‘The question of spirit and matter is infinite for, in other forms, spirit and matter are to be found everywhere: as man and woman, positive and negative, emissive and receptive, heaven and earth. Nothing is more important than these two principles, and if we are to avoid attaching undue importance to one of them to the detriment of the other, we have to understand the proper place and role of each.

Human beings always have a tendency to go to extremes: either they consider that only the spirit is important and this leads them to neglect matter, or they are only interested in matter and they neglect the spirit. And this is what is happening today.

Without the Spirit we remain inert and inanimate

People are only concerned with matter and, as they do nothing to imbue it with spirit, it remains inert and inanimate, whereas, if they put some life, some spirit into it, it could be highly expressive. What is it that makes some men and women so extraordinarily attractive and expressive? It is the spirit within them, the spirit that animates their matter.

Even I, such as I am here on earth… I know very little; I see very little; I am nothing at all. But sometimes I realize that, far from my brain, far from my physical body, my spirit – or, if you prefer, the entities that dwell in me – are seeing and feeling things. How often I have felt this!

It is the being inside me that knows what you are thinking

I cannot read people’s minds, I am not clairvoyant, but the being that is always there behind me or inside me knows everything that happens to you or in you: he knows exactly what you are thinking and all about your worries and problems and, sometimes, by chance or just for fun, he whispers a few words in my ear.

Then someone will come to me after a lecture and say, ‘How did you know what was worrying me? What you said in your lecture gave me exactly the answer I needed!’ The truth is that I knew nothing about it, but there is someone within each one of us who sees everything, knows everything and can do everything.

We are here, within the four walls of this room, but our spirits are everywhere; this is why we must give them more and more opportunity to manifest themselves through us.’

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Complete Works Vol. 17, Know Thyself: Jnana Yoga – Part 1