reveries which for many days had
preceded that conviction, because through them I learnt something of
the inner weakness of my nature. But the true secret of it all is that
we ought to live as far as we can in the day, the hour, the minute; to
waste no time in anxious forecasting and miserable regrets, but just do
what lies before us as faithfully as possible. Gradually, too, one
learns that the restricting of what is called religion to certain times
of prayer and definite solemnities is the most pitiful of all mistakes;
life lived with the intuition that I have indicated is all religion.
The most trivial incident has to be interpreted; every word and deed
and thought becomes full of a deep significance. One has no longer any
anxious sense of duty; one desires no longer either to impress or
influence; one aims only at guarding the quality of all one does or
says--or rather the very word "aims" is a wrong one; there is no longer
any aim or effort, except the effort to feel which way the gentle
guiding hand would have us to go; the only sorrow that is possible is
when we rather perversely follow our own will and pleasure.

The reason why I desire this book to say its few words to my brothers
and sisters of this life, without any intrusion of personality, is that
I am so sure of the truth of what I say, that I would not have any one
distracted from the principles I have tried to put into words, by being
able to compare it with my own weak practice. I am so far from having
attained; I have, I know, so many weary leagues to traverse yet, that I
would not have my faithless and perverse wanderings known. But the
secret waits for all who can throw aside convention and insincerity,
who can make the sacrifice with a humble heart, and throw themselves
utterly and fearlessly into the hands of God. Societies,
organisations, ceremonies, forms, authority, dogma--they are all
outside; silently and secretly, in the solitude of one's heart, must
the lonely path be found; but the slender track once beneath our feet,
all the complicated relations of the world become clear and simple. We
have no need to change our path in life, to seek for any human guide,
to desire new conditions, because we have the one Guide close to us,
closer than friend or brother or lover, and we know that we are set
where he would have us to be. Such a belief destroys in a flash all
our embarrassment in dealing with others, all our anxieties in dealing
with