To be loved is, in fact, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually at your side a woman, a girl, a sister, a wife, a charming being, who is there because you need her, and because she cannot do without you, to know you are indispensable to someone necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection by the degree of her presence that she gives you, and to say to yourself: “She dedicates all her time to me, because I possess her whole love”; to see the thought if not the face; to be sure of the fidelity of one being in a total eclipse of the world; to perceive the rustling of her dress as the rustling of wings; to hear her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing, and to know that you are the cause of those steps, those words, that song; to show your personal attraction at every moment; to feel even more powerful as your age increases, to become the star around which this angel gravitates; truly I say unto you, few joys can equal that.
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves – say rather, in spite of ourselves. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty. The soul gropes in search of a soul, and finds it. And that soul, found and proven, is a woman. Eureka! A hand sustains you, it is hers; lips lightly touch your lips, they are her lips; you hear the breathing near you, it is she. To have her wholly, from her devotion to her pity, never to be left alone, to have that sweet shyness as your aid, to lean on that unbending reed, to touch Providence with your hands and be able to grasp it in your arms; God made palpable, what transport! The heart, that dark celestial flower, bursts into a mysterious bloom. You would not give up that shade for all the light in the world!
The angel soul is there, forever there; if she goes out, it is only to return. You feel approaching warmth, she is there. You overflow with serenity, gaiety, and ecstasy; you are radiant at all times. And the thousand little cares! The trifles that are enormous in this void. The most ineffable accent is the womanly voice which comforts you, and replacing for you the fleeting universe. You are caressed through the soul. The love of a woman – it is a paradise indeed.
– The Grand Master
