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The Third Lesson: The Expansion of the Self.519
The Third Lesson: The Expansion of the Self.
In the first two lessons of this course we have endeavored to bring to
the candidate a realization in consciousness of the reality of the “I,” and
to enable him to distinguish between the Self and its sheaths, physical and
mental. In the present lesson we will call his attention to the relationship of
the “I” to the Universal “I,” and will endeavor to give him an idea of a greater,
grander Self, transcending personality and the little self that we are so apt
to regard as the “I.”
The keynote of this lesson will be “The Oneness of All,” and all of its
teachings will be directed to awakening a realization in consciousness of
that great truth. But we wish to impress upon the mind of the Candidate
that we are not teaching him that he is the Absolute. We are not teaching
the “I Am God” belief, which we consider to be erroneous and misleading,
and a perversion of the original Yogi teachings. This false teaching has
taken possession of many of the Hindu teachers and people, and with its
accompanying teaching of “Maya” or the complete illusion or non-existence
of the Universe, has reduced millions of people to a passive, negative
mental condition which undoubtedly is retarding their progress. Not only
in India is this true, but the same facts may be observed among the pupils
of the Western teachers who have embraced this negative side of the