The woman answered, "I am carried away by thoughts that will not hush. Night after night I lie here so bitterly close to old dreams. I realise that they are not worthy, but my brain is full of them."
The Master smiled again. "There is a way to compel the silence of the brain."
"I have not found it," said the woman.
"Learn to be the soul," the Master said. He suggested a way to begin—then was gone.
The rest of that night the woman thought of his words. Deeper and deeper his words sank into her heart. When morning came, a happiness brooded within; she dressed quickly and went out.... Back of her little house rose the golden brown hills. She climbed, and at the top of the nearest, sat down. The peace and purity and fragrance of the sun-steeped hills filled her soul. For a long time she thought in silence, then slipping off her loose white sandals, said: "I begin with the grass. Yes, I begin with my feet.... How wonderful you are—so ready to obey, to give your service at any time! What would happen if you carried me other than my will? Supposing some day I should be walking fast to the house of my beloved, when you suddenly took me the other way!"
She laughed, and added: "You stay with me all my life, and little by little are carrying me up the shining path to the Father's house. And yet—how strange! I am not you.... And my knees, how wonderful and willing—all limber and full of life—helping me in all ways to do all things—bending gently when I bow in holy communion, expressing joy through free, easy movements, mute, yet strong before pain! There is nothing more wonderful in the world than you. Yet—I am not my knees.
"And you, old heart," she added. "You have endured the keenest pain; you have loved and given yourself, have hated and become black only through pain to whiten again—old heart of many rendings—until all life was tragedy, and you almost ceased to beat. Little heart, sanctuary of the soul—room for his rest.... Yet I am not the heart!
"And the white throat in which the lotus unfolds its mystic petals of light—I am not the throat!... And the mind, stream for the soul's fulfilment—listener, runner, interpreter of light—mate of the soul in all things, ever ready, sparkling with the inner fire,—I am not the mind. You can hurt me no longer. I am free!"
The woman sitting alone upon the hilltop, paused again. "What am I?" she almost cried.