8. Potential Aberrations in Spiritual Investigation

The function of the optic nerve is not to convey the colour sensation backwards to the brain, but to insulate it at a certain point. The colour exists only at the periphery. The function of the optic nerve is to insulate the colour sensation the nearer it approaches the brain, so that the brain is virtually without colour sensations; only weak, faint colours reach the brain. And not only is colour sensation insulated, but also every kind of relationship to the external world. Hearing and sight are associated with the sense organs. In the proximate area of the brain the optic and auditory nerves and the nerves that register sensation of warmth reduce everything lying at the periphery to a dim impression. This bears the same relationship to the sensation as the 20 grammes to the 1500 grammes, for the 20 grammes give only a faint impression of the weight of the brain. This is all that remains to us. When we take in the magnificent spectacle of the dawn through our senses, the hind-brain registers only a faint shadow, a dim impression of it. We must pay heed to this dim shadow, for it is only there that our Ego can enter.