37. And thus are we truly saving a man if we bring about that he loves
evil somewhat less than he loved it before; for we are helping that man
to construct, deep down in his soul, the refuge where--against destiny
shall brandish her weapons in vain. This refuge is the monument of
consciousness, or, it may be, of love; for love is nothing but
consciousness, still vaguely in search of itself; and veritable
consciousness nothing but love that at last has emerged from the
shadow. And it is in the deepest recess of this refuge that the soul
shall kindle the wondrous fire of her joy. And this joy of the soul is
like unto no other joy; and even as material fire will chase away
deadly disease from the earth, so will the joy of the soul scatter
sorrow that malevolent destiny brings. It arises not from exterior
happiness; it arises not from satisfied self-love; for the joy that
self-love procures becomes less as the soul becomes nobler, but the joy
of pure love increases as nobility comes to the soul. Nor is this joy
born of pride; for to be able to smile at its beauty is not enough to
bring joy to the soul. The soul that has sought in itself has the right
to know of its beauty; but to brood on this beauty too much, to become
over-conscious thereof, were perhaps to detract somewhat from the
unconsciousness of its love. The joy that I speak of takes not from
love what it adds unto consciousness; for in this joy, and in this joy
alone, do consciousness and love become one, feeding each on the other,
each gaining from that which it gives. The striving intellect may well
know happiness beyond the reach of the satisfied body; but the soul
that grows nobler has joys that are often denied to the striving
intellect. These two will often unite and labour together at building
the house within. But still it will happen at times that both work
apart, and widely different then are the structures each will erect.
And were this to be so, and the being I loved best of all in the world
came and asked me which he should choose--which refuge I held to be
most unattackable, sweetest, profoundest--I would surely advise him to
shelter his destiny in the refuge of the soul that grows nobler.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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