Page:Personality (Lectures delivered in America).djvu/115

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THE SECOND BIRTH
97

This paradox has led man to realize further that Nature, into which we are born, is merely an imperfect truth, like the truth of the womb. But the full truth is, that we are born in the lap of the infinite personality. Our true world is not the world of the laws of matter and force, but the world of personality. When we fully realize it, our freedom is fulfilled. Then we understand what the Upanishat says:

"Know all that moves in the moving world as enveloped by God, and enjoy by what he renounces."

We have seen that consciousness of personality begins with the feeling of the separateness from all and has its culmination in the feeling of the unity with all. It is needless to say that with the consciousness of separation there must be consciousness of unity, for it cannot exist solely by itself. But the life in which the consciousness of separation takes the first place and of unity the second place, and therefore where the personality is narrow and dim in the light of truth,—this is the life of self. But the life in which the consciousness of unity is the primary and separateness the secondary factor, and therefore the personality is large and bright in truth,—this is the life of soul. The whole object of