e
Bible is a very deeply symbolical word, and carries an immense amount of
meaning with it. So get this recognition as the real working fact that
each one of you is an Israelite indeed, and if so, then make yourselves
perfectly happy with the everlasting statement, which is as true now as
it was on the day on which it was uttered: "There is no divination or
enchantment against Israel."

1909.

III

THE "I AM"

We often do not sufficiently recognise the truth of Walt Whitman's pithy
saying, "I am not all contained between my hat and my boots," and forget
the two-fold nature of the "I AM," that it is at once both the
manifested and the unmanifested, the universal and the individual. By
losing sight of this truth we surround ourselves with limitations; we
see only part of the self, and then we are surprised that the part fails
to do the work of the whole. Factors crop up on which we had not
reckoned, and we wonder where they come from, and do not understand that
they necessarily arise from that great unity in which we are all
included.

It is the grand intelligence and livingness of Universal Spirit
continually pressing forward to manifestation of itself in a glorious
humanity.

This must be effected by each individual's recognition of his power to
co-operate with the Supreme Principle through an intelligent conception
of its purpose and of the natural laws by which that purpose is
accomplished--a recognition which can proceed only from the realisation
that he himself is none other than the same Universal Principle in
particular manifestation.

When he sees this he sees that Walt Whitman's saying is true, and that
his source of intelligence, power, and purpose is in that Universal
Self, which is his as well as another's just because it is universal,
and which is therefore as completely and entirely identified with
himself as though there were no other expression of it in the world.

The understanding which alone gives value to knowledge is the
understanding that, when we employ the formula "I am, therefore I can,
therefore I will," the "I AM" with which the series starts is a being
who, so to speak, has his head in heaven and his feet upon the earth, a
perfect unity, and with a range of ideas far transcending the little
ideas which are limited by the requirements of a day or an hour. On the
other hand, the requirements of the day and the hour are real while they
last, and since the manifested life can b