It is a central paradox of desert experience that only that which dies can live again. The fundamental rule of the divine life is this: the one who loses, wins. The carefree playfulness and freedom of the Holy One are mysteries entered only on the farside of darkness and death.
To "look with the eyes of love" seems a vague and sentimental recommendation; yet the whole art of spiritual communion is summed in it, and exact and important results flow from this exercise. The attitude which it involves is an attitude of complete humility and of receptiveness, without criticism, without clever analysis of the thing seen... The doors of perception are cleansed, and everything appears as it is. The disfigurating results of hate, rivalry, prejudice vanish away. Into that silent place to which recollection has brought you — new music, new color, new light are poured from the outward world.