493. We have now advanced so far in "cosmic chemistry", which means in analysing substances or matter, that we have seen all these to be in reality "thought-climates", regardless of the form in which they may appear, whether they appear as solid, fluid, gaseous or spiritual, whether they show themselves as power, movement, light or colour. Everything in the whole world or the Universe existing outside of the highest element of all (called the I) will thus be defined as "matter". And "matter", again, is the same as the senses or sensory reactions. That some things appear "dark" or "light", "solid" or "fluid", "gaseous" or "spiritual", is simply a question of sensory reaction in the same way as some things seem "beautiful" or less "beautiful", "perfect" or less "perfect". That this is precisely so is shown incontestably by the fact that what seems "light" to one set of senses may well seem "dark" to another, just as what seems "solid" or "fluid" to one, may seem "gaseous" or "spiritual" to another. This is the case, for instance, with a diamond. To terrestrial man, according to his present set of senses, a diamond is one of the hardest and most durable substances he can meet with. But according to another set of senses – a "cosmic" one, for instance – a diamond constitutes merely a portion of "heavenly space", with "milky ways" and "solar systems", "planets" and "moons", exactly like the vault of the sky when we look up at the stars. And, moreover, there are relatively the same immeasurable distances between the "stars" or the solid particles in the microcosmic "heavenly space" of the diamond, as there are in the great macrocosmic world of stars known to terrestrial man.
      Besides, the "solid" particles in these microcosmic "heavenly spaces" prove to be only sensory reactions. And also, the versatility of the "cosmic" senses to adjust to different "cosmic" viewpoints makes it possible for their owner to approach these "solid" particles (microcosmic solar systems, planets and worlds) so closely that each in turn reveals itself as a part of "heavenly space" similarly consisting of "milky ways", "star communities", "solar systems", "globes" and "moons" which, through a readjustment of the "cosmic" senses, will again each become an individual "heavenly space" with "star communities", "solar systems", "milky ways" and so on continuously for ever. In truth, there is no limit. Boundless space is just as limitless within the diamond as outside it. And terrestrial man's view of the diamond as "solid" matter has to give way – as the illusion it has been – before the higher "cosmic view", in other words the Father's or the Godhead's own way of experiencing. Within the very diamond itself we proceed, by the strength of "cosmic sight", literally through spiral after spiral, heavenly space after heavenly space, all just as boundlessly, just as magnificently filled with suns and worlds, as the space we know outside the domain of the diamond. With our "divine sight" the diamond has become "gaseous matter" and our own space with its Earth and sun – from that particular vantage point – has become as an "ethereal" far-away macrocosmic sphere, just as remote from that microcosmic viewpoint of ours as the spheres which lie above our own ordinary milky ways and communities of stars.