Endeavour to realise what this Spirit must be in itself--that is to say, apart from any of the conditions that arise from the various relations which necessarily establish themselves between its various forms of individualisation. In its homogeneous self what else can it be but pure life--Essence-of-Life, if you like so to call it? Then realise that as Essence-of-Life it exists in the innermost of _every one_ of its forms of manifestation in as perfect simplicity as any we can attribute to it in our most abstract conceptions. In this light we see it to be the eternally self-generating power which, to express itself, flows into form. This universal Essence-of-Life is a continual becoming (into form), and since we are a part of Nature we do not need to go further than ourselves to find the life-giving energy at work with all its powers. Hence all we have to do is to allow it to rise to the surface. We do not have to _make_ it rise any more than the engineer who sinks the bore-pipe for an artesian well has to make the water rise in it; the water does that by its own energy, springing as a fountain a hundred feet into the air. Just so we shall find a fountain of Essence-of-Life ready to spring up in ourselves, inexhaustible and continually increasing in its flow, as One taught long ago to a woman at a wayside well. This up-springing of Life-Essence is not another's--it is our own. It does not require deep studies, hard labours, weary journeyings to attain it; it is not the monopoly of this teacher or that writer, whose lectures we must attend or whose books we must read to get it. It is the innermost of _ourselves_, and a little common-sense thought as to how anything comes to be anything will soon convince us that the great inexhaustible life must be the very root and substance of us, permeating every fibre of our being. Surely to be this vast infinitude of living power must be enough to satisfy all our desires, and yet this wonderful ideal is nothing else but what we already are _in principio_--it is all there in ourselves now, only awaiting our recognition for its manifestation. It is not the Essence-of-Life which has to grow, for that is eternally perfect in itself; but it is our recognition of it that has to grow, and this growth cannot be forced. It must come by a natural process, the first necessity of which is to abstain from all straining after being something which at the present time we cannot naturally be. The Law of our Evolution has put us in possession of certain powers and opportunities, and our further development depends on our doing just what these powers and opportunities make it possible for us to do, here and now.