THEY CLAMOUR and fight, they doubt and despair, they know no end to their wranglings. Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence. They are cruel in their greed and their envy, their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood. Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child, and let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the forgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day. Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the meaning of all things; let them love you and thus love each other. Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child. At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower, and at sunset bend your head and in silence complete the worship of the day.
THE BEGGAR IN me lifted his lean hands to the starless sky and cried into night's ear with his hungry voice. His prayers were to the blind Darkness who lay like a fallen god in a desolate heaven of lost hopes. The cry of desire eddied round a chasm of despair, a wailing bird circling its empty nest. But when morning dropped anchor at the rim of the East, the beggar m me leapt and cried: 'Blessed am I that the deaf night denied me-that its coffer was empty.' He cried, 'O Life, O Light, you are precious! and precious is the joy that at last has known you!'
