Before we can hear the Divine Voice we must shut out all other voices, so that we may be able to listen, to discern its faintest whisper. The most precious messages are those which are whispered.
A negative may be really positive. It depends on the extent of that which the negative excludes. If I say of hydrogen that it is not oxygen, nothing is gained. If I say it is not a fluid nor a solid, more is gained. So in the determinations of Spirit, God, etc., although we use negatives, the results may be of value.
True mental training is a discipline compelling us to dwell on that which is presented to us, to discover what unites it to other objects and what differentiates it from them. To the untrained mind creation is a blur. The moral effect on a child of teaching it to express distinction by significant words is great.
‘Ought’ is a singular instance of the confusion wrought by words and of their inefficiency. There is no single ‘ought’ and therefore no science of the obligation it implies. ‘Ought’ in the phrase ‘you ought to speak the truth’ refers to an instinct in us to report veraciously what we see. ‘Ought’ of self-sacrifice refers to love, and ‘ought’ of sobriety to the subordination of desires, to a difference in their authority of which we can give no account, excepting that we are creatures fashioned in a certain way.
In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we are inaccurate, say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people.
What cardboard puppets are the creations of fiction compared with a common man or woman intimately known!
How much of what I say is an echo; how little is myself! Sometimes it seems as if my real self were nothing and that what stands for it were a mere miscellany of odds and ends picked up here and there. What a Self is the Jesus of the Gospels!
A cousin of mine had an evening class of poor girls. She was trying to explain to them the words ‘liquid’ and ‘solid.’
‘You walked over the bridge; it was a hard road.’
‘Yes, teacher.’