Penloe could not say any more, for Stella put her hand over his mouth
and said, laughingly: "You cannot scare me so easily, for it will take
more than only having in my possession one cotton wrapper and wearing
flour-sack underwear, and living in a log cabin with bare walls and
floors, to discourage me. Those things are not of my world; all I hope
is that if I shall have to put on such garments as flour-sack underwear,
it will not offend your artistic eye."
They both had a good laugh, for they feared nothing in this Universe;
least of all that great bugaboo, poverty.
Penloe said: "Well, Stella, to be serious, I have made arrangements for
leaving Orangeville for six months. In about a week's time I will go up
into the mountains and live in a log cabin in the pines. I will be six
miles from any human being, and twenty-five miles from Orangeville. It
is necessary that I should be away for awhile from all psychological
influences and cross-currents, and live in the silence. I realize that I
need it to fit me for my work. It is necessary for my spiritual
unfoldment. Christ went up into the mountains and out on the plains to
be alone, so he might gain spiritual strength. All great spiritual
teachers have times for being alone. As I said, I need to make this
change to fit me for my work, for I want to get my mind freed from all
individuality and relativity, so as to see more clearly the Oneness
throughout the Universe. For, as the Swami Vivekananda has said in his
lecture on 'Maya and the Evolution of the Conception of God': 'He who
sees in this world of manifoldness that One running through it all; in
this world of death, he who finds that one infinite life; and in this
world of insentience and ignorance, he who finds that one light and
knowledge, unto him belongs eternal peace.' It is more of that light and
knowledge that I need, Stella. In short, it is to commune more with the
Father; it is to realize in a greater degree the presence of the Divine
within, and to have my mind freed from the illusion of the phenomenal
world; for by so doing I become qualified to become a healer of disease,
and also fitted to help many a poor sin-sick life. Now, Stella, having
clearly made known my purpose to you; I want to tell you that it is
better for you that I leave this time. It will enlighten you more
spiritually in this way. Most persons would think that it should be the
greatest pleasure to us both to be together now as much as we can, so as
to see and enjoy the society of each other. That thought is all right
for the many, but not for you and me. It is better for us both that we
do not hear from one another for three months, and at the end of that
time I want you to come up and live three months with me in that cabin.
At the end of that time we will come back to the world and be made man
and wife in the eyes of the law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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