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309

November 7, 1915. 3 a.m.

Without any external sign, any special circumstance, the moments passed by so majestically, in so solemn an inner silence, a calm so deep and vast, that my tears began to flow profusely. For the last two days the earth seems to have been going through a decisive crisis; it seems that the great formidable contest between material resistances and spiritual powers is nearing its conclusion, or, in any case, that some element of capital importance has made or is going to make its appearance in the play.

How little do individual beings count at such times! They are like wisps of straw carried away by the passing breeze, whirling for a moment above the ground, only to be flung back upon it again and reduced to dust. And individual beings who thus feel so insecure, so stripped of importance, suffer and groan in painful agony. For them the waiting itself is a perpetual menace, everything speaks of danger and destruction.…

But what grandeur, what sovereign beauty lie in the depth of this outer anguish all formed of narrow egoism; what splendour dwells within this waiting, grown sacred through deep contemplation, when the walls of personal blindness have fallen and the individual consciousness has taken its flight into immensity to unite with Thy eternal consciousness.

This sorrowful world kneels before Thee, O Lord, in mute supplication; Matter, tortured, takes shelter at Thy feet, its last and only refuge; and imploring Thee thus, 310it adores Thee, Thee whom it neither knows nor understands! Its prayer rises like the cry of one in a last agony; what is disappearing feels vaguely the possibility of living once again in Thee; the earth awaits Thy decree in a grandiose prostration. Listen, listen: its voice implores and supplicates to Thee.… What will be Thy decree, what is Thy sentence? O Lord of Truth, this individual world blesses Thy truth which it does not yet know, but which it calls, and to which it adheres with all the joyful energy of its living forces.

Death has passed, vast and solemn, and all was hushed in a religious silence while it was passing by.

A superhuman beauty has appeared upon earth.

Something more marvellous than the most marvellous bliss has brought a foretaste of its Presence.