I WAS no longer young: in fact I was well over sixty. The winter had
been dark and tedious. For some reason or other I had not been able to
read much, and I began to think there were signs of the coming end.
Suddenly, with hardly any warning, spring burst upon us. Day after day
we had clear, warm sunshine which deepened every contrast of colour, and
at intervals we were blessed with refreshing rains. I spent most of my
time out of doors on the edge of a favourite wood. All my life I had
been a lover of the country, and had believed, if this is the right word,
that the same thought, spirit, life, God, which was in everything I
beheld, was also in me. But my creed had been taken over from books; it
was accepted as an intellectual proposition. Most of us are satisfied
with this kind of belief, and even call it religion. We are more content
the more definite the object becomes, no matter whether or not it is in
any intimate relationship with us, and we do not see that the moment God
can be named he ceases to be God.
One morning when I was in the wood something happened which was nothing
less than a transformation of myself and the world, although I ‘believed’
nothing new. I was looking at a great, spreading, bursting oak. The
first tinge from the greenish-yellow buds was just visible. It seemed to
be no longer a tree away from me and apart from me. The enclosing
barriers of consciousness were removed and the text came into my mind,
_Thou in me and I in thee_. The distinction of self and not-self was an
illusion. I could feel the rising sap; in me also sprang the fountain of
life up-rushing from its roots, and the joy of its outbreak at the
extremity of each twig right up to the summit was my own: that which kept
me apart was nothing. I do not argue; I cannot explain; it will be easy
to prove me absurd, but nothing can shake me. _Thou in me and I in
thee_. Death! what is death? There is no death: _in thee_ it is
impossible, absurd.