Sublime

impartiality (i.e., non-identification with a preferred outcome) and patience—things gradually get better. The purification practices we have been looking at in the past two chapters will help build the stability of those containers, but all roads eventually lead to a mysterious waiting in emptiness, the painful but requisite final step. The heart

The secret of our identity does not lie in the outer form or in how successfully we manipulate the forms of the sensible world. Rather, it lies in how we are able to set them (and ourselves) aflame to reveal the inner quality of their aliveness. The names of God lie coiled within the physical forms of things; our particular and uniquely human task

for wisdom and compassion.

wind up missing the objective demand to act on what I know. It lives in me as a truth on the inner plane only, not in the concrete choices I actually make in the world;

For when the mind is brought to stillness, and all our strategies of acquisition have dropped, a deeper truth presents itself: we are and have always been one with God and we are all one in God (Jn 17:21).

“Oh Lord, we beseech thee . . . direct our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God.”

Mistakes here are more costly.

COMMUNICATE.

sacred companionship.