As the intellectual condition of man increases, he comes to the idea that no happiness connected with his personality is an achievement, but only a necessity. Personality is only that incipient state from which begins life, and the ultimate limit of life.... Where, then, does life begin, and where does it end, I may be asked? Where ends the night, and where does day commence? Where, on the shore, ends the domain of the sea, and where does the domain of land begin? There is day and there is night; there is land and there is sea; there is life and there is _no_ life. Our life, ever since we became conscious of it, is a pendulum-like motion between two limits. One limit is, an absolute unconcern for the life of the infinite Universe an energy directed only toward the gratification of one’s own personality. The other limit is a complete renunciation of that personality, the greatest concern with the life of the infinite Universe, in full accord with it, the transfer of all our desires and good will from one’s self, to that infinite Universe and all the creatures outside of us.[51] The nearer to the first limit, the less life and bliss, the closer to the second, the more life and bliss. Therefore, man is ever moving from one end to the other; _i.e._ he lives. THIS MOTION IS LIFE ITSELF. And when I speak of life, know that the idea of it is indissolubly connected in my conceptions with that of _conscious_ life. No other life is known to me except conscious life, nor can it be known to anyone else. We call life, the life of animals, organic life. But this is no life at all, only a certain state or condition of life manifesting to us. But what is this consciousness or mind, the exigencies of which exclude personality and transfer the energy of man outside of him and into that state which is conceived by us as the blissful state of love? What is conscious mind? Whatsoever we may be defining, we have to define it with our conscious mind. Therefore, with what shall we define mind?... If we have to define all with our mind, it follows that conscious mind cannot be defined. Yet all of us, we not only know it, but it is the only thing which is given to us to know undeniably.... It is the same law as the law of life, of everything organic, animal or vegetable, with that one difference that we _see_ the consummation of an intelligent law in the life of a plant. But the law of conscious mind, to which we are subjected as the tree, is subjected to its law, we _see_ it not, but fulfil it.... ----- Footnote 51: This is what the Theosophists call “living _the_ life”—in a nut-shell.—H. P. B. -----