SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT: Page 35

product of nature. He is a developing creature. He has to master all these sheaths and realise the spirit within- Himself. It is a long and serious task. Those that take it up consciously, undertake the most trying task of life. Yet we are all going that way. Here are three words:- Instinct, Reason, Intuition. These are the three phases of mind, from the lowest up to the highest. They develop into each other. Instinct dovetails into Reason, and Reason into Intuition. Let us consider them categorically. The instinct is a subconscious intelligence. There is a self-preserving principle of the mind. The animal world illustrates this. One animal fights another, kills another, to maintain its life. The duckling rushes to the water as its natural element; the newly-fledged bird wants to be on the wing; the child seeks the mother's breast as its source of nourishment; our feet run away with us in moments of peril in spite of ourselves;- it is all Instinct. The various work of the body, digestion, assimilation, tissue change, etc., are all carried on along this subconscious line of mentation. Passion is said to be "blind, because it is a part of the Instinct. This lowest phase of the mind is most developed in man. It has no reason, no volition. As man grows, he begins to think, to compare himself with others, to analyse things, to classify, to judge, and so on. This is Reason. It is the Intellect, with the conscious entity, "I" as its monarch. The baby ego,