I would like to you try this experiment during this coming week. Sit silent and relaxed where it is quiet and peaceful, for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, either in the morning, or evening, or both. Lose all thought of the world around you and turn your thoughts inward. Gradually you will begin to feel a consciousness within you that is like the quickening of life which a mother feels in the period of pregnancy. There will seem to be an inner self, an inner intelligence, an inner con­sciousness that impresses you with its superior qualities, particularly with its divine intelligence. Soon you will sense that it has better ideals than your outer self, a better standard of justice and fair play and, most impor­tant of all, a better comprehension of universal laws and principles.

You will find that if you talk to this inner self, ignoring your outer self and reasoning as though you did not have it, and say, “Is this thing or that thing the fairest thing to do, or the best thing to do, or the wisest thing to do?”  This inner self will give an answer to your questions.  Of course, when you first make these experiments and ask these questions you are going to have great trouble in keeping your objective mind and its vain opinion of it­self from interfering by trying to tell you one of two things: either that the answer you get from within is all wrong and unreasonable, or that the answer you get from within is the same answer the outer self would have given.

We do not mean to say that in every case the answer you get from within will be the very opposite from that which you would have received from your outer self, or entirely different from your own analytical conclusion.  It is not likely that in every case the thinking of your outer self would be entirely wrong and different from what the inner self would say.  The outer self is correct in just enough cases to make you have faith in it.  If it were always wrong you would learn in a year or two to have no confidence in your thinking and analyzing, but it is right often enough to make you think, on the law of averages, that you can depend upon the outer self.

Nevertheless, whenever you find that the inner voice is saying clearly and definitely one thing and the outer consciousness another, then it is far safer to depend upon the inner voice than to depend upon the outer one.  The only way in which the inner voice can appear to lead you wrongly, or lead you astray, is through your misunderstanding of what the inner voice is trying to say, or through your putting of the question to it in the wrong way and, therefore, getting a wrong answer.  But you will soon learn that there is a very definite revelation or impression of intelligence and a communication of advice that will come to you from within, regarding any problem or question, if you will be patient and listen carefully, or interpret your impressions carefully, then follow them to the very spirit and letter of the impression that you receive from within.

Therefore, in sitting down in such concentration, relax and turn your thoughts inward and keep this up in a relaxed condition for fifteen, twenty, or thirty minutes until you feel yourself inside yourself and in touch with a great, world-wide consciousness.  This indwelling of the self is one of the most beautiful of all mystical practices.  It requires so much advice and help to work it out in all of its branches of manifestation that I am only going to give you this present explanation and let you experience the different impressions and sensations that will come from this practice.

Each time you try this exercise you will become more fascinated with it.  You will know when you are doing it correctly if you find at the end of your concentration period that you have heard or noticed nothing around you of an objective nature, that you lost all sense of the room and place in which you were sitting, and seemed to be in another world entirely.  Thirty minutes of such indwelling is one of the best Cosmic contacts and one of the best Cosmic tonics for the body and mind that you can have. The old mystics said that it brought the adept closer to God and the miracles of the universe than any other practice.

When you perform this exercise, you must realize that it is important to keep out of your mind any earthly per­son or earthly place.  When we are in a state of meditation or concentration, it is so easy to recall persons, places, sights, and scenes of an earthly nature.  Many things that occur during each twenty-four hours will try to rush into our consciousness when we sit in concentration; and these incoming impressions from the objective mind try to build up pictures and ideas.  We must keep these out if we are to be successful in this exercise of turning our thoughts inward instead of outward.  The moment we allow the objective mind to fill the concentration period with impressions, we are very apt to make contacts with other persons who may be thinking of us, or with persons of whom we have thought during the day, or with our personal problems, troubles or plans.  Such concentration upon these things will not help in the exercise we are attempting.

The methods for concentrating to reach other per­sons and places are given in other lessons in connec­tion with projection and the transmission of thoughts to persons.  In this case we are trying an entirely different process and it must be absolutely different in your mind.  It is as though your subjective consciousness were in the center between two circles. Refer to the illustration below.  You will observe there are three circles drawn one within the other: first, a small circle; second, a larger circle; and third, a larger one around that one. Now the middle circle would be your subjec­tive consciousness; the outer circle would be your ob­jective consciousness; and the small inner circle would be the divine or Cosmic Consciousness.  You can cause your subjective consciousness to extend itself inward toward the small and thereby attune itself with the divine con­sciousness, or your subjective consciousness can extend it­self outward toward the outer circle and thereby attune itself with the objective consciousness of the world.  By extending your consciousness inwardly you are reaching what the mystics called the microcosm, or the spiritual replica of the Cosmic universe that dwells within you.

Now let us see what experiences you will have with this experiment.