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James, William, 1842-1910

"Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature"


"I think that the one thing which impressed me most was learning
the fact that we must be in absolutely constant relation or
mental touch (this word is to me very expressive) with that
essence of life which permeates all and which we call God. This
is almost unrecognizable unless we live it into ourselves
ACTUALLY, that is, by a constant turning to the very innermost,
deepest consciousness of our real selves or of God in us, for
illumination from within, just as we turn to the sun for light,
warmth, and invigoration without. When you do this consciously,
realizing that to turn inward to the light within you is to live
in the presence of God or your divine self, you soon discover the
unreality of the objects to which you have hitherto been turning
and which have engrossed you without.
"I have come to disregard the meaning of this attitude for bodily
health AS SUCH, because that comes of itself, as an incidental
result, and cannot be found by any special mental act or desire
to have it, beyond that general attitude of mind I have referred
to above. That which we usually make the object of life, those
outer things we are all so wildly seeking, which we so often live
and die for, but which then do not give us peace and happiness,
they should all come of themselves as accessory, and as the mere
outcome or natural result of a far higher life sunk deep in the
bosom of the spirit.


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