his lofty
object. To recognize

"That of our vices we can frame
A ladder if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame,"

is to enter the way that leads unmistakably toward the Divine, and the
failings of one who thus recognizes are so many dead selves, upon which he
rises, as upon stepping-stones, to higher things.

Once come to regard your failings, your sorrows and sufferings as so many
voices telling you plainly where you are weak and faulty, where you fall
below the true and the divine, you will then begin to ceaselessly watch
yourself, and every slip, every pang of pain will show you where you are to
set to work, and what you have to remove out of your heart in order to
bring it nearer to the likeness of the Divine, nearer to the Perfect Love.
And as you proceed, day by day detaching yourself more and more from the
inward selfishness the Love that is selfless will gradually become revealed
to you. And when you are growing patient and calm, when your petulances,
tempers, and irritabilities are passing away from you, and the more
powerful lusts and prejudices cease to dominate and enslave you, then you
will know that the divine is awakening within you, that you are drawing
near to the eternal Heart, that you are not far from that selfless Love,
the possession of which is peace and immortality.

Divine Love is distinguished from human loves in this supremely important
particular, _it is free from partiality_. Human loves cling to a particular
object to the exclusion of all else, and when that object is removed, great
and deep is the resultant suffering to the one who loves. Divine Love
embraces the whole universe, and, without clinging to any part, yet
contains within itself the whole, and he who comes to it by gradually
purifying and broadening his human loves until all the selfish and impure
elements are burnt out of them, ceases from suffering. It is because human
loves are narrow and confined and mingled with selfishness that they cause
suffering. No suffering can result from that Love which is so absolutely
pure that it seeks nothing for itself. Nevertheless, human loves are
absolutely necessary as steps toward the Divine, and no soul is prepared to
partake of Divine Love until it has become capable of the deepest and most
intense human love. It is only by passing through human loves and human
sufferings that Divine Love is reached and realized.

All human loves are perishable like