Prayer

If we thus measure our pasts against the present, we shall come to the conviction that there is something within us that is far richer, far more significant than what we have made of ourselves by our will, consciousness and individual forces. If there were not something stretching beyond what we have made of ourselves, we should be unable to reproach ourselves or even to know ourselves. There must, then, be something within us greater than all that we have employed to form ourselves from the past. If we allow such a judgment to be transformed into a feeling, we shall be able to observe what is known and visible to us in our past deeds and experiences. This will lie as clearly before us as memory can make it. Then we shall be able to compare this clear vision with our souls, and we shall see there something bigger seeking to work itself out, urging us to set ourselves face to face with ourselves and to judge ourselves from the standpoint of the present. In short, we shall feel something projecting beyond ourselves when we observe the stream flowing into the soul from the past. This sense of something greater is the first glimmer of the inner feeling of God within us, a feeling that there is something within us that is greater than our own will. So we are enabled to see something leading beyond our limited egos to a divine spiritual ego. Such is the impression of an observation of the past that has been transformed into feeling and perception.