I had wondered what Nicholas was doing behind the closed door of his study so early in the morning. Now I knew he was not just reading scripture and praying. He was following a discipline which focused him and made it possible for him to realize his full potential. He was lining up his center with the integrating principle at work in the universe, the principle which was ultimately stronger than the drive to fragment. He was tapping into the powers of light which would allow him to live dynamically, surfing the chaos, splitting the darkness, serving the Creator by serving others again and again and again.
To stop is to go towards, to come closer to oneself, to awaken from the sleep of life. Only by stopping can one begin to see. The moment we stop, we begin to see the miraculous, the unknown, the uncharted.
In order to wish to be present, I must see that I am asleep. "I" am not here. I am enclosed in a circle of petty interests and avidity in which my "I" is lost. And it will remain lost unless I can relate to something higher.
I need to understand that by myself, without a relation with something higher, I am nothing.
I can escape only if I feel my absolute nothingness and begin to feel the need for help. I must feel the need to relate myself to something higher, to open to another quality.
I believe I need to pay attention, when in fact I need to see and know my inattention.
As I am, I cannot keep from being lost in life. This is because I do not believe that I become lost and do not see that I like being taken. I do not know what it means "to be taken."
The first effort is to awake, in order to see ourselves as we are in our sleep. We believe that to awake is to enter into an entirely different life, which will have nothing in common with the one we lead. But, in fact, awaking means, above all, to awake to ourselves as we are, to see and feel our sleep.
