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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE
only memory lived out, and you can either live out your memory or have it before you in the form of images, not both. But whenever the mind action vacillates between two or more alternatives, the knowledge which would have been acted out, becomes solidified into representations, there and then, by the mere circumstance of reflection. Memory thus is set free to display its content by the relaxation of the tension of activity, and arises by the turning of the current on itself, whereby the reflected part becomes illuminated, and stands out, as it were, against a background of the unilluminated portion of the current of life's inclinations and tendencies. The more the attention is disengaged from action, the greater would be the reflection, and richer the memory. Hence thinking and acting lie in opposite directions, and inhibit each other. In other words, relaxation of tension spreads out the contents of the current of activity into memories, and the performance of action liquefies recollections into actuating tendencies. The exigencies of the physical life, however, seldom allow man to disengage his attention so completely from the present as to enable him to spread out his whole past before him; hence it is almost impossible for him who is deeply engrossed in the world, to attain to that degree of relaxation which would bring him perfect knowledge. But, whenever and wherever a master has turned his back completely on the world and become merged in Self contemplation, memory has never been known to withhold any secrets from him. The statement in the Scriptures that all the knowledge of one's past lives is stored up in the soul is thus literally
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