The spirit is so near that you can't see it!
But reach for it...Don't be a jar
Full of water, whose rim is always dry.
Don't be the rider who gallops all night
And never sees the horse that is beneath him.
~ Rumi from "The Jar With the Dry Rim" in WHEN GRAPES TURN TO WINE: VERSIONS OF RUMI
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As the threads of fabric are woven into a pattern, so the Self as the living garment of divinity is woven out of the many decisions and crises by which we are affected in the course of our lives. Whether or not they lead to a manifestation of the Self depends solely on our response. Many of us have observed that children, even small children, when faced with some difficulty, possess an attitude which many adults could only envy. That "something," the lack of which we experience as soullessness, is a "someone" who takes a position, who is accountable and who feels committed. Where this higher, responsible ego is lacking there can be no Self.