How Do I Find the Christ?

The truth of what I am saying can be felt in detailed occurrences of life and from the consideration of these we can rise to the great experience of powerlessness and of resurrection from it. It would be good, particularly in our own age, if the following were realised. There is undoubtedly in the depths of men's souls a tendency towards truth and, consequently, the urge to speak the truth. But it is just when we are most determined to speak the truth, and then reflect upon how to do it, that we begin to realise the powerlessness of the human body in face of Divine Truth. The moment you practise self-examination in respect of speaking, you will discover a very remarkable fact. The poet felt it when he wrote the words: ‘When the soul speaks, alas, the soul no longer speaks.’ On the way to the point where what we experience in our inmost soul as truth becomes articulate language, truth is already blunted. It is not yet completely killed in spoken language, but it is already blunted. Anyone who understands what language is, knows that proper nouns alone, which relate exclusively to one particular thing, are true designations of that thing. As soon as we use generalised expressions, be they substantives, verbs or adjectives, we are no longer giving utterance to the full truth.