Attainment

Character

Dreams

Ego

Elements

Guidance

Healing

Heart

Immortality

Initiation

Mastery

Meditation

Physical Body

Planes

Power

Prayers

Purpose

Relationships

Religions

School

Speaking

Stages

Sufism

World

When a mystic sees something before his eyes in space, does he see it in the three-dimensional space or in a space of more dimensions? This space of three dimensions is reflected by the space which is in the inner dimension. This inner dimension is different; it does not belong to the objective world; but what exists in the inner dimension is also reflected in the three dimensional space. So in reality what the mystic sees in space is something which is within; when a mystic closes his eyes he sees it within; but when he opens his eyes he sees it before him. That which he sees within himself is reflected in the outer space. When everyone else depends upon his two hands for making or preparing things, the mystic sees time preparing them; and therefore time and space are the hands and the feet of the mystic. Through space he climbs, and through time he accomplishes.

But the word "within" has a quite different meaning from that which we attach to it in everyday language. When we speak of the mind being within it means a different dimension; it does not mean in the head or in the breast. It means within each atom of the body, and within every nerve and every blood-cell. And at the same time that it means within, it means behind or beneath or under or nearest to the soul, nearest to our being. That is the meaning of within. The mind is both within and without the body; and so in the same way the soul is both within the mind and without the mind.

Then there is the most important subject of the expansion of consciousness. There are two directions or dimensions in which to expand. The one is the outward, the other the inner dimension. One dimension is pictured as a horizontal, the other as a perpendicular line. These two dimensions together form a cross, the symbol of the Christian religion. But before the Christian religion it existed in Egypt and Tibet; and in the ancient Buddhist and Tibetan symbolical pictures you will also find the symbol of the cross.

• The way of expanding within is to close the eyes and mind from the outer world, and, instead of reaching out, to try to reach within. The action of the soul is to reach out and upwards and straight forward or sideways or backwards or in an ellipse. It is like the sun; its light reaches out in all directions, it sends currents out. So the soul sends currents out through the five senses. But when the five senses are controlled, when the breath is thrown within, the ears do not hear any more and the mouth does not speak. Then the five senses are directed within. And when once the senses are dosed by the help of meditation, then the soul, which has been accustomed to reach outward, begins to reach within; and in the same way that one gets experience and power from the outer world, one gets experience and power from the inner world. And so the soul can reach further and further and further within until it has reached its original source, and that is the Spirit of God. That is one way, the way of reaching within.

• Then there is the way of reaching without; that is expanding which comes by changing the outlook. Because we are narrow our outlook is narrow. We think, "I am different, he is different." We are making barriers of our own conceptions. If we lived and communicated with the souls of all people, of all beings, our horizon would naturally expand so much that we would occupy the sphere unseen. It is in this way that spiritual perfection is attained. Spiritual perfection, in other words, is the expansion of consciousness.