From Note Book 3 of ‘In Woods of God-Realization’
Among all men my home is; I have seen them and there is no people, unto the ends of the Earth, with whom I will not dwell.
I give my body to the sea and to the dust . . . to be dashed on the rocks, or to break in green spray in spring time over the fields and hedge-rows . . . or to lie rotting in the desert for the sustenance of flies.
O let not the flame die out! Cast at last thy body, thy mortal self upon it, and let it be consumed; and behold! presently the little spark shall become a hearth-fire of Creation, and thou shalt endue another garment woven of the Sun and stars.
Absorbed, the world circles round him, the shackles of existence fall off, he passes into supreme joy and mastery. Lo! The rippling streams and the stars and the naked tree-branches deliver themselves up to him. They come close; they are his body, and his spirit is rapt among them; without thought he hears what they and all things would say.
Nearer than Ever Now . . . If I should be taken up into Thee, O blue, blue sky … to pass the bounds of myself … to share thy life, O Nature: To mingle my breath with thy breath, my body and its liquids with the Earth and the sea . . . losing my mortal outline in Thine.
* * * *
This ship sailing for thee, like a sigh through a gleam of summer.
I am a bit of the shore: the waves feed upon me, they come pasturing over me; I am glad, O waves, that you come pasturing over me. I am a little arm of the sea; I feel the waves all around me, I spread myself through them. How delicious! I spread and spread. The waves tumble through and over me – they dash through my face and hair. Suddenly I am the Ocean itself: the great soft wind creeps over my face. I am in love with the wind … I reach my lips to its kisses. How delicious I all night, and ages and ages long to spread myself to the gliding wind! But now (and ever) it maddens me with its touch. I arise and whirl in my bed, and sweep my arms madly along the shores. All the bays and inlets know me: I glide along in and out under the Sun by the beautiful coast line; my hair floats leagues behind me. Ever and anon it maddens me with its touch. I arise and sweep away my bounds, I know but I do not care any longer which my own particular body is . . . all conditions and fortunes are mine. O joy! forever, ever, joy! I am not hurried . . . the whole of eternity is mine; with each one I dwell, with each one I dwell . . . with you I dwell.
I take the thread from the fingers that are weary, and go on with the work; the secretest thoughts of all are mine, and mine are the secretest thoughts of all.