He does not exist,and no miracles can prove His existence,because the miracles would be my imagination,besides being irrational.
"But my *perception*of God,of Him whom I seek,"I asked myself,"where has that perception come from?"And again at this thought the glad waves of life rose within me.All that was around me came to life and received a meaning.But my joy did not last long.My mind continued its work.
"The conception of God is not God,"said I to myself."The conception is what takes place within me.The conception of God is something I can evoke or can refrain from evoking in myself.That is not what I seek.I seek that without which there can be no life."And again all around me and within me began to die,and again I wished to kill myself.
But then I turned my gaze upon myself,on what went on within me,and I remembered all those cessations of life and reanimations that recurred within me hundreds of times.I remembered that I only lived at those times when I believed in God.As it was before,so it was now;I need only be aware of God to live;I need only forget Him,or disbelieve Him,and I died.
What is this animation and dying?I do not live when I lose belief in the existence of God.I should long ago have killed myself had I not had a dim hope of finding Him.I live,really live,only when I feel Him and seek Him."What more do you seek?"
exclaimed a voice within me."This is He.He is that without which one cannot live.To know God and to live is one and the same thing.God is life."
"Live seeking God,and then you will not live without God."
And more than ever before,all within me and around me lit up,and the light did not again abandon me.
And I was saved from suicide.When and how this change occurred I could not say.As imperceptibly and gradually the force of life in me had been destroyed and I had reached the impossibility of living,a cessation of life and the necessity of suicide,so imperceptibly and gradually did that force of life return to me.And strange to say the strength of life which returned to me was not new,but quite old--the same that had borne me along in my earliest days.
I quite returned to what belonged to my earliest childhood and youth.I returned to the belief in that Will which produced me and desires something of me.I returned to the belief that the chief and only aim of my life is to be better,i.e.to live in accord with that Will.and I returned to the belief that I can find the expression of that Will in what humanity,in the distant past hidden from,has produced for its guidance:that is to say,I returned to a belief in God,in moral perfection,and in a tradition transmitting the meaning of life.There was only this difference,that then all this was accepted unconsciously,while now I knew that without it I could not live.
What happened to me was something like this:I was put into a boat (I do not remember when)and pushed off from an unknown shore,shown the direction of the opposite shore,had oars put into my unpractised hands,and was left alone.I rowed as best I could and moved forward;but the further I advanced towards the middle of the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my goal and the more frequently did I encounter others,like myself,borne away by the stream.There were a few rowers who continued to row,there were others who had abandoned their oars;there were large boats and immense vessels full of people.Some struggled against the current,others yielded to it.And the further I went the more,seeing the progress down the current of all those who were adrift,I forgot the direction given me.In the very centre of the stream,amid the crowd of boats and vessels which were being borne down stream,I quite lost my direction and abandoned my oars.
Around me on all sides,with mirth and rejoicing,people with sails and oars were borne down the stream,assuring me and each other that no other direction was possible.And I believed them and floated with them.And I was carried far;so far that I heard the roar of the rapids in which I must be shattered,and I saw boats shattered in them.And I recollected myself.I was long unable to understand what had happened to me.I saw before me nothing but destruction,towards which I was rushing and which I feared.I saw no safety anywhere and did not know what to do;but,looking back,I perceived innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously pushed across the stream,and I remembered about the shore,the oars,and the direction,and began to pull back upwards against the stream and towards the whore.
That shore was God;that direction was tradition;the oars were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God.
And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to live.
