DEMOCRACY IS SELF-GOVERNMENT

Harold W. Percival

PART II

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

You do not know yourself, nor does any other one know you. Yet, in a strange throng, a wilderness, or on a mountain top where no living creature is, you need not feel alone. Your own Thinker and Knower are present; they are your very Self; you cannot be separated from them; even though as their Doer you are enmeshed in a fleshly body, where you are hidden from yourself and are confused by the senses.

Your Knower is the Knower of all knowledge through the worlds; your Thinker is the Thinker of that knowledge in its relation to you and to all others in the world; you are the Doer of your Thinker and Knower. You and your Thinker and Knower are not three separate ones, but three parts of an indivisible and immortal Triune Self. The duty of the Knower is to know for—and to know as—the Triune Self. Your Knower and Thinker know and think as the Triune Self, in The Eternal. You also are in The Eternal, but you are not conscious as the Doer of the Triune Self and what you do is not done as or for the Triune Self because you are wrapped up in a body which is subject to time, and you are controlled by the senses, which are the measurers and makers of the illusions of time. You can know and think because you are part of the Knower and Thinker, who do know and think as the Triune Self. But you are not conscious of The Eternal, nor of your Thinker and Knower nor of your relation to the Triune Self. This is due to the fact that you are harnessed into the senses, and by the senses are driven to live, and to think of time and of the objects of the senses, as measured by the senses. You have been trained to think in terms of the senses and have identified yourself as of the senses and have made yourself dependent on the senses for knowledge and even guidance.

You have felt dependent, and lonely, and alone; and you have yearned for some one on whom you could depend, and in whom you could trust. You cannot depend on any object or thing of the senses; they will change. You cannot trust the senses; they will deceive you. You can trust only that which is the Thinker and Knower of your Triune Self. You, the Doer, are not sensation; you are the incorporeal feeling-and-desire hidden in the nerves and blood of the body in which you live; and, as feeling-and-desire, you, the Doer, operate and run the bodily machine under the guidance of sight and hearing and are attracted or repelled by taste and smell. The more you think of the senses or of the objects of sense, the less you will be conscious of your Thinker and Knower as the Triune Self in The Eternal. You cannot be conscious of The Eternal while you are conscious of time.

But, though you are eclipsed in the body and obscured by the senses, you are conscious, and you can think. Therefore, you may think of your Thinker as your guardian and judge who will protect you from all harm, in so far as you have allowed yourself to be protected. You can tell your guardian and judge the secrets of your heart, of your ambitions and aspirations, of your hopes and fears. You can open your heart freely; you need not try to hide anything; you cannot hide anything. Everything you have thought or done is known, because your judge is part of your unknown Triune Self who knows your every thought and act. You may deceive your feeling-and-desire, as your senses deceive you, but you cannot deceive your guardian and judge, because the senses have no power over him. You cannot deceive your judge any more than you can believe that you are not conscious. He knows you now. You may communicate with him when you will. You can quietly say to yourself, or think: “My Judge and my Knower! Give me thy Light, and the Light of thy Knower! Let me be always conscious of thee, that I may do all my duty and be consciously one with thee.” Call on him especially in time of trouble, and when in danger. He will protect you and guide you. He will not forsake you. If you really trust him you need have no fear.