263. The talents for sensing of living beings would not in themselves be able to exist or find nourishment if there did not exist a reality to which their faculty of sensing could be directed. Such a reality we find presenting itself for us in all its entirety in the form of what we call the "universe". Every single thing we are able to apprehend and sense could not exist without constituting a locality in this universe. Therefore, within it lies all the knowledge we have gained and all the knowledge we will have gained in the future. And however much knowledge a living being can possess or can be in touch with at the moment will thus be dependent on which basic energy is dominating the faculty of sensing just then and conditioning the present step, for a living being can be conscious only in that part of the universe where the energy in question is able to penetrate. The living beings on the upper steps will be equipped with a much more extensive knowledge than those on the lower steps because their talents for sensing are dominated by the basic energies which have the greatest power of penetration, while the opposite is the case for those on the lowest steps. It is this circumstance which underlies the fact that higher developed beings can penetrate the consciousness of those less developed, while the latter cannot penetrate the consciousness of those more developed.