Evelyn

Evelyn Underhill wrote a magnificent 500-page tome in 1914:  Mysticism.  In it she accomplishes what no other writer – to my knowledge – has done: she clears the path to Reality.  Reality for Evelyn is The Divine.  All else is an illusion, so all else, with time and suffering, falls away.  Of Reality we have an early glimpse, and it never leaves.  It is not a glimpse with the eye; it is a glimpse with the soul.  Reality henceforth then beckons us, intermittently reveals itself, hides itself (or we hide our own souls with the detritus of living), and ultimately embraces us.  Reality is the one place of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.  Evelyn carves openings in the bedrock of human life with words, ever leading us on the hidden path so many have trod before us, circling around in a mystic spiral – now closer, now farther – from God until, ultimately, we dance the dance.   Trust that as a human being you have this spark of seeing, yes you do, and you sense this something towards which you are drawn, yes you are.  Don’t worry about it, but be as diligent as you can; trust the stories of those pilgrims who have gone before.  They know of what they speak though they cannot speak of it.