O faith, untainted and immortal,
Thou art a stream miraculous;
To heaven's home, Thou art the portal,
The dawn of future life for us.
O lamp of faith, within one burning,
Burn brighter, let none smother Thee,
Be Thou my guide as I am learning,
On paths of life, enlighten me.
Because of my blindness, I had developed a new faculty. Strictly speaking, we all have it, but almost all forget to use it. That faculty is attention. In order to live without eyes it is necessary to be very attentive, to remain hour after hour in a state of wakefulness, of receptiveness and activity. Indeed, attention is not simply a virtue of intelligence or the result of education, and something one can easily do without. It is a state of being . . . a state without which we shall never know wholeness. In its truest sense it is the listening post of the universe.