He began with a pebble. Thrown into churning water it disturbs nothing anyone can see. The same pebble dropped into a calm lake sends rings from the center to the edges, spending their strength only at the shore.

What happens in the small world, he said, runs parallel to the large.

When a feeling is born in a person’s heart, in calm, its vibration is thrown out into the universe, which, being itself at rest, leaps like the water of the lake. When a thought is born, the same, and because a thought is finer it reaches deeper layers of creation, approaching the levels that hold its intentions.

He paused there, smiling, and said one word in English.

He had been speaking about collaboration with the Creator's plan. I asked him, irritated, what collaboration he could possibly mean.

Maturity in thought, he said elsewhere that day, means being rid of egoisms and wants. It is the jewel that comes up out of the mud of the personality.

He handled language with unbelievable precision. Every word of his fell on my soul like a tender caress and, at the same time, like a sharpened axe.