Self-abandonment

“ September 12, 1861.—In me an intellect which would fain forget itself in things, is contradicted by a heart which yearns to live in human beings. The uniting link of the two contradictions is the tendency toward self-abandonment, toward ceasing to will and exist for one’s self, toward laying down one’s own personality, and losing—dissolving—one’s self in love and contemplation. What I lack above all things is character, will, individuality. ”

“ The Importance Of Self-Abandonment HERE we must begin to abandon and give up our whole existence to God, from the strong and positive conviction, that the occurrences of every moment result from his immediate will and permission, and are just such as our state requires. ”

“ I say everything, and everything without reserve, even to our own righteousness, which is dearer to man than his existence, and to our rest, by which we enjoy self and the gifts of God in self, and in which we place our happiness, without knowing it. Where shall we find an abandonment that is as comprehensive as the will of God, not only when accompanied by delights, illumination, and feeling, but under all circumstances and in fact? ”

“ It is only within the last three or at most four thousand years that we have any clear evidence that voluntary self-abandonment to some greater end, without fee or reward, was an acceptable idea to men, or that anyone had propounded it. ”

“ There it is—in such patient silence—that we accumulate the inward power which we distribute and spend in action; that the soul acquires a greater and more vigorous being, and gathers up its collective forces to bear down upon the piece-meal difficulties of life and scatter them to dust; there alone can we enter into that spirit of self-abandonment by which we take up the cross of duty, however heavy, with feet however worn and bleeding. ”

“ In proportion to the self-abandonment and personal abnegation, the degree to which the will is vacated, do such persons become good mediums. The more immersed in the theurgic studies and novelties they are, the more they lose themselves, and their value ceases to be individual, but only representative. ”

“ Oh! the pains that God has to take to bring us to this happy, childlike "abandon," equally ready for silence, or for saying or doing unhesitatingly the next thing He calls for, unfettered by surroundings or consequences. How much reserve and self-consciousness have to give way with some of us, before the absolute control passes into His Hands, and the responsibility with it! ”

“ Thou art so much the soul of my soul, and the life of my life, that I have no other life than thine. Let all the world forsake me; my Lord, my Lover lives, and I live in him. This is the deep abyss where I hide myself in these many persecutions. O, abandonment! blessed abandonment! Happy the soul who lives no more in itself, but in God. What can separate my soul from God? Surely, none can pluck me from my Father's hands. All is well, when the soul is in union with him. ”

“ The delightful abandon that constitutes one of the most exquisite enjoyments of home, is not augmented, for a man of true refinement, by a total disregard of ceremony and self-restraint. Selfishness, ill-humor, and a spirit of petty tyranny, rest assured, though their manifestation be confined to home intercourse, and borne in silence there, will gradually undermine character and essentially diminish domestic happiness. ”

“ Our abandonment, then, should be, both in respect to external and internal things, an absolute giving up of all our concerns into the hands of God, forgetting ourselves and thinking only of Him; by which the heart will remain always disengaged, free, and at peace. ”

“ To escape from self-loathing, to escape from the odious monotony and the indecent realism of life—what a relief! How desirable to be confronted no longer by that impassable gulf between one's own soul and all other living souls! ”

“ The consciousness of not having merited the abandonment of which you speak, is not that a happy sentiment? It is necessary then for us to perceive what we are in this life, and not what we could wish to be. ”

“ I had, by self-indulgence; and the following of pleasant paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself wholly out of conceit with my own character, and jeopardised the lives of James and Alan? And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in? No; the hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by self-denial; the flesh I had pampered must be crucified. ”

“ Nothing ever comes back. He saw it clearly. The respect and admiration of them all, the old habits and old affections finished abruptly in the clear perception of the cause of his disgrace. He saw all this; and for a time he came out of himself, out of his selfishness—out of the constant preoccupation of his interests and his desires—out of the temple of self and the concentration of personal thought. ”

“ Unless you will consent to cast out from your hearts the ‘hiatus’ of indecision and of self-love, you can never hope to escape from the noisome pit of self-worship,—the well of man’s nature and of fleshly lusts. ”

“ This frank confession of abandonment made a profound impression upon me. I thought to myself, "Master recluse, you are a pilferer and have filched a life. I am yet more solitary in my estate, and if I followed your example, should be guilty of a greater wrong." There are, indeed, hours when I feel embittered at the thought that for one innocent defect a whole life should be amerced of joy; the finality of loss appals: all is so irrevocable ”

“ I have lived to learn the great lesson that every mishap of my life was of my own procuring, and that self-indulgence and a vindictive spirit are enough to counterbalance tenfold more than all the abilities I ever possessed. ”

“ Why his whole soul is still athirst and ahungered. Not a single craving of it has been satisfied. What is killing him is the sense of a thwarted gift, a baffled faculty—the faculty of self-spending, self-surrender. ”

“ An entire and total abandonment excepts nothing, keeps back nothing, neither death, nor life, nor perfection, nor salvation, nor heaven, nor hell. O poor souls! give yourselves up utterly in this abandonment; you will get only happiness and blessing from it. Walk boldly on this stormy sea, relying on the word of Jesus, who has promised to take upon Himself the care of all those who will lose their own life, and abandon themselves to Him. But if you sink like Peter, ascribe it to the weakness of your faith. ”

“ That the selfish and self-willed would anticipate the hour of final separation from one whose tender love they are now throwing away as a worthless thing, under whose reproofs they chafe, for whose infirmities they have no indulgence! ”

“ I have been too much accustomed to self-indulgence, to bear restraint, and should it ever be imposed by a master's hand, my rebellious spirit would break the bonds of duty, and assert its independence. ”

“ To throw one's self overboard is a cold-blooded, impossible sort of proceeding; the old man and the woman would have heard or it, and he really didn't want to give them any more pain. But this catastrophe was—from a selfish point of view—incredibly opportune. ”

“ But only a simple soul, on which life's wear and tear had left no mark, was capable of savouring the delights of such a self-abandon, and his own soul was battered and torn with earthly conflict. He must admit that the momentary desire to believe, to take refuge in the timeless, proceeded from a multitude of ignoble motives: from lassitude with the petty and repeated annoyances of existence, quarrels with the laundress, with the waiter, with the landlord; the sordid scramble for money; in a word, from the general spiritual failure of a man approaching forty. ”

“ Such troubles we may not christen in the name of sorrow, for sorrow concerns our personality; and in these we agonize for others, not a thought of self intrudes,—we only feel and know that we can do nothing, and are silent. ”

“ You know when one goes into the damp, odorous coolness of a church in a Catholic country and sees the kneeling worshipers, their bodies bent stiffly and reluctantly, and yet with abandonment as though to represent the inevitable bending of the will to a purpose outside the individual person, or when under any sky one sees a mother with her child in her arms, something turns in one's heart like a sword, and one says to oneself, "If humanity forgets these attitudes there is an end to the world." ”

“ And it may be, that after years of painful self-control and depressing experience, some here have gradually attained the conviction that their efforts are vain, their yearnings not here to be fulfilled—what, then, must solitude be to them but an enduring sorrow? ”

“ When we are able to perform a complete renunciation of self, we find our burden lightened, and the low and heavy flight of selfishness is replaced by the rapid sweep of outstretched wings, which is a pleasure in itself. My courage and my self-possession only disappear when I see sickness threatening or striking down my family, for I have only reached the threshold of that stage of resignation in which one sacrifices one's self to the things of heaven. ”

“ Because we can never wholly get rid of self, in this lower life, does it therefore follow that we must concentrate our thoughts and aims upon it? Must we forever deny ourselves the ennobling, elevating, softening influence of a duty and a hope outside of ourselves; an object of affection, trust, and desire, higher than ourselves? ”

“ He himself must go,—or the man. Then he remembered that she was the man's wife, and that it behoved him to spare the man for her sake. Then, when he came to think in earnest of self-destruction, he told himself that it was a coward's refuge. ”

“ I would wait until I got home. Then I would talk and forget myself—only by forgetting myself would I enjoy the present. Only those who forget themselves are happy. The obsession of self is the most oppressive of all burdens. ”

“ What is called abandon is a sense of non-individuality—a forgetfulness of self so far as to enter keenly into the spirit of the time and occasion. Give yourself no particular anxiety about your person, your demeanor, your words and ways: you can, if not perfectly "at home," have a care to demean yourself well and creditably; but do [13] not be anxious about it, for anxiety breeds a disquiet which is fatal to enjoyment and to a good impression upon others. ”

“ The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot. I saw my life as a whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my father’s hand, and through the self-denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening. ”

“ I will say nothing of renunciation; harder for me has been the feeling of abandonment, and the longing for human society has often tormented me unspeakably. Only the thought that renunciation is my expiation has comforted me. I have often gone out into the valleys, where people live in pleasant companionship. I have refreshed myself with the knowledge of their peace of conscience and of their contentment, and I have then returned to my cave in the ever-lonely Felsenthal and to the silent cross upon the stony ground. ”

“ Just here is where you may be tempted to draw back; for something may whisper, "Why, if you abandon yourself what will become of you? Maybe God would require of you something very hard for you to do. Is it not dangerous thus to yield?" ”

“ But selfhood binds them, and they cling to their obnoxious desires.2
"They crave pleasure for themselves and they cause pain to others; when death destroys their individuality, they find no peace; their thirst for existence abides and their self-hood reappears in new births.3
"Thus they continue to move in the coil and can find no escape from the hell of their own making. ”

“ What do you fear, trembling heart? You fear to lose yourself? Alas! for all that you are worth, what would that matter? Yes, you will lose yourself if you have strength to abandon yourself to God, but you will be lost in Him. ”

“ Thus a disconcerting chance or a temporary obstacle rouses no disposition to measure strength with adversity, or to cope with untoward combinations, but an angry amazement, an indignant displeasure, a sense of trespass upon one’s lawful domain of success and happiness that result in blundering egotistic self-assertion, which often fails in the clearance of the obstruction to the paths of bland and self-satisfied progress. ”

“ But when God withdraws from a man as far as that can be without the man's ceasing to be; when the man feels himself abandoned, hanging in a ceaseless vertigo of existence upon the verge of the gulf of his being, without support, without refuge, without aim, without end—for the soul has no weapons wherewith to destroy herself—with no inbreathing of joy, with nothing to make life good;—then will he listen in agony for the faintest sound of life from the closed door ”

“ Did I suffer the less because I knew it to be owing to the power of my nerves over my reason? How can one, whose senses are at variance with him, hope to gain peace? and how is he to live, who hopes no longer?
"I have become a superfluous guest at the banquet of life, and so I prefer taking leave of it, and only press your hand once more before disappearing. My existence is now no longer necessary to any one--not even to a dog.
"None but a healthy and cheerful egotist could tolerate a life which subsists only for itself. ”

“ He regained self-control, but he knew that at any moment, if anything unusual happened, or if he dared to think, or to talk, seriously about the horror of his life, he would probably go down with a crash into an abyss in which all of his manhood, every scrap of his personal dignity, would be utterly lost. ”