chs of earth.

A later revelation or dispensation has given what the Illumined One said
was a "new commandment," and it is one more in accord with our ideals of
godhood.

"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye _love_ one another."

But love, like everything which _is_, means much or little, according as
the soul is advanced in knowledge, or is undeveloped.

Perfect and complete love is not selfish; it desires not possession, but
union. There is a world of difference between the two words.

"The soul enchained is man, and free from chain is God," said Sri
Ramakrishna.

And the soul is enchained by illusion--by mistaking the effect for the
cause, and by regarding the effect as the real, instead of realizing the
incompleteness; the limitedness; the unsatisfying character of the
changing--the external.

Not that the pursuit of the external is sinful, but it is unsatisfying,
while the soul that has caught a glimpse of that wonderful ecstasy of
Illumination, has found that which satisfies.

Upon this point of attainment of complete satisfaction, and certainty, all
who have experienced the consciousness we are considering seem to agree,
according to the testimony here submitted.

CHAPTER V

INSTANCES OF ILLUMINATION AND ITS EFFECTS

The term Illumination seems a fitting description of the state of
consciousness which is frequently alluded to as cosmic consciousness.
Without the light of understanding, which is a spiritual quality, words
themselves are meaningless. When the mind becomes Illumined the spirit of
the word is clear and where before the meaning was clouded, or perhaps
altogether obscured, there comes to the Illumined One a depth of
comprehension undreamed of by the merely sense-conscious person.

If we consider the recorded instances of Illumination found among
Occidentals, we will find that such extreme intensity of effort as that
which is reported of Sri Ramakrishna, and other Oriental sages, does not
appear.

It would seem that the late Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke of Toronto, Canada,
was the first in this country to present a specific classification of what
he termed the "new" consciousness, and to describe in some detail, he
experience of himself and others, notably Walt Whitman.

Dr. Bucke's first public exposition of these experiences was made at a
congress of the British Medical Association in Montreal, Canada, in
September of the year 1897. Dr. Bucke described this state of
consc