Thoughts and Aphorisms 9, 10. with commentaries by The Mother

9– What the soul sees and has experienced, that it knows; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion.

This amountstosayingthatallknowledgewhichisnottheresult of the soul’s vision or experience is without true value. But the question immediately arises—it was, in fact, put to me—“Howdoweknowwhatthe soul sees?” Obviously there is only one solution: to become conscious of one’s soul. Andthis completestheaphorism:unlessoneiscon scious of one’s soul one does not havetrueknowledge. Therefore the first effort must be to find the soul within, to unite with it and allow it to govern one’s life.

10– Mysoulknowsthat it is immortal. But you take a dead body to pieces and cry triumphantly, “Where is your soul and where is your immortality?”

It has often been repeated—but except in certain cases very rarely understood —that only like knows like. If this were un derstood, a great deal of ignorance would vanish. Only the soul can know the soul, and on each level of be ing, only the equivalent level can recognise the other. Only the Divine can know the Divine, and because we carry the Divine in ourselves we are capable of seeing Him and recognising Him. But if we try to understand something of the inner life by using our senses and external methods, the result is sure to be total failure and we shall also deceive ourselves totally.