some touch of pure unselfish feeling, even if it were but once in all his
life, and that will be a window for him now.

The ordinary man is not capable of any great activity in this mental world;
his condition is chiefly receptive, and his vision of anything outside his
own shell of thought is of the most limited character. He is surrounded by
living forces, mighty angelic inhabitants of this glorious world, and many
of their orders are very sensitive to certain aspirations of man and
readily respond to them. But a man can take advantage of these only in so
far as he has already prepared himself to profit by them, for his thoughts
and aspirations are only along certain lines, and he cannot suddenly form
new lines. There are many directions which the higher thought may
take--some of them personal and some impersonal. Among the latter are art,
music and philosophy; and a man whose interest lay along any one of these
lines finds both measureless enjoyment and unlimited instruction waiting
for him--that is, the amount of enjoyment and instruction is limited only
by his power of perception.

We find a large number of people whose only higher thoughts are those
connected with affection and devotion. If a man loves another deeply or if
he feels strong devotion to a personal deity, he makes a strong mental
image of that friend or of the deity, and the object of his feeling is
often present in his mind. Inevitably he takes that mental image into the
heaven-world with him, because it is to that level of matter that it
naturally belongs.

Take first the case of affection. The love which forms and retains such an
image is a very powerful force--a force which is strong enough to reach and
to act upon the ego of his friend in the higher part of the mental world.
It is that ego that is the real man whom he loves--not the physical body