“But we left the house at midnight, and here we are in the broad light of day. Do you mean to tell me that the mind controls the sun itself? The thing is so astounding that I feel as if I were losing my reason.” “And did I not tell you that it was unwise to gratify curiosity in this realm when unprepared by a long course of training? But let me quote you a few words from one of our greatest philosophers”; and Ah Ben quoted the following from Franz Hartman's “Magic, White and Black”: “Visible man is not all there is of man, but is surrounded by an invisible mental atmosphere, comparable to the pulp surrounding the seed in a fruit; but this light, or atmosphere, or pulp, is the mind of man, an organized ocean of spiritual substance, wherein all things exist. If man were conscious of his own greatness, he would know that within himself exist the sun and the moon and the starry sky and every object in space, because his true self is God; and God is without limits.” “These thoughts are utterly beyond me,” said Paul uneasily. “As I told you they would be,” replied Ah Ben, turning his chair and looking at his pupil with a kindly expression; and then, with his usual earnestness, he added: “But they will not be so always.” “And you tell me that these things are actually as real as the furniture in Guir House?” inquired Henley. “Quite!” answered the guide. “Test them for yourself. Do you not see this magnificent dome above our heads, supported upon these wonderful pillars? Try them, touch them, strike them with your hand. Are they not solid? Apply every test in your power to their reality; they will not fail you in one--and, let me ask, what further evidence have you of the furniture of which you speak? Thought is real; and the man who can hold to his thought long enough endows it with objectivity.” “It is a mystery involving mysteries,” sighed Paul; “and I could never even ask the questions that are crowding into my mind.” “So it is with all life,” the old man replied thoughtfully, pressing his hand against his forehead as he gazed into the brilliant scene without seeming to look at anything especial; “and so it is with all life,” he repeated in a minute; “it is a mystery involving mysteries! What are dreams? Give them a little more intensity, as in the case of the somnambule or clairvoyant, and they are real. The trouble is, Mr. Henley, that few of us ever come to realize that life itself is a dream; and when science recognizes that fact, many of the difficulties she now encounters will vanish. Let me repeat a few lines from the Song Celestial, or _Bhagavad Gita_. “Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was time it was not; end and beginning are dreams, Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever; Death has not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems.