There is no doubt that in our material aspect we are three-dimensional; because our physical body has height, breadth and thickness; but in our spiritual aspect the matter is open to questions. Two-dimensional beings are shadows, or like images in a looking-glass, which if they were conscious, could have no knowledge of any other plane than the level in which they exist; any other extension of space being imperceptible to them. Thus it seems that animal man, if seen from a spiritual point of view, is such a two-dimensional shadowy being; for he knows nothing but his own personal self and the things that are in relation to it on the same plane of egotism. He imagines himself to be the center around which everything as in a circle moves, and sees the things on his plane only as they are related to him and to each other. He identifies himself with his own personality and where that personality ends, there is the end of his spate and of his existence. He lives so to say on the very base of the pyramid of being, knowing nothing higher than that base and perceiving nothing of the sides of the pyramid nor of its apex; for he knows nothing of himself higher than his personality, the shadow of his unknown Higher Self.

 On the other hand, spiritually enlightened man, having outgrown to a certain extent the bonds of egotism, sees his own personality as his own shadow moving among the other shadows in this world. He has risen up within the pyramid and looks down from its apex upon the shadow play going on at the base, seeing his own shadow acting among the rest. He has not necessarily lost his interest in what is taking place below, neither has he become incapable of seeing what is going on in the world, nor does he think of treating it with contempt. He may be compared to a man standing before an ant hill and observing what the ants are doing. He sees them work, but he himself is not an ant. He is still connected with his own shadow or personality, but not identified with it. He uses his personality as an instrument to act upon the material plane, but does not become absorbed by it, and when his personality dies and returns to the elements out of which it has been formed, he still remains what he was before, an immortal, luminous, self-conscious being, no more bound to a material form, but a soul whose shadow has disappeared like a mist before the rising sun.

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