t is suitable to the dignity of their rank to act thus,
they pretend, and it makes them more useful to others. But she knows
that in despising the dignity of their rank for the pure love of God
they would do more good in a single day than they would effect in ten
years by preserving it.... She laughs at herself that there should ever
have been a time in her life when she made any case of money, when she
ever desired it.... Oh! if human beings might only agree together to
regard it as so much useless mud, what harmony would then reign in the
world! With what friendship we would all treat each other if our
interest in honor and in money could but disappear from earth! For my
own part, I feel as if it would be a remedy for all our ills."[262]

[262] Vie, pp. 229, 230, 231-233, 243.

Mystical conditions may, therefore, render the soul more energetic in
the lines which their inspiration favors. But this could be reckoned
an advantage only in case the inspiration were a true one. If the
inspiration were erroneous, the energy would be all the more mistaken
and misbegotten. So we stand once more before that problem of truth
which confronted us at the end of the lectures on saintliness. You
will remember that we turned to mysticism precisely to get some light
on truth. Do mystical states establish the truth of those theological
affections in which the saintly life has its root?

In spite of their repudiation of articulate self-description, mystical
states in general assert a pretty distinct theoretic drift. It is
possible to give the outcome of the majority of them in terms that
point in definite philosophical directions. One of these directions is
optimism, and the other is monism. We pass into mystical states from
out of ordinary consciousness as from a less into a more, as from a
smallness into a vastness, and at the same time as from an unrest to a
rest. We feel them as reconciling, unifying states. They appeal to
the yes-function more than to the no-function in us. In them the
unlimited absorbs the limits and peacefully closes the account. Their
very denial of every adjective you may propose as applicable to the
ultimate truth--He, the Self, the Atman, is to be described by "No!
no!" only, say the Upanishads[263]--though it seems on the surface to
be a no-function, is a denial made on behalf of a deeper yes. Whoso
calls the Absolute anything in particular, or says that it is THIS,
seems implicitly to