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THE TRUTH
67
19—INHIBITION
The working tool of consciousness is the little gleam of light' termed attention. It is unitary and indivisible, and yet seated distributively in all the multifarious and multitudinous impulses of the ego, being but an aspect of the soul itself which is indivisible and present behind every one of its longings and cravings. The most intensely conscious point in the entire organism, it scintillates and sparkles with native intelligence, though not yet freed from the domination of impulsions. It turns wherever the impulses lead it, and is seized by the most predominant of the craving for the time being in possession of the mental field. The other impulses are then rendered quiescent automatically, because of the unitary function of attention, which is only a single point, and not a bundle of points.
But attention also is capable of inhibiting the agitations of any of the impulses deliberately, by refusing to be swayed by it. It may even withdraw itself completely from the outside world, and become interested in studying its own nature, when none of the outwardly turned senses will perform their function. The effect of intense absorption in a particular subject-even in an external subject-is the cessation of sensory activity except in regard to what pertains to the subject itself.
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