tarting-point. Ennoblement comes to man in the degree that his
consciousness quickens, and the nobler the man has become, the
profounder must consciousness be. Admirable exchange takes place here;
and even as love is insatiable in its craving for love, so is
consciousness insatiable in its craving for growth, for moral
uplifting; and moral uplifting for ever is yearning for consciousness.

8. But this knowledge of self is only too often regarded as
implying no more than a knowledge of our defects and our qualities,
whereas it does indeed extend infinitely further, to mysteries vastly
more helpful. To know oneself in repose suffices not, nor does it
suffice to know oneself in the past or the present. Those within whom
lies the force that I speak of know themselves in the future too.
Consciousness of self with the greatest of men implies consciousness up
to a point of their star or their destiny. They are aware of some part
of their future, because they have already become part of this future.
They have faith in themselves, for they know in advance how events will
be received in their soul. The event in itself is pure water that flows
from the pitcher of fate, and seldom has it either savour or perfume or
colour. But even as the soul may be wherein it seeks shelter, so will
the event become joyous or sad, become tender or hateful, become deadly
or quick with life. To those round about us there happen incessant and
countless adventures, whereof every one, it would seem, contains a germ
of heroism; but the adventure passes away, and heroic deed is there
none. But when Jesus Christ met the Samaritan, met a few children, an
adulterous woman, then did humanity rise three times in succession to
the level of God.

9. It might almost be said that there happens to men only that they
desire. It is true that on certain external events our influence is of
the feeblest, but we have all-powerful action on that which these
events shall become in ourselves--in other words, on their spiritual
part, on what is radiant, undying within them. There are thousands of
men within whom this spiritual part, that is craving for birth in every
misfortune, or love, or chance meeting, has known not one moment of
life--these men pass away like a straw on the stream. And others there
are within whom this immortal part absorbs all; these are like islands
that have sprung up in the ocean; for they have found immovable
anchorage, whence they issue commands