Is the mind within the body, and is the soul within the mind? As according to science the brain is within the body one could think that the mind too is within the body, but it is not so. It is as much within as without. It is vaster and wider than the physical body. A jug cannot contain the water of a lake, and so the body cannot contain in itself the mind; yet the jug can contain some water from the lake, and the body can contain some of the mind within itself.

But the word "within" has a quite different meaning from that which we attach to it in everyday language. When we speak of the mind being within it means a different dimension; it does not mean in the head or in the breast. It means within each atom of the body, and within every nerve and every blood-cell. And at the same time that it means within, it means behind or beneath or under or nearest to the soul, nearest to our being. That is the meaning of within. The mind is both within and without the body; and so in the same way the soul is both within the mind and without the mind.

One might ask to what extent the jinn world and the angelic world occupy space in our world and pervade it. But what is space? Space is that which accommodates. The mind is a space also, a space which is wider than the world. Our eye is a space too; and as the mind does not mean the brain, so the space in the eyes of our body is not the only space; behind it is another space which is connected with it. And when this idea becomes clear to man, that there is another space, different from this outer space which already accommodates so much, then the vision of the heavens is opened before him.

When a Chinese philosopher was asked what the soul is like, he answered that it is like the pupil of the eye. He meant to say that the soul is an accommodation, like the pupil of the eye, which is so small and yet accommodates so much.

And think of the heart. If there were a thousand universes it would accommodate them all, it is so large.

As the former Nizam of Hyderabad who was a mystic said, "What is the universe and the entire cosmos? If the doors of the heart are open, the heart proves to be larger than the whole cosmos."

What little one can understand of this is shown by the sign of the cross: there is a horizontal space and there is another kind of space which can be pictured as a perpendicular line. It is to explain the latter space that the mystics and seers have used the word "within", and to explain the space of the world, they have used the word "without."