The light came through the window
Straight from the sun above
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of love
In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the nameless makes
A name for one like me
I'll try to say a little more
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door
Then love itself
Love itself was gone
All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance
I'll try to say a little more
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door
Then love itself
Love itself was gone
Then I came back from where I'd been
My room, it looked the same
But there was nothing left between
The nameless and the name
All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance
I'll try to say a little more
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door
Then love itself
Love itself was gone
Love itself
Love itself was gone
-----------------------
Men's curiosity searches past and future and clings to that dimension.
But to apprehend the point of intersection of the timeless with time is an occupation for the saint
No occupation either, but something given and taken, in a lifetime's death in love, ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended moment the moment in and out of time the distraction fit lost in a shaft of sunlight the wild thyme unseen
Or the winter lightning or the waterfall,
or music heard so deeply
that it is not heard at all,
but you are the music
while the music lasts.
These are only hints and guesses, hints followed by guesses
and the rest is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood is incarnation
Here the impossible union of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future are conquered, and reconciled.
from The Dry Salvages (No. 3 of 'Four Quartets'), T S Eliot
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