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they aim at are very different: for one it is a higher realisation upon earth, for the other
an escape from all earthly manifestation, even from the whole universe, a return to the
unmanifest.

So one can say that the psychic life is immortal life, endless time, limitless space, ever-
progressive change, unbroken continuity in the universe of forms. The spiritual
consciousness, on the other hand, means to live the infinite and the eternal, to be projected
beyond all creation, beyond time and space. To become conscious of your psychic being
and to live a psychic life you must abolish all egoism; but to live a spiritual life you must

Here also, in spiritual education, the
goal you set before you will assume, in
the mind’s formulation of it, different
names according to the environment
in which you have been brought up,
the path you have followed and the
affinities of your temperament. Those
who have a religious tendency will call
it God and their spiritual effort will be
towards identification with the transcendent God beyond all forms, as opposed to the
immanent God dwelling in each form. Others will call it the Absolute, the Supreme Origin,
others Nirvana; yet others, who view the world as an unreal illusion, will name it the Only
Reality and to those who regard all manifestation as falsehood it will be the Sole Truth.
And every one of these expressions contains an element of truth, but all are incomplete,
expressing only one aspect of that which is. Here too, however, the mental formulation
has no great importance and once you have passed through the intermediate stages, the
experience is identical. In any case, the most effective starting-point, the swiftest method
is total self-giving. Besides, no joy is more perfect than the joy of a total self-giving to
whatever is the summit of your conception: for some it is the notion of God, for others
that of Perfection. If this self-giving is made with persistence and ardour, a moment comes
when you pass beyond the concept and arrive at an experience that escapes all description,
but which is almost always identical in its effects. And as your self-giving becomes more
and more perfect and integral, it will be accompanied by the aspiration for identification,
a total fusion with That to which you have given yourself, and little by little this aspiration
will overcome all differences and all resistances, especially if with the aspiration there is an
intense and spontaneous love, for then nothing can stand in the way of its victorious drive.

There is an essential difference between this identification and the identification with the
psychic being. The latter can be made more and more lasting and, in certain cases, it becomes
permanent and never leaves the person who has realised it, whatever his outer activities may
be. In other words, the identification is no longer realised only in meditation and concentration,
but its effects are felt at every moment of one’s life, in sleep as well as in waking.

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