Kavanah

Like a child, first gazing into a looking-glass, perplexed at the mimicking twin who dances and gestures - and ‘lives’ - on the other side, we often mistake the reflections of our own spiritual condition for a truthful understanding of an external world around us, misunderstanding the lessons which the masquerade of Solitude brings before us. How often we make masks and costumes for our gods in our own likenesses; how often we paint the hosts of heaven with our own shadow-play, joining star unto star, belief unto belief, in configurations born wholly of our own affinities. Indeed, there are veils upon veils which reveal to us our own arcana, but which - if falsely taken as a final comprehension of the ‘truth’ conceal from us that which we aspire to seek. Wisely we must make our way through the maze of mirrored altars

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.

A good writer should be able to write anything. But a great writer is the servant of compulsions which are ordained by the very structure of the psyche and cannot be disregarded.