Centre of Influence—­a Centre of Thought.  And that like the planets circling around the sun, so does your world revolve around YOU who are its centre.  It will not be necessary for you to argue out this matter, or to convince yourself of its truth by intellectual reasoning.  The knowledge does not come in that way.  It comes in the shape of a realization of the truth gradually dawning upon your consciousness through meditation and concentration.  Carry this thought of yourself as a “Centre of Consciousness—­Influence—­Power” with you, for it is an occult truth, and in the proportion that you are able, to realize it so will be your ability to manifest the qualities named.

No matter how humble may be your position—­no matter how hard may be your lot—­no matter how deficient in educational advantages you may be—­still you would not change your “I” with the most fortunate, wisest and highest man or woman in the world.  You may doubt this, but think for a moment and you will see that we are right.  When you say that you “would like to be” this person or that, you really mean that you would like to have their degree of intelligence, power, wealth, position, or what not.  What you want is something that is theirs, or something akin to it.  But you would not for a moment wish to merge your identity with theirs, or to exchange selves.  Think of this for a moment To be the other person you would have to let yourself die, and instead of yourself you would be the other person.  The real you would be wiped out of existence, and you would not be you at all, but would be he.

If you can but grasp this idea you will see that not for a moment would you be willing for such an exchange.  Of course such an exchange is impossible.  The “I” of you cannot be wiped out.  It is eternal, and will go on, and on, and on, to higher and higher states—­but it always will be the same “I.”  Just as you, although a far different sort of person from your childhood self, still you recognize that the same “I” is there, and always has been there.  And although you will attain knowledge, experience, power and wisdom in the coming years, the same “I” will be there.  The “I” is the Divine Spark and cannot be extinguished.

The majority of people in the present stage of the race development have but a faint conception of the reality of the “I.”  They accept the statement of its existence, and are conscious of themselves as an eating, sleeping, living creature—­something like a higher form of animal.  But they have not awakened to an “awareness” or realization of the “I,” which must come to all who become real centres of Influence and Power.  Some men have stumbled into this consciousness, or a degree of it, without understanding the matter.  They have “felt” the truth of it, and they have stepped out from the ranks of the commonplace people of the world, and have become powers for good or bad.  This is unfortunate to some extent, as this “awareness” without the knowledge that should accompany it may bring pain to the individual and others.