icular
purpose, and thus we find ourselves involved in the paradox of seeking to
make the universal act on the plane of the particular. We want to effect a
junction between the two extremes of the scale of Nature, the innermost
creative spirit and a particular external form. Between these two is a
great gulf, and the question is how is it to be bridged over. It is here,
then, that the conception of our individual subjective mind as our personal
share in the universal subjective mind affords the means of meeting the
difficulty, for on the one hand it is in immediate connection with the
universal mind, and on the other it is immediate connection with the
individual objective, or intellectual mind; and this in its turn is in
immediate connection with the world of externalization, which is
conditioned in time and space; and thus the relation between the subjective
and objective minds in the individual forms the bridge which is needed to
connect the two extremities of the scale.

The individual subjective mind may therefore be regarded as the organ of
the Absolute in precisely the same way that the objective mind is the organ
of the Relative, and it is in order to regulate our use of these two organs
that it is necessary to understand what the terms "absolute" and "relative"
actually mean. The absolute is that idea of a thing which contemplates it
as existing _in itself_ and not in relation to something else, that is to
say, which contemplates the essence of it; and the relative is that idea of
a thing which contemplates it as related to other things, that is to say as
circumscribed by a certain environment. The absolute is the region of
causes, and the relative is the region of conditions; and hence, if we wish
to control conditions, this can only be done by our thought-power operating
on the plane of the absolute, which it can do only through the medium of
the subjective mind. The conscious use of the creative power of thought
consists in the attainment of the power of Thinking in the Absolute, and
this can only be attained by a clear conception of the interaction between
our different mental functions. For this purpose the student cannot too
strongly impress upon himself that subjective mind, on whatever scale, is
intensely sensitive to suggestion, and as creative power works accurately
to the externalization of that suggestion which is most deeply impressed
upon it. If then, we would take any idea out of the realm of the r