My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring and carried aloft on the wings of the breeze.

My soul is in the sky.

The climbing soul, leaving all that she has grasped already as too narrow for her needs, will thus grasp the idea of that magnificence which is exalted far above the heavens. But how can any one reach to this, whose ambitions creep below? ... He therefore who keeps away from all bitterness and all the noisome effluvia of the flesh, and raises himself on the aforesaid wings above all low earthly ambitions, or, more than that, above the whole universe itself, will be the man to find that which is alone worth loving, and to become himself as beautiful as the Beauty which he has touched and entered.

I buoyed me on the wings of dream, Above the world of sense; I set my thought to sound the scheme, And fathom the Immense; I tuned my spirit as a lute To catch wind-music wandering mute. Yet came there never voice nor sign; But through my being stole Sense of a Universe divine, And knowledge of a soul Perfected in the joy of things, The star, the flower, the bird that sings. Nor I am more, nor less, than these; All are one brotherhood; I and all creatures, plants, and trees, The living limbs of God; And in an hour, as this, divine, I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.

Lift up your eys and see. How does a man lift up his eyes to see a little higher than himself? The grand premise of religion is that man is able to surpass himself; that man who is part of this world may enter into a relationship with Him who is greater than the world; that man may lift up his mind and be attached to the absolute; that man who is conditioned by a multiplicity of factors is capable of living with demands that are unconditioned. How does one rise above the horizon of the mind? How does one free oneself from the perspectives of ego, group, earth, and age? How does one find a way in this world that would lead to an awareness of Him who is beyond this world?

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze; For above and around me the wild wind is roaring, Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite. And while I rise from my own globe to others And penetrate ever further through the eternal field, That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me.

Lift thyself up, look. around, and see something higher and brighter than earth, earthworms, and earthly darkness.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

No matter how far the understanding of the soul is able to stretch itself, that is nothing in comparison to what it experiences when it is lifted beyond itself and placed in the bosom of God. Then the soul understands, finds its delight, and rests in the divine goodness; it cannot bring back any report of this, because it is completely beyond what the intelligence can conceive, and beyond words; but in this state the soul swims.

God is the one who leads me and elevates me to that state. I do not go to it on my own, for by myself I would not know how to want, desire, or seek it. I am now continually in this state. Furthermore, God very often elevates me to this state with no need, even, for my consent; for when I hope or expect it least, when I am not thinking about anything, suddenly my soul is elevated by God and I hold dominion over and comprehend the whole world. It seems, then, as if I am no longer on earth but in heaven, in God.