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When we get to what might appear to be the smallest unit or atom of physical matter, we are not at the end of our search, for, to our utter bewilderment at that point, the atom breaks up and reveals within itself a kind of finer matter, known to the occultists as the matter of the Astral 'world.' By continuing the process of breaking up in the Astral world,' we get to its unit of matter or atom, only to find that there is another 'world' of indescribable beauty within it. In this manner, we pass through what are described as the 'Mental,' the Buddhic,' the 'Nirvanic,' the 'Paranirvanic' and the 'Mahaparanirvanic' planes, each of which consists in a finer quality of matter than the one preceding it. Life, however, manifests itself on all these planes, which are described as interpenetrating one another. No particular kind of matter could these mystic investigators discover as the source of consciousness, and even to-day no one has been able to point out the particular kind of atoms from which reason and memory could be distilled or choice and volition extracted. Such is the problem of Life; however far we might push our enquiry into the origin of consciousness, the mystery only deepens, and we are brought face to face with the enigma of being, with all its tantalizing charm of elusiveness and insolubility. But we should not forget the one important point about it, namely, that the problem arises just because we choose to create it by refusing to accept Life or Spirit as a self-subsisting Reality. The charm of elusiveness, thus, belongs to the human intellect which creates a maze in the first instance, and then manages to lose itself in its imaginary turns and bends; and just
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