Two very important things are being accomplished by such meditation. First, we are getting control of the mind and learning to direct it where and how we choose; and, second, we are attracting and building into the bodies we possess certain grades of imponderable matter that will make thinking and acting along these lines easier and easier for us until they are established habits and we actually become in daily life patient, courageous and compassionate. Whatever qualities or virtues we desire to possess may be gained through the art of meditation and the effort to live up to the ideal dwelt upon daily by the mind. While it is absolutely true that any human being can make of himself that which he desires to be--can literally raise himself to any ideal he is capable of conceiving--it must not be supposed that it can be done in a short time and by intermittent effort. We sometimes hear it said that all we need do is to realize that all power is within us, when, presto! we are the thing we would be! It is quite true that we must realize their existence before we can call the latent powers into expression; but the work of arousing the latent into the active is a process of growth, of actual evolutionary change. The physical body as it is now is not sensitive enough to respond to subtle vibrations. Its brain is not capable of receiving and registering the delicate vibrations sent outward by the ego, and the task of changing it so that it can do so is not a trifling or easy one. But every effort produces its effect and to the persistent and patient devotee of self-development the final result is certain. But it is not a matter of miraculous accomplishment. It is a process of inner growth. There are, it is quite true, cases in which people who have entered upon this method of self-development have, in a short time, attained spiritual illumination, becoming fully conscious of the invisible world and its inhabitants while awake in the physical body; extending the horizon of consciousness to include both worlds, and coming into possession of the higher clairvoyance that enables one to trace past causes and modify impending effects. But such people are those who have given so much attention to self-development in past lives that they have now but little more to do in order to come into full possession of occult powers. Sometimes it requires little more than the turning of their attention to the matter. Becoming a member of the Theosophical Society or seriously taking up theosophical studies is sometimes the final step that leads to the opening of the inner sight.