In this lesson we are not attempting to build up your idea of the Unity of Life by a series of arguments taken from a world of phenomena in which separateness and non-Unity is apparent.  No such arguments would suffice, for it would be like trying to prove the existence and laws of color to a man born blind, by arguments taken from his world of darkness.  On the contrary we are appealing to that region of the mind in which is stored the capacity for intuitively apprehending truth.  We are endeavoring to speak in tones which will awaken a similar vibration in that part of your mentality, and if these vibrations be started into being, then will you be able to feel and know the truth, and then will your Intellect eagerly seize upon the new idea that it finds within itself, and will proceed to apply the same to the various problems that have been bothering you in the past.

This consciousness of Unity must come from the higher regions of the mind, for the Intellect alone knows it not,—­it is out of its field.  Just as one may not know that the earth is round by means of his senses which report quite the contrary, but may and does know this truth by abstract reasoning and higher intellectual effort; so may one know the truth that All Life is indeed One, at the last, and underlying, by the higher faculties of the mind, although his senses and ordinary intellectual processes fail to so inform him.  The senses cannot inform man that the earth is round, because they cannot see it as a whole, but only in part—­while the higher reasoning faculties are able to visualize the earth as a whole, and know it must be round.  And the Intellect, in its ordinary field can see only separateness, and cannot report Oneness, but the Higher Mind sees Life as a Whole, and knows it to be One.  And it is the Higher Mind that we are trying to bring into the field of consciousness in the appeal to you in this lesson.  We trust that we may be successful—­in fact we know that we shall be so, in many cases, for we know that the field is ready for the sowing of the seed—­and that the call has been heard, and the message passed on to us to answer the call—­else these words would not have been written.

The consciousness of the Unity of Life is something that must be experienced before the truth may be realized.  It is not necessary for one to wait until he acquire full Cosmic Consciousness before he may realize, at least partially, the Oneness of All Life, for he may unfold gradually into the Cosmic Knowing, experiencing at each stage a fuller conception of the underlying Unity of Life, in which he is a centre of consciousness and manifestation.  But there must be at least a partial unfoldment before one is able to feel the sense of Unity.  To those who have not unfolded sufficiently to gain at least a glimmering of the truth, everything appears separate from every other thing, and there is no Unity of All.  It is as if every leaf on a mighty tree were to consider itself