us that our desires should not be directed so much to the
acquisition of particular THINGS as to the reproduction in
ourselves of particular phases of the Spirit's activity; and
this, being in its very nature creative, is bound to externalize
as corresponding things and circumstances. Then, when these
external facts appear in the circle of our objective life, we
must work upon them from the objective stand-point. This is where
many fall short of completed work. They realize the subjective or
creative process, but do not see that it must be followed by an
objective or constructive process, and consequently they are
unpractical dreamers and never reach the stage of completed work.
The creative process brings the materials and conditions for the
work to our hands; then we must make use of them with diligence
and common-sense--God will provide the food, but He will not cook
the dinner.

This, then, is the part taken by the individual, and it is thus
that he becomes a distributing centre of the Divine energy,
neither on the one hand trying to lead it like a blind force, nor
on the other being himself under a blind unreasoning impulsion
from it. He receives guidance because he seeks guidance; and he
both seeks and receives according to a Law which he is able to
recognize; so that he no more sacrifices his liberty or dwarfs
his powers, than does an engineer who submits to the generic laws
of electricity, in order to apply them to some specific purpose.
The more intimate his knowledge of this Law of Reciprocity
becomes, the more he finds that it leads on to Liberty, on the
same principle by which we find in physical science that nature
obeys us precisely in the same degree to which we first obey
nature. As the esoteric maxim has it "What is a truth on one