“The activity of merging ourselves in something else, is what we call ‘thinking’; in thinking, the ego has fulfilled its concept, it has given itself up as a single thing; therefore, in thinking do we find ourselves in a sphere which is alike for all, for the principle of separateness which is involved in the relation of our ‘self’ to that which is other than itself has vanished in the activity of the self-cancelling of the single ‘self,’ and there remains then only the ‘Self-hood’ common to all.” Spinoza has exactly the same thing in view when he describes, as the highest activity of knowing, that which “advances from an adequate conception of the real nature of some of the attributes of God to an adequate knowledge of the nature of things.” This advancing is no other than the illumination of things with the light of inner experience. Spinoza describes in glowing colours the life in this inner experience: “The highest virtue of the soul is to know God, or to obtain insight into things in the third--the highest--mode of knowing. This virtue is the greater, the more the soul knows things by this method of knowing; thus he who can grasp things in this mode of knowing attains the highest human perfection and consequently becomes filled with the highest joy, accompanied, moreover, by the conceptions of himself and of virtue. Thus there arises from this mode of knowing the highest peace of soul that is possible.” He who knows things in this way, transforms himself within himself; for his single separated “self” becomes at such moments absorbed by the universal “Self”; all beings appear not to a single limited individual in subordinated importance, they appear to “themselves.” On this level there remains no difference between Plato and me; what separated us belongs to a lower level of cognition. We are separated only as individuals; the individual which works within us is one and the same. But about this fact it is impossible to argue with one who has no experience of it. He will everlastingly emphasise: Plato and you are two. That this duality, that all multiplicity, is reborn as unity in the outbursting life of the highest level of knowledge: that cannot be proved, that must be experienced. Paradoxical as it may sound, it is the truth: the idea which Plato conceived and the like idea which I conceive are not two ideas. It is one and the same idea. And there are not two ideas: one in Plato’s head and one in mine; but in the higher sense Plato’s head and mine interpenetrate each other; all heads interpenetrate which grasp one and the same idea; and this idea is only once there as a single idea. It is there; and the heads all go to one and the same place in order to have this idea in them.