the fact that there is a window through which 

 such things may be seen, the rest depends upon the personality 

 of the Seer. JSTow bear in mind that it is not we who are 

 looking out upon Nature but that it is tlie Eeality wliich, by 

 means of physical manifestations, is yjersistently striving to 

 enter into our consciousness, to tell us what ? 06O9 dyaiTT] iaTcv. 

 As in Thompson's suggestive poem, "The Hound of Heaven," — 

 The Hidden which desires to be found — the Eeality which is 

 ever hunting us and will never leave us till He has taught us 

 to know and therefore to love Him ; and, as we have seen, the 

 first step is to try to see through the woof of ISTature the 

 Eeality beyond. To this may also be added the attempt to hear 

 the " silence " beyond the audible. Try now to look upon the 

 whole " visible " as a background comprising landscape, sea, 

 and sky, and then bring that background nearer and nearer to 

 your consciousness ; it requires practice but it can be done. It 

 may help you if you remember the fact that the whole of 

 that visible scene is actually depicted on the surface of your 

 retina and has no oilier existence for you ; the nearer you can 

 get the background to approach the clearer you can see that the 

 whole physical world of our senses is but a thin veil, a mere 

 soap film, which at death is pricked and parts asunder, leaving 

 us in the presence of the Eeality underlying all phenomena. 

 The same may be accomplished with the " audible " which is, 

 indeed, part of the same physical film, though this is not at first 

 easy to recognize. As already pointed out, there is little in 

 common between our sense of Sight and Hearing ; but the chirp 

 of birds, the hum of bees, the rustle of wind in the leaves, the 

 ripple of a stream, the distant sound of sheep bells and lowing 

 of cattle, form a background of sound which may be coaxed to 

 approach you; the only knowledge you have of such sounds is 

 their impression or image on the flat tympanum of your ear 

 and they have no other existence for you, and ai^ain you may 

 recognize that the physical is but a thin transient film. With 

 the approach of the Physical film all material sensation becomes, 

 as it were, blurred, as near objects become when the eye looks 

 at the horizon, and gradually escapes from consciousness. 



I have tried in the foregoing to suggest a method by which 

 our window may be unshuttered, it has necessarily been only an 

 oblique view and clothed in Symbolic phraseology, but those who 



