This is true for the body. It is also true for the mind, which becomes tired, but even when we go to bed it sometimes is enticed by its thoughts. It is also true for the heart, which finds its peace and joy in loving one -- be it person or God -- yet keeps up so many interests that it may lose faith.

Loss of faith is often accompanied by a humanitarian solicitude, but this solicitude, although well-meaning, is not founded upon principle and so may degenerate into sentimentalism. Finally the soul itself sleeps and awakens, but its true condition is where these are united. In this world, the soul is as asleep except for momentary flashes.

In the inner life, these flashes increase and finally there is the awakening. But this continual sleeping and awakening, states of contraction and expansion, or nearness and farness, belong to those on the path to God, not to the travelers who have arrived.

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