God remembers Man when Man forgets the world.

   Which is but a briefer way of saying that when Self has been ascended into, all that is not Self falls behind. For the inspirational life is the natural life, and our souls suffocate in any other.

   Men who call themselves "sensible"--how strange, since they possess least sensibility--may doubt or deny Inspiration. But still their souls suffocate--you can see it in their eyes.

   While many a man who disputes any premise of the "supernatural," himself works under inspiration. At rare intervals Love does manage to shine through the thick black shutter of Logic--perhaps a flower, a strain of music, a baby's voice, or a woman's kiss has found a way past the lattice.

   By inspiration I do not mean irrationality.

   Most people make the two identical. Therefore do they dread the vaguest hint of seizure by the Subliminal. They dread because they do not understand. Which is tautology in the extreme; since the one object of human dread is that gruesome shroud of Ignorance.

   By inspiration I may mean irresponsibility.

   People deplore this also--from equal lack of understanding. But as this appears harmless to them, the voices of God that come to its possessor they graciously stifle under the mantle of charity, while whispering that open-sesame to pity--"He's irresponsible." There are compensations however--your friends leave you severely alone. They would call it "severely"--you call it mercifully. When people can't pin to you, they can't stick you.

   Inspiration is supposed to accompany religious frenzy, hence conduce to insanity. Religious frenzy however is the inability to use Inspiration rather than the capacity to receive it. It's the whirring of the engine when a cog has slipped, and the power spends itself in vain.

   Half-hearted or hypocritical lovers make public protestations of affection; real lovers let silence speak for them--silence and service.

   So here. God does not authenticate monomaniacs.

   And yet; I have had a howling dervish, with his outlandish dance, give me more genuine soul-thrills than a polished theologian ever felt all his life. Inspiration goes when Education comes. I mean of course orthodox education--anything "orthodox" being mostly spurious.

   I affirm without hesitation that the naked savage in his ignorant state lives a more inspired life than the average churchmember.

   Inspiration is commonly confused with occultism or creedism. A psychic thinks herself inspired because she is gifted with powers not yet explained by science. She errs wofully. The truly inspired soul never calls itself "clairvoyant" or "clairaudient." The possession of such faculties puts one in touch, not with the Infinite, but only with higher entities on the mortal plane. To be extremely psychic is to be extremely uninspired and uninspiring. It takes more than telepathy to hold commune with God.

   Neither is Inspiration confined to creed. It is often limited by creed--as in most of the cases the Bible records. You believe, for instance, in a personal Deity; you'll get no universal truth. Even Infinite Light cannot penetrate a stone wall. Its area is enclosed by the bounds of your soul-window, its splendor can but mark the clearness of your mind-glass.

   This fact is generally forgotten by those who have outgrown churches. Freed perhaps from the prison walls and windows of race-belief, they have blindly plunged into the gloomier maze of their own mentality. Where there is no belief at all. Better to catch an occasional gleam through a window thick with grime than to grope forlorn in outer darkness.

   Inspiration is usually saturated with superstition. Artists, poets, prophets, priests have claimed to be inspired by special dispensation. And when common mortals presumed to question such a superhuman being, he has promptly and eloquently invoked the wrath of the Almighty to protect the chosen one from assaults of the unclean. On the one hand, this travesty.

   On the other, equal excess of modesty. Many an everyday human, that works with the hands for the daily bread, is daily inspired. The world probably calls such a one "emotional, childish, simple-minded." Because, as I have already said, the world does not understand.

   Inspiration, moreover, seldom works itself out through the same soul that received it. This because of the soul's lack of symmetry, splendid body and superb brain being required to give inspiration no less than receptive spirit to get it. Most of the world's seers have been physically inert. Their besetting sin has been to contemplate their souls. Not a common sin, to be sure; but a poignant one wherever found. Whoever indulges it can be but partially inspired.

   Since I have attained the Cosmic Consciousness I have often been tempted to retire finally from human activity. There is so little on earth to hold me it seems a waste of time to stay.

   Then I make straight for Lower Broadway. And it doesn't take long for the man's ambition to rise, supplementing the god's aspiration, thus leaving me an all-round human.

   Not the presence of Poesy makes a bard unbalanced--but the absence of Philosophy. Don't blame Poesy--blame Philosophy that it hasn't got around yet.

   In this connection, let me tell you something. Put your ear very close--it's a secret between me and you. "To a real poet, the average business man or society woman looks even more unbalanced than a mystic looks to dowager or financier." Moreover, I've sort of a dim idea that God would agree with the mystic. Not every mystic, understand. Some of them have malaria, and don't know the difference.

   Let us dwell a moment longer on this point of asymmetry.

   To be conscious of soul is to be unconscious of both body and brain. Which controverts the claims of both Physical Culturist and Advanced Psychologist.

   But to remain unconscious of brain and body, one must first have been conscious in every atom of both--fully, actively, regnantly conscious.

   Spirit moves most when form moves least. But form must commence to move immediately Spirit ceases. And unless form has already learned how--the behest of Spirit fails of accomplishment.

   This is too abstruse--let's see if an illustration won't make it clearer. Take the flash of lightning that momentarily relieves a midnight storm. If it comes often enough, you can find your way home by it. How? First wait for the light--then follow as far as you can see. But to be guided aright, you must move while the flash is yet upon you. How far would it help you if you hadn't learned to walk? Or if you stopped because the path looked steep and slippery?

   Inspiration is most often nullified right here.

   The soul that has the beautiful vision lacks the courage or capability to carry it out. The soul that hasn't it therefore doubts its existence. Some more practical mortal shall materialize the ideal of the visionary--since no ideal is ever lost. But by that time it has ceased to be direct inspiration. So the world cannot trace it. Only the dreamer knows a dream's dynamics.

   In short, expression must succeed impression, power must re-enforce perception, activity must lend poise and assurance to sensitivity. Not otherwise can the illumined soul be true to its vision. Not otherwise can the unillumined soul be led to seek the Light.

   With this very brief and incomplete preface, let us now consider the Conquest Fast.

   I cannot guarantee that the Fast will conduct you to the Fount of Inspiration--Omniscience has a way of avoiding specified routes and choosing Its Own. Inspiration passes down as many avenues as individuals pass up. For a survey of the various means of access to the Subliminal, I suggest very earnestly a study of the Vedanta Philosophy. It lacks heart; it hampers itself with nomenclature; it fails to develop the individual. Nonetheless, Vedanta is the broadest and best system of scientific faith yet formulated; for such as are still subject to system.

   I am entirely convinced however that an indeterminate Fast is the one and only sure medium for utter absorption in the Universal. You must not only stop eating--you must absolutely forget food. Forget everything and everybody else of course; I emphasize food because we are in deepest bondage to it. The thing most dear is the thing most dangerous.

   You may have a thing until you must. Then you mustn't.

   But there is always recompense. The gods let many a man remain poor that they themselves may sustain him. This is the psychology of that proverbially pitiful "crust in a garret." If geniuses always knew why, when and how to forego their cake, Providence would never restrict them to a crust. But geniuses are peculiarly fond of cake--for some of them it has to be extra sugared and spiced. Then nurse Nature prescribes bread and water. Good for the genius, perhaps good for posterity. Hard though, very hard on the genius's near neighbors.

   The spiritual and the sensuous are so subtly interblended that few souls can distinguish earth-appeal from heaven-appeal. Fewer still can respond to one without renouncing the other. The finest lesson of life is to adjust the balance between soul and sense. In general this maxim is effective; to make soul less elusive, make body less obtrusive. If anything can reduce both brain and body to their proper place, it is assuredly the Conquest Fast. Not self-control, self-denial, self-subordination; rather self-equation, self-expression, self-exaltation.

   In reading this book, some folks will say I have drawn largely on my imagination to picture what the Conquest Fast will do, I want to nail that fallacy right here.

   And I have the spikes to do it with.

   Among many services the Fast rendered me, let me mention three of the most vital.

   1. It marked a complete change in my prose style.

   Three years ago I was mournful in my writings. I was pessimistic. I was didactic. I was rhetorical. I was attenuated--in phraseology as in physiognomy. It took me a dozen sallies in verbosity before I'd beat about the bush long enough to reach the point. Then it wasn't the one I wanted. And Heaven knows nobody else wanted it.

   Shortly after the Fast, I noticed that punctuation points began to get less scarce. Now and then, too, a smile would creep in. Very shyly at first, a little uncertain about feeling at home. Lately the smiles have grown so bold they actually flirt with me. More wonderful still, I pat them on the cheek, tell them how pretty they look, and not to hurry away. Really smiles aren't dangerous when you know how to treat them. They resemble women in that respect.

   2. The Fast developed my poetic gifts.

   Prior to the summer when I fasted, I had never written a single poem. The nearest to it being that concatenation of frightful utterances termed "college yell."

   In the ten months immediately following the Fast, over two hundred poems were transcribed. Twenty-seven came in a single week, eight in a single day. This unparalleled volume of verse I attribute directly to the Thirty-Day Fast.

   Don't conclude that Fasting will make everybody a poet. At least let us hope not--so long as barbers and magazine editors have to make a living.

   But whatever your special talents may be, these should be revealed through the Fast. It may be remarked in passing that if you do happen to be a poet, then a successful experience in Fasting may prove other than ornamental. It's so much easier to do without things when you want to than when you have to.

   3. The Fast disclosed my life-work.

   The one lesson that stuck to me while in college was that I should likely go to the poor-house: when I got out.

   This lesson isn't in the curriculum, being reserved for the . first year in the world's post-graduate school. But I was precocious and got mine as a Freshman. It lodged to stay too--not even a fraternity initiation could blot it out altogether. If I wished to dishearten the most incorrigible optimist, I should propose this test:--"Let us hope for the day when colleges teach a man to be of some use, to the world or himself."

   The only thing unique about a successful man is that he has . found his place. Most misfits are made so by their education or surroundings--if left to themselves they would gravitate to their work. Here again brain conflicts with soul. And soul is left wounded and weeping for a lifetime. Regret is mostly inspiration denied till its opportunity passed; if only we could realize this on the eve of denial instead of the day after.

   But to come to the point;--is it possible I am still addicted to circumlocution?

   The Conquest Fast revealed to me; first, my oneness with Omnipotence; second, my work in the world; third, my best and quickest means of identifying the two. Ever since the Fast, the goal has grown clearer, and the avenues to it broader. At no single time have there been less than six possibilities awaiting me; any one of which would have led ultimately to the object of desire. Compare this with the average man's anxiety in "getting a job," his trepidation in holding it, his despair at losing it. I own any "job" I want anywhere. But I don't want it--unless through it I may serve the ends of Truth. Then it comes to me--I need never beg for it.

   To be inspired is to know myself and be myself. Any soul thus inspired commands whatever situation it chooses. Since all the world is waiting for it.

   To-day, as I write this chapter, I am beginning another Fast. I may eat again next week--perhaps not till the week after--certainly not while the cry of my soul for Truth can still the call of my body for food.

   My brain is clouded, my body irritated; these conditions usually marking the first days of a Fast.

   But my heart is light, my soul radiantly happy. Already angels' voices woo me from a distance. Symphonies no ear can sense, visions no eye can bear, eternities of glory no mortal can attain; a rapturous blending with the Spirit Source of worlds and stars and solar systems; is not this worth more than a morsel of food on the tip of the tongue?