THOUGHT INHIBITION

undersideof consdous life, which is, indeed, always in relation to the above-side of consdousness, has choicer gifts of wisdom and insight and power to give us if only it can get the chance. It gets this chance when we do so inhibit our usual thought-processes that the surface-waters of the mind are at peace and still; as the globes of crystal light ascend from the depths of tiie quietened well-spring, or as the mountains and the sky are mirrored on the stiUed surface of a pool. Carpenter says very beautifully in A VisU to a Gnani :

When the noise of the workshop is over, and mallet and plane laid aside, the faint sounds corne through the open window from the valley and the far sea-sbore. So the dim fringe of diviner knowledge begins to grow as soon as the etemal click-clack of thought is over — the extraordinary intuitions, perceptions^ which though partaking in some degree of the character of thought, spring from ultimately difierent conditions, and are the forerunners of a changed consdousness.^

It is obvions that so long as the only rest we know is the relief which cornes by altemation of différent kinds of effort, this '* etemal click-clack of thought" goes on just the same. So far as the " click-clack " is concemed, the Stock Exchange is no better and no worse than the théâtre ; the desk in the office is no better and no worse than the bridge-table in the smokingroom ; the newspaper with its latest tape priées

^ A Visit io a Gnani, p. 38.

THE ETEBKAL CUCE-CLACK

better and no irarse tfaan the ephemeral mOA ve pkk iq> for a comf orta^le hour after duiu. The " <ficfc-dack '* does not cease. Otber «mds bloir on the surface waters, but thèse are confosed and «fistnrbed ail the same. Hofidays came as a idef from the long stretch of vQik-tmie, and change of air, scène, and acqnamtance îs a good thing so for as it goes ; bct the <ficfc-cla£k does not cease. There is a vhole univetse cl £ff crence between the altematkn of cîraimieTence changes and the finding of the re5l<XBtRL

AciLMing Uie pyianodal aHicq>tiQn of indi- Tîdaal posooafity, the suggestion is that our life reqLjies a blBow season wbea ail activity shall and the lîfe shall idthdraw and sink down k the roots of being, lave itself in invisible ^ awiniJHefe ^th the nniversal life — the

Fatber-fife sînce ve ail came forth from it, and the Mother-fiie abo since witliin the sacred ark ol its iramb we wete from the first nourished and need ever to be retnniing thither that we may be leborn. Tfais ingathering of the énergies ol life» recallÎQg them from ail surface activities, «Doirii^ thon to be withdrawn into that spiritual matrix wfaich is the foundation-life of every finis thing» is the true law of Rest

This AD-Life wherefrom we are continually drawing Ses deep beneath lîke virgin soil, and eatMs bom above like a fertile atmosphère. We loot in it, not as the plants root in the soil, but

THE TDŒ OF INGATHERING 271

as the mountains root in the mountain-ridges or the monntain-masses, or as thèse themselves root in the earth-crust. Herefrom arise the strength of our émotions, the energy of our passions, the impulse and fiame of life. Because we are fed from it, we are able to blossom and bear fruit. And our true rest is a withdrawai of ail centrif ugal énergies, and submerging them in the océan of this life. As we cease to struggle for ourselves, we may f eel it upbearing us ; as we lie passive and open within it, we may f eel it sufiusing us ; and the moments wherein we relax our hold of every world-thing— every plan, purpose, ambition, effort, labour — provide it with opportunity to cleanse, heal, irevivify, recreate our every part. This is the availing Rest. It has been said that " God helps those who hdp themselves " ; it is at least equally true that the profoundest help of ail comes when we cease helping ourselves.

It is not pretended that the attainment of this Rest, the fixing of the life at this rest-centre, the acquiring of steadf astness in self-poise so that one might stand " balanced bef ore a miUion imi verses '* and thereby be master of them and possess them, is an easy thing. It is not. It may be achieved through a practice which is ail the more difficult for Western people since our gênerai habit of life runs counter to the process of withdrawai. Détails of such practice as is foimd among Hindu adepts may be studied in a chapter from Carpenter's From Adam's Peak to Elephanta,