"Their repulsions? their attractions? The awful clingings of them and the leapings?... What are these?... Passions of lives burnt out?—furies of insatiable desire?—frenzies of everlasting hate? —madnesses of never ending torment?... You do not know? But you say that there will be no more pain!..."
Then I cried out to the mocker:—"I am awake—awake—fully awake! I have ceased to fear;—I remember!... All that I am is all that I have been. Before the beginnings of Time I was;—beyond the uttermost circling of the Eternities I shall endure. In myriad million forms I but seem to pass: as form I am only Wave; as essence I am Sea. Sea without shore I am;—and Doubt and Fear and Pain are but duskings that fleet on the face of my depth.. .. Asleep, I behold the illusions of Time; but, waking, I know myself timeless: one with the Life that has neither form yet also one begins and the grave and graves,—the the eater of neither form nor name, yet also one with all that begins and ends,—even the grave and the maker of graves,—the corpse and the eater of corpses...."
*
A sparrow twittered from the roof; another responded. Shapes of things began to define in a soft gray glimmering;—and the gloom slowly lightened. Murmurs of the city's wakening came to my ears, and grew and multiplied. And the dimness flushed.
Then rose the beautiful and holy Sun, the mighty Quickener, the mighty Putrefier,—symbol sublime of that infinite Life whose forces are also mine!...
[Kusa-Hibari]
Issun no mushi ni mo gobu no tamashii.—Japanese Proverb.