704 ROSICRUCIANCOSMO-CONCEPTION
that if a cannon were fired above our heads we would not
hear it. People may become solost in a book that they are
oblivious to all else, and the aspirant to spiritual sight must
acquire the faculty of becoming equally absorbed in the idea
he is concentrating upon, so that he may shut out the world
of sense from his consciousness and give his whole attention
to the spiritual world. When he learns to do that, he will see
the spiritual side of an ob ject or idea illu minated b y spirit ual
light, and thus he will obtain a knowledge of the inner nature
of things undreamt of by a worldly man.
When he has reached that point of abstraction the sense
centers of the desire body commence to revolve slowly
within the dense body, and will thus make a place for
themselves. This in time will become more and more
defined, and it will require less and less effort to set them
going.
The subject of concentration may be any high and lofty
ideal, but should preferably be of such a nature that it takes
the aspirant out of the ordinary things of sense, beyond time
and space; and there is no better formula than the first five
verses of St. John's gospel. Taking them as a subject,
sentence by sentence, morning after morning, will in time
give the aspirant a wonderful insight into the beginning of
our universe and the method of creation—an insight far
beyond any book learning.
After a time, when the aspirant has learned to
unwaveringly hold before him for about five minutes the
idea upon which he is concentrating, he may try to suddenly
drop the idea and leave a blank. Think of nothing else,
simply wait to see if anything enters the vacuum. In time the
sights and scenes of the desire world will fill the vacant
space. After the aspirant has become used to that, he may